Comment Re:Talking of FUD (Score 1) 147
You're still making stuff up, i.e.:
"This is a press release from the CPS - not an argument made in court. We don't know what was said in court. We do know, for certain, what the law says and it's quite clear. The prosecution do NOT need to prove 'beyond reasonable doubt' that someone remembers their password, as you claimed they do, except in exceptional circumstances."
Where are these exceptional circumstances? Where is the requirement for this? In the very case we're talking about the defendant, the judge, and the CPS all agree that "I forgot it" was enough for the CPS to have to then prove against that beyond all reasonable doubt. You're literally pretending there is some high standard of evidence required to satisfy that first point which is patently false, the law, expressed in plain English is saying:
"It is assumed a person does not have the key if:
a) There is reason to believe this is so, i.e. they claim they have forgotten it and
b) It is not proved otherwise beyond reasonable doubt"
You seem to have this idea that "sufficient evidence" is some really high standard, which is complete and utter nonsense. If there was a high standard of evidence required from the accused for their particular case it would state that they have to prove their point beyond reasonable doubt, but it doesn't say that, it says the prosecution has to.
I don't really know why you find this so hard to understand, especially when you've even linked a case which demonstrates exactly this point.
"The information we have is that he behaved consistently with someone who was being as helpful as possible to the police, but had forgotten his password."
Again, no we don't. That's your spin on it, nowhere do we have any evidence of this whatsoever. All we have is an outline of a case, the CPS explanation of what they had to do (prove he had it beyond all reasonable doubt) and the verdict, which determined that the prosecution had proved beyond all reasonable doubt that he had the key.
You can make things up all you want but those are the only actual facts of the case.
"So are you saying he should have lied to the police? Will any encryption software will let you encrypt data
Yes, absolutely if he wanted to get away with it. That's exactly what I'm saying. It doesn't matter that a password was required, he could've used any excuse under the sun such as my wifi was hacked, or other people have access to the machine and I've no idea what that file even is and so forth to create reasonable doubt. That's how pathetic this law is and that's why there have only been a handful of prosecutions, why each prosecution has only been succesful because of idiotic self-incrimination, and why many other attempted prosecutions under this section of RIPA have been outright dropped. The CPS only pursue it if the evidence is solid enough, if someone creates reasonable doubt by denying all knowledge they know full well they can't prove their case beyond reasonable doubt short of some other unlikely evidence (such as perhaps warrant backed covertly obtained video evidence of the person unlocking the file during the period they claim to deny knowing the password).
"I gave a example of precisely that happening."
No you didn't. You gave an example of someone claiming they forgot it, an argument which the jury found not plausible based on the evidence. That's not the same thing.
"Basically, based on the few contested cases that have come up so far, if the police demand a password to some file you encrypted, only 2 things can happen:"
Not at all because there have been numerous cases where charges have been dropped or the CPS have refused to prosecute because they do not feel the evidence produced by the police is sufficient. Again, you're either lying or extremely ignorant about the issue.
What you actually mean is that in the very small handful of cases where the CPS have actually decided to pursue the case because they feel the weight of evidence was strongly in their favour they actually succeeded.
The problem is you're working on this incorrect assumption that everyone who is given a disclosure notice is innocent- you believe there is not one single person handed a disclosure notice that is actually guilty, and that therefore anyone convicted of it has failed a miscarriage of justice. This is completely false, there have been many people handed these notices, some have claimed they do not have the password and the police have decided not to pursue, in other cases the police have decided to pursue but the CPS decided not to pursue, in other cases where both the police and CPS have decided their evidence is strong they have succeeded. This covers all ends of the spectrum from those genuinely innocent and those who forgot, to those not innocent but used plausible deniability to get away with it, to those who are actually guilty. Unfortunately you think the latter group just magically doesn't exist, which is why you're struggling so hard to understand the law and these court outcomes.
"This is going to have a chilling effect on the use of encryption in general"
When? It's been written over a decade and enforced for almost a decade. When is this chilling effect going to happen? You're spouting nonsense again.
"will give the authorities power over people who have done nothing wrong"
Again, when? where is the evidence? Please point to an actual miscarriage of justice rather than a case where you claim there is a miscarriage of justice but the person found guilty didn't even think it was a miscarriage enough to file an appeal?
"and will encourage those in the know to use 'deniable encryption' which will give police still less knowledge about the metadata."
Yes, which is the reason I personally think RIPA is stupid and a bad law. Sure it allows stupid criminals to implicate themselves in minor crimes but it does nothing to deal with their actual potentially more serious crimes, nor does it deal with those smart enough to use plausible deniability.
I don't like the law either, but just because I don't like it doesn't mean I have to jump to some absurd conclusion you have that anyone found guilty under the law is a completely innocent victim. It's surprisingly hard for the CPS to get the required procedures and standards of evidence in place to even pursue a prosecution in the first place - watch any British police show documentary, the CPS fails to file charges for even those caught red handed on camera because of procedural errors. That's why when the CPS does decide to pursue, something it's very conservative about because it wants as high a success rate as possible, and when it does get a conviction, this is often because they do have a strong body of evidence in their favour. Look at the recent phone hacking scandal, they had CCTV of Brooks' husband binning evidence and still failed to pass the reasonable doubt test for a conviction - surely this helps you see how strong the CPS evidence actually has to be to win their case given that even in that case the evidence still left just a little bit too much room for doubt?
If you think the CPS can get a successful prosecution based on weak evidence then you have absolutely no idea whatsoever about how tough our justice system actually is. Do I think we have bad courts? yes, the supreme court here was created to give politicians sway over the judiciary at the highest levels which is sick (because they are involved in appointment of those who sit in it politicising that court). But this wasn't a supreme court case so that doesn't apply.