In reversal, judge orders child porn suspect to decrypt hard drives
A federal judge who had previously declined to force a Wisconsin suspect to decrypt several hard drives believed to contain child pornography has now changed his mind. After considering new evidence, the judge wrote in an order last week (PDF) that the Milwaukee-area man now must either enter the passwords for the drives without being observed by law enforcement or government counsel or must provide an unencrypted copy of the data.
In April 2013, Jeffrey Feldman was ordered by a United States Attorney to help federal authorities execute a search warrant on a collection of his own hard drives. The government claimed that it has probable cause to believe that these drives contain child pornography. Feldman, a computer scientist and software developer at Rockwell Automation Inc., has yet to be charged with a crime.
