So this judge in Vermont has ruled that a defendant accused of having child pornography on his laptop does not have to divulge his laptop password. What kind of signal is this sending to other people with illegal pictures? When is the 5th Amendment taken too far? The judge states that if the defendant were to produce the password that said defendant would be producing "... the contents of his laptop." Well guess what, this person is being accused of a serious crime.
In this country any time authorities have proof that a crime was or will be committed have the right to search a person or their belongings for anything that might help prosecutors (with a court order) in a court of law. How is this individual any different? What's not to say that some other criminal will tell the authorities, upon them knocking on his/her door with a warrant, that a certain room cannot be searched because he/she won't allow them the key?
I think this case is setting a very bad precedent as it favors individual rights over self recrimination. One should not preclude the other.
0 comments:
Post a Comment