cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605
A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.
Just wondering (INAL): if these women would have been using e2ee, could the police not legally require them to let them read it
Edit: I mean would the women not be required to let the police read the e2ee?
IANAL but it depends. In the US there is strong protection for the contents of your mind and self-incrimination. So if your keys were locked behind a strong password the legal system wouldn’t be able to access it. But if you had no password they would be able to seize the device and read the messages.
So basically if the messages are inaccessible other than a secret that you know them yes, they wouldn’t be forced to reveal it.