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Judge: Child Porn Defendant Does Not Have To Divulge PGP Passphrase

December 14, 2007

CNET is reporting that a federal judge in Vermont has recently ruled that prosecutors can't force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier decided that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.

In her decision, Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury's subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide "any passwords" used with his Alienware laptop.

"Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him," Judge Niedermeier wrote in an order November 29, but not unearthed until this past week.  "Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop."

Text of the decision is here.

This is a tough one for me. I am a fierce First Amendment advocate but child porn is evil and extremely beyond the pale.

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