Some legal trouble with TOR in France

[Ringo Kamens]

Also, they can put you on grand jury and give you obstruction of justice for
refusing to talk.

On 5/14/06, Eric H. Jung <eric.jung at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> I don't have the time to respond to all the points of your email except
> the first/
>
> Federal Contempt of Court
> http://www.bafirm.com/articles/federalcontempt.html
>
> "Although there is no statutory maximum limit regulating the amount of
> time a contemnor can be ordered to spend in confinement (United States
> v. Carpenter, 91 F.3d 1282, 1283 (9th Cir. 1996)), the requirement that
> a jury trial be granted in criminal contempt cases involving sentences
> over six months in jail acts as a check on this power." 67-79
>
>
>
> --- Mike Perry <mikepery at fscked.org> wrote:
>
> > Thus spake Eric H. Jung (eric.jung at yahoo.com):
> >
> > > > Tony's point was that you could arrange not to have the
> > > authentication
> > > > tokens anymore. You better hope they believe you when you say you
> > > > don't have it, though.
> > >
> > > >Not having the authentication tokens counts as refusing to
> > surrender
> > > >them.
> > >
> > > Per US law, if a judge subpoenas you to hand them over and you
> > refuse
> > > and/or remain silent, it means indefinite jail time (until you hand
> > > over the tokens) and/or fines.
> >
> > Where is your source on this? As I understand it, there are a few
> > fundamental principles of the US legal system that should render this
> > statement completely false. One is Habeas Corpus.. You can't just
> > throw someone in jail indefinitely without a criminal charge and a
> > trial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_habeas_corpus
> >
> > Though it seems Bush&Co are violating it with "enemy combatant"
> > charges, I do not think they have the political power (at least
> > anymore) to name an anonymity provider as an "enemy combatant"
> > (especially if they are a natural born US citizen). The same applies
> > to the 72 hour warrant deal, at least as far as I can tell from
> > http://www.fff.org/comment/com0601c.asp
> >
> > Second, if it is a criminal charge, you are not under any obligation
> > to testify against yourself in a criminal court of law (5th
> > ammendment). There are various exceptions to this, main one being if
> > you are not the person charged of the crime (though I think you can
> > still claim that such testimony may incriminate you for unrelated
> > matters). I suppose it could also be argued that the passphrase does
> > not count as testimony, but it sure seems like it is.
> >
> > Finally, some googling on subpoena compliance seems to indicate that
> > punishment for subpoena non-compliance is 'contempt of court' charge
> > and fines.
> >
> > http://www.rcfp.org/cgi-local/privilege/item.cgi?i=questions
> >
> > That page advises you not to answer any subpoenas without challenging
> > them first, among other things (ie one state's court cannot usually
> > subpoena someone from another state). Contempt of court charges for
> > non-compliance may be repeated, but any contempt law I can find on
> > the web has some form of maximum limit. The longest I've seen so far
> > is North Carolina, which is a max of 1yr in 90 day increments:
> > http://www.rosen.com/ppf/cat/statco/laws.asp
> >
> >
> > Also, dunno how accurate it is, but Wikipedia seems to claim that the
> > key disclosure provisions of the RIPA (Part III) are not yet in force
> > in the UK:
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > We seriously have to watch our paranoia on this one. This is one of
> > those situations that if we believe we have no rights, it will be
> > very
> > easy to knock us over, simply by playing off our fears and demanding
> > keys without any legitimate basis to do so.
> >
> > If any Tor operator is arrested/detained in the US, they would do
> > well
> > to refuse to surrender any passphrase until they are actually in
> > court
> > and ordered to do so by a Judge (and then only after voicing protest,
> > to allow for clear appeal to a higher court). Cops will probably just
> > lie to you and try to convince you that you are required on the spot.
> > Ask for a lawyer immediately.
> >
> > This is not just to protect the Tor network either. With computer
> > laws
> > as crazy as they are, and with the IPPA coming down the road, soon
> > simply having something like an Open Source DVD player or archiver on
> > your machine will be enough to land you in jail for a while, if it's
> > not already...
> >
> > --
> > Mike Perry
> > Mad Computer Scientist
> > fscked.org evil labs
> >
>
>
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