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Note he didn't point out crimes like embezzlement, bookmaking or murder. When spokespeople for the police say "We can't do X, which makes it harder to stop child pornography and drug dealing", that's PR-speak for "It's bad, trust us and don't think about it."

Also conspicuously absent is preventing terrorism, which is a scenario where obtaining the password is more likely to be impossible, because the owner is most likely dead.

My layman's understanding is that the law doesn't consider being compelled to reveal a password to be self-incrimination. Failing to reveal a password will get you held in contempt, or result in an "adverse inference" ruling from the judge.




But it wasn't said by a spokesperson for the police, it was said by a random journalist after reading a report.


Who wrote the source report? Mediocre journalism is consists of stringing together press releases.




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