In a ruling that seems to fly in the face of Fifth Amendment protections a federal judge ordered a defendant in a mortgage scam case to decrypt the hard drive in a device that was seized by law enforcement.
District Court Judge Robert Blackburn said that the right to remain silent doesn’t apply to encryption passwords, and ordered the defendant, a Colorado woman named Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt the drive by February 21st.
The ruling will hardly be the last on the issue and the case will most likly wind up before the Supreme Court (which yesterday ruled that a warrant is required for GPS tracking by law enforcement).
