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What Am I Really Saying When I Open My Smartphone: A Response To Prof. Kerr, Laurent Sacharoff
What Am I Really Saying When I Open My Smartphone: A Response To Prof. Kerr, Laurent Sacharoff
Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship
In his forthcoming article in the Texas Law Review, Compelled Decryption and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, Orin S. Kerr addresses a common question confronting courts. If a court orders a suspect or defendant to enter her password to open a smartphone or other device as part of a law enforcement investigation, does that order violate the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?
To answer this question, Kerr appropriately looks by analogy to existing Fifth Amendment case law as applied to document subpoenas, the “act of production” doctrine, and its mysterious cousin, the “foregone conclusion” doctrine. From these materials, he gleans a …
Unlocking The Fifth Amendment: Passwords And Encrypted Devices, Laurent Sacharoff
Unlocking The Fifth Amendment: Passwords And Encrypted Devices, Laurent Sacharoff
Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship
Each year, law enforcement seizes thousands of electronic devices — smartphones, laptops, and notebooks — that it cannot open without the suspect’s password. Without this password, the information on the device sits completely scrambled behind a wall of encryption. Sometimes agents will be able to obtain the information by hacking, discovering copies of data on the cloud, or obtaining the password voluntarily from the suspects themselves. But when they cannot, may the government compel suspects to disclose or enter their password?
This Article considers the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled disclosures of passwords — a question that has split and …