[vxNsr]

> How can you look in the mirror and think he should go free without the evidence being examined? I couldn't live in a world where a suspect could say "Well, I forgot the password" and walk away Scott-free on such an ugly crime.

This is the price we pay for an imperfect world, I'd rather a few murderers walk than many innocent men be imprisoned. Your balanced, nuanced idealism simply doesn't work at scale, you cannot assume that every judge, jury, and LEO will be good, so you've got to give the criminals rights even if you're pretty sure they're criminals.

As a judge or LEO I'd have a much harder time looking in the mirror knowing I stole an innocent man's life than knowing that I might not have stopped every criminal.

[stef25]

How does not being able to force someone to decrypt their hard drive overlap with innocent men being imprisoned?

[vxNsr]

It's potentially happening right now.

While circumstantial evidence would suggest the cop who is being asked to decrypt his computer is in fact guilty of at the very least looking at child porn, we don't know concretely, yet he is being jailed until the judge decides that he really won't release the password. Imagine a less scrupulous judge and a more innocent man, maybe he's trying to protect the identity of source, suddenly it doesn't seem fair that the man should be jailed, yet in a world where we can compel you to release the password both cases are the same.

[jonny_eh]

LEO?

[sbov]

Law Enforcement Officer