A couple of questions

[David Hansen]

On 25 Jun 00, at 21:51, Stephen Lafferty wrote:

> Could any passing lawyer please provide an example of a case where
> drug dealers, paedophiles or pornographers were able to avoid a guilty
> verdict because the prosecution could not decrypt files on the
> accused's hard drive.  I can't seem to find any evidence for this in
> any promotional literature issued by the government.

The assumption that lies behind this is that the encrypted files would 
have provided convincing evidence of whatever, while all the 
resources of the state couldn't provide convincing evidence from all 
the other sources at their disposal. There might be some such 
cases, but not many.

Anyway it's only conjecture, as the government does not know what 
is on the encrypted files. As Mrs Thatcher once said, "if we have 
proof by accusation then freedom dies." I wonder, if she haddn't 
gone round the bend, what she would think of Messers Howard and 
Straw?




 David Hansen | davidh@spidacom.co.uk  | PGP email preferred
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