subpoenas of personal papers

[smb@research.att.com]

I just saw a news story that bears on one of the perpetual questions on
this newsgroup:  can you be compelled to turn over your encryption
key?  In Doe vs. U.S. (93-523), the Supreme Court declined to rule on
whether or not someone can be forced to turn over his personal
appointment calendar.  By doing so, they let stand an Appeals Court
(2nd Circuit) that he could *not* invoke the Fifth Amendment.  That
court ruled that ``testimony'' was protected, but not personal papers.
There was a Supreme Court ruling in 1886 protecting such papers, but
that's been eroded over the years, and the Supreme Court has ruled
several times that business records are not protected.  And in a
concurring opinion in 1986, O'Connor wrote ``The Fifth Amendment
provides absolutely no protection for the contents of private papers of
any kind''.


		--Steve Bellovin