A suspect has been detained in the US prison for over 7 months after he failed to decrypt 2 of his hard drives, which is suspected to contain indecent child images.
What had happened?
Somewhere in March, during the year 2015, Pennsylvania, investigators seized computer hardware from suspect’s house which included the 2 password-protected drives.
According to Ars Technical, the news site, there was constant monitoring of the online network called “Freenet” and then the investigators decided to raid the suspect’s house.
Soon after the district court gave the verdict that the man won’t be forced to decrypt the drive, the investigators turned to a federal court which finally issued a warrant allowing the investigators to search the drives.
The US Government invoked a law known as “All Writs Act” that gives the federal courts the jurisdiction and power to compel people to co-operate during a criminal investigation.
Few months back, FBI had invoked the same law controversially against Apple trying to force it to decrypt an iPhone which was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who was a California gunman.
Apple, however, has claimed that the illogical demand was nothing but a “stretch” of given law.
The current state
The US Court has ordered the man to be kept behind bars as long as he does not accept to fully comply with the officials and unlock both the drives which are password-protected.
The man has however not yet been charged with possessions of illegal images. He has appealed against his “illegal” detention. His lawyer claimed that there is no previously charged crime against the man and that he’s clean.
This case highlights as an example of the ongoing battle between the US government and data encryption. The detained man still remains unnamed due to legal reasons.