[1148] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Supreme Court dicta on safe combinations
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Phil Karn)
Wed Jul 2 16:20:11 1997
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 12:17:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Phil Karn <karn@ka9q.ampr.org>
To: reinhold@world.std.com
CC: cryptography@c2.net, karn@homer.ka9q.ampr.org
In-reply-to: <v03007801afe049e0d1c3@[10.0.2.15]> (reinhold@world.std.com)
>Not to quibble, but wouldn't being compelled to reveal the passphrase for a
>PGP key that has one's name on it be more analogous to "be[ing] compelled
>to reveal the combination to [petitioner's] wall safe?" The government
>could just as well argue that the owner of a wall safe certainly knows its
>combination.
Yes, but when you read that footnote in the context of the whole
opinion, it's clear that the majority was simply trying to counter
Stevens' dissenting argument *without* necessarily holding that the
combination to a safe would be protected.
They said that a compelled signature on a consent form was more akin
to a physical key than to the combination of a safe. So *even if for
the sake of argument* the latter were clearly protected (and they
didn't say it was), it wasn't relevant to the case they were deciding.
That's why it was dicta. With very few exceptions (like "overbreath"
challenges to laws on First Amendment grounds) US courts can't decide
hypothetical issues. They can decide only real "cases and
controversies" presented to them.
Phil
