A Colorado judge has ruled that decrypting own hard drive is not equal to self-incrimination under Fifth Amendment . The judge ordered one Ramona Fricosu , charged with fraud , to decrypt her computer hard drive . Fricosu had maintained that this would be against the spirit of Bill of Rights which prohibits forcing someone to testify against himself.
In March 2010 a District Judge in Michigan had rejected one such subpoena . However in a similar case in Vermont , the judge ordered the accused to decrypt his hard drive. The Court held that while the password is a protected piece of information , the hard drive itself can be used as evidence.
No ruling so far has required any accused to give up on password but these two cases clearly indicate that an encrypted hard drive is not an unassailable right in the spirit of Bill of Rights.
