Warp wrote:
>   For example, if authorities ask the suspect what is the decryption
> password for a file, and the suspect says he can't remember it, can there
> be any consequences? How do authorities prove that he is lying, that he
> does remember perfectly, and is simply refusing to tell?

I bumped "post" too soon...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/court-self-incrimination-privilege-stops-with-passwords.ars

If you care enough to track through it, you see that the problem is the 
encrypted partition was unlocked, he admitted it might have child porn, the 
border guards saw something that looked like child porn, and then the drive 
got locked.

The trial judge tried to make the case that they already knew there was 
child porn there and he already admitted there was child porn there, so he's 
not incriminating himself by revealing the password. Other judges in the 
chain of command have said passwords are testimonial.

But since he already admitted he knew the password, that's a different 
situation than saying "I don't know the password, that's not my computer, 
someone else put that there," etc. In *this* case, I'd think it would be 
testimonial and hence protected, because by revealing the password you're 
revealing you know what's protected by the password. It seems pretty clear 
that if you don't admit you know the password, they can't force you to enter 
it.  (And in this particular case, he'd probably be in jail much less time 
for refusing to reveal the password than for getting caught with child porn 
on his laptop.)

There's other stuff out there about the case. For example, he says the 
reason he might have child porn is he downloads bunches of porn, then 
deletes anything that looks suspicious, and he hadn't gotten around to 
cleaning up this latest batch.

But, to answer the question, "the judges are figuring this out right now." 
The link does a decent job of summarizing the arguments back and forth.

IANAL.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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