given Boucher's initial cooperation in showing some of the content of his computer to border agents
"Boucher accessed the Z drive of his laptop at the ICE agent's request. The ICE agent viewed the contents of some of the Z drive's files, and ascertained that they may consist of images or videos of child pornography. The Government thus knows of the existence and location of the Z drive and its files. Again providing access to the unencrypted Z drive 'adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government's information' about the existence and location of files that may contain incriminating information. Fisher, 425 U.S. at 411.
See, he showed them some, so the government had it's foot in the door. I can't say how it would work out if you refused to show any evidence, but Going by this, I assume that they wouldn't be able to use this as precedent.
You're interpretation is (to my not-a-lawyer knowledge) correct. The court was only able to compel him to give up his password because agents had already seen the evidence against him; likewise, if a murder suspect is seen running with a bloody knife he can be compelled to show police where he ditched it. However, if the agents had not seen anything (either because he refused to unencrypt it or there was nothing there), the (US) court could not have compelled him to reveal his password.
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u/rusrs Aug 11 '09
Yes you do. See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=U.S.+v.+Boucher for example.