Thought this was already established precedent.
Nope, each state is doing its own thing and the 5th ammendment is being trampled in a few of them. Biometrics and passwords are being forced and this is an amazing ruling for 5A advocates like myself.
SC needs to rule on it, but preferably not THIS supreme court
But biometrics have never been covered by the 5th amendment. Police collect facial photos and fingerprints and have done so for years. On top of that any DNA you unknowing leave at a police station can be used as evidence (strand of hair, spit on the rim of a water glass). I would never recommend commiting a crime but if you do and have evidence of it on your phone don't use biometrics.
Forcing someone to press on their phone to unlock it via fingerprunt is a lot different than just collecting data.
IMO, forced/coerced biometrics to unlock a device SHOULD be covered by 5A
Exactly. If the hair I leave behind or my spit on the rim of a glass can unlock my phone, that sucks but those are public things I’ve left behind. Unless I leave my fingers behind on the officers desk, forcing me to unlock my phone with them should be should be a violation of my rights.
Sometimes "crimes" are not crimes at all.
And sometimes you've done absolutely nothing wrong but prosecutors will use any information they can get their hands on as evidence of a crime, because they don't give a single fuck if they lock up a person they know full well is innocent for the rest of their lives, all they care about is a "win" in court.
You're right. I know your response may seem implausible, but prosecutors have fought against the release of known innocent people.
It's not even that they'll try to get a win. It's that they can refuse to simply honor justice in its most fundamental forms.
Central park 5 comes to mind
Cops have also been known to use "parallel construction" in order to launder evidence that would otherwise be considered inadmissible. It's fucked.
How come there are never 3A advocates? What if I'm really against allowing soldiers to quarter in private homes?
Edit: I probably subconsciously stole this joke from someone/somewhere in case anyone thinks I'm trying to claim it as my own.
I mean, whether you say it's legal or not, I wouldn't give out my pass code to a police officer. You can get fucked on that one.
In France it's illegal not to allow them to unlock your phone once they take you to the station. That's why most of the time we clean our phones or use burners during civil desobedience actions.
Won't they just keep you locked up perpetually for refusing then?
They might also just shoot you.
Shut down your phones so they can't uze biometrics on you
Android also has a Lockdown mode that will disable biometrics until you unlock with the pin.
This is a complicated situation, but in my opinion, probably the correct decision.
Given this is the ruling, if you do believe your phone is about to be confiscated, and you don't want its contents to be used as evidence, it might be a good idea to turn off your phone. Although the police cannot compel a password, a biometric unlock is not a password. If you turn off your phone, it will generally require a password to enable biometric unlock.
It's not complicated at all. The constitution guarantees the right that no one be compelled to testify against themselves.
It is complicated in the US because of biometrics and the wide use of contempt citations. If you “forget” your password, you can be held in contempt and jailed for up to 18 months (I missed that; last I knew it was indefinite). Biometrics and other “something you are” items can be forcibly taken (eg your fingerprints or retinal scans) with full legal backing. Your perspective, while laudable, only exists in the potential future orgs like the EFF and ACLU are fighting to create. It is very wrong today.
You don't even have to turn it off. This is why lockdown mode exists.
So, there's a bunch of factors going on regarding crap like this. The general argument is that the passwords are protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the protection against testifying against yourself. While biometrics are not.
Then there's the Constitution Free Zone established by the DHS and ICE and upheld by some judges depending on how related to immigrant control your detention by law enforcement is. The Federalist Society doesn't like non-nationals, and if you can't prove you're an American in the zone (100 inland from any US border) then you get zero Constitutional protections.
Then there's the matter that law enforcement can lie to you to convince you to authorize searches. So they may insist you are required by law to open your device for them when you are not. This is why you don't cooperate without a lawyer. For now police are not allowed to give you a fake lawyer and lawyers, even public defenders, are required to adhere to a code of ethics to serve in the client's interests. But this may change in the next few years as rights in the US deteriorate.
Then police departments in Cook County (Chicago), New York City and Los Angeles have all used the $5 wrench method to force detainees to open their devices. While there are allegedly laws against this sort of thing, it doesn't slow down the precincts, and judges sometimes uphold found evidence in court the way they'll uphold coerced confessions.
So it's really better not to interact with law enforcement ever if you can avoid it, and to have a high powered defense lawyer if you can afford to establish a legal relationship with one. If you're doing something the state wouldn't like (say, operating a mutual aid program) then look into having multiple accounts on your phone, one of which is pristine and can call your grandma. Then you have the option to unlock to that account rather than the one that has your life's history (and all your CFAA violations).
This is the most American thing I've read in a long time. I lived for decades in several European countries, and this description just seems like a different planet.
this is still up in the air, but it seems to be generally breaking such that police can force you to use fingerprints or faceID to unlock your phone because fingerprints and face scans are evidence, but you can refuse to give them a passcode because a passcode is testimony. so use passcodes, not biometrics.
That's what the 'Lockdown' feature on Pixel phones does.
https://9to5google.com/2022/03/08/how-to-enable-lockdown-mode-on-pixel/
Impossible to force a fingerprint or face scan because it asks the phone to only accept passcodes.
I think all Android phones have this feature, but it has to be turned on.
You can also turn your phone off if they ask for it. Phones need the password to unlock if they've been turned off.
But I like lockdown more, since it can still record audio.
FTA:
"The Valdez case does not involve an order to compel a suspect to unlock a device. Instead, "law enforcement asked Valdez to verbally provide his passcode," Utah justices wrote. "While these circumstances involve modern technology in a scenario that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, we conclude that these facts present a more straightforward question that is answered by settled Fifth Amendment principles.""
So now, every cop everywhere is going to be like "Yeah, I'm going to need you to unlock your phone."
IT'S SHUT THE FUCK UP FRIDAY
I'm not discussing my day.
* in the USA.
Would be handy to have that key piece of information on the title, so I know I don't need to read the article, as it's about law in a different country.
While it’s tough to have any sympathy for an offender like this, even the worst monsters are entitled to due process and their rights as human beings. Most of the article is about disobeying the court, so that really shouldn’t be news.
It’s the twisted logic that got them there that’s really suspect. If I can paraphrase, “we don’t have enough evidence to incriminate you so you must provide that evidence. The ruling stand because the police already know you’re guilty so incriminating yourself is not self-incrimination”. Yeah, I took some liberties with it, but not as much as the court
At least the ruling limiting jail time makes sense, you can’t imprison someone for contempt longer than the court proceedings, or impanelment, or 18 months, whichever comes first. I didn’t see any implications in the article, but hopefully it either applies generally to contempt, or any contempt charge has a similar limitation. You can’t just imprison someone indefinitely for refusing to speak
Totalitarians try to use cases like this to take your rights away. Never forget how this impacts the innocent. If they can force this man to unlock his phone, they can force any innocent person to do the same. If the police think you've committed a crime, accessing your phone will never make them think you're innocent. The absolute best case scenario is that they don't find anything useful to their case. The worst case scenario is that they find your social media account where you called arson based last year, and they will use that against you.
Isn't this a human right?
Bold of you to assume human rights are respected.
An app can clear your phone with a specific password, can't remember the name...
Pretty sure the 5th Amendment doesn’t protect against obstruction of justice if you knowingly wipe your phone while under custody
How could they know?
Just yell at them "WTF DID YOU DO? MY LAST GRANDFATHER PICTURES ARE GONE!"
And tadaaaaa
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
