It brings encryption keys to pretty much the same status as locked safes. The government can't just order you to open it on a whim, but they can if they have reasonable prior evidence that there is illegal material contained within. To illustrate:

Scenario 1: As a citizen, I step off the plane after getting back from a foreign country. Not knowing who I am, ICE goons randomly pull me aside and order me to give up the encryption key to my laptop. They have NO reasonable suspicion that doing so will yield illicit material or evidence of wrongdoing, so the Fifth Amendment applies.

Scenario 2: I'm a corporate officer cooking my books, and I brag to my friend that the feds will never catch me because all the incriminating evidence is encrypted. Unfortunately my friend has agreed to cooperate in a plea deal, and relays the details of this conversation. Now the government has reasonable suspicion (actually, at this point I think it's probable cause) that my encryption key is concealing material evidence, and they can probably force me to reveal it.

/. probably won't be happy with that last sentence, but IMO as long as judges interpret "reasonable suspicion" correctly (which is usually the case), it's probably the right call. The government always has been able to force you to open your safe deposit box if they have a warrant, after all. This is nothing new.

No, idiot, they're asking people who were in Boston on Monday taking pictures with their smartphones to look through their photos again. Chances are lots of people inadvertently got photos of the guys, and some of those might be clear enough for identification (as opposed to the crummy security cam footage).

We really need a corollary for Godwin's Law adapted specifically to Bitcoin discussions: as soon as you say, "The US dollar doesn't have any intrinsic value either!", you lose.

You are IGNORANT and EVIL for ignore Earth 4 day simultaneous Time Cube rotation and preaching Academic Religious Singularity... wait.

Bloody hell, I'm on the wrong thread.

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion man.

No, there is a very good reason for this law: if you can show which way you voted to third parties, then it's possible for you to sell your vote to those third parties. As it stands, it's not possible to "sell votes" (at least, not in the direct sense), because you could just take the money and say you voted a certain way, when you didn't.

(Incidentally, I see a lot of people proposing reformed voting systems that include a hard confirmation that your vote for X was counted. Voting reform is good, but that particular idea is bad, for this exact reason. Cut it out).

If someone tried to defend their right to post a picture of their ballot on First Amendment grounds, I'd be willing to bet that a court would rule that a fair election represents the overriding concern and would still prosecute.

Oh wait, some NPE just sued me for patent violation. Never mind, guess I'll go develop it in some other country.

Just a quick FYI: for those of you still assuming that D-Wave is a bunch of snake-oil salesman (like I did for a long time), take a look at this bit from Ars Technica. Basically what they've built is not a genuine quantum computer, but a sort of "quantum optimizer" that delivers speedups for some kinds of problems. Their crime might be that they just use too much marketing hyperbole, instead of being complete frauds.

'ang on, 'e says e's not dead yet!

Care to cite one? Since it sounds like you're so well-informed.

Zimmerman's claim of being badly beaten up before he shot the kid doesn't hold up either: there's some footage taken at the police station the night of his arrest, and he looks totally unharmed. No cuts to the back of the head, no broken nose, nothing. Guy's story has more holes than... eh, I'm on my eighteenth hour without sleep due to a project and can't come up with an apt metaphor, but something with a lot of holes.