[dr_zoidberg]

It's fun, in Argentina we've had a case were a criminal releasing the key nullified the evidence, because the criminal's lawyer argued that (under Argentinian law):

* He was forced ("tortured" was the word used) to disclose the key by the police.

* You can't accuse yourself or direct relatives, and disclosing an encryption key that resulted in incriminating evidence was argued to be a form of "self incrimination".

* "Best" thing about this was that the evidence led to finding a body, but as it was nullified, legally the status of the deceased person changed from "deceased" to "missing" -- because the evidence they had used to find the body had been nullified, then also the finding of the body had to be null (I'm not kidding, people went nuts over this "technicallity").

* Eventually a more reasonable judge turned the previous statement and accepted that the person was deceased indeed.

Working in forensics (I do digital forensics) is weird some times...

[zorked]

The rule against self-incrimination is a very important part of Roman law - the government can't force you to do anything that would lead to your conviction.

That's why the Brazilian police has a hard drive that is known to have tons of incriminating evidence against a number of bankers but they can't do anything about it because, well, TrueCrypt.

It sounds ridiculous that the discovery of a body would be nullified because the evidence leading to it was nullified but this is important because it forces the prosecution to comply with the law. It helps avoid the violation of a fundamental right.

I don't necessarily find that Roman Law is superior to Common Law but all of the silliness about people being forced to type passwords could be avoided with this very reasonable provision. Common Law allows you to incriminate yourself by forcing you to prove your innocence by assuming guilt unless you can prove your innocence via decryption - let's hope we can all remember all of passwords!