This is Not political, please don't go there.
the good news: The government doesn't have the capability to break the PGP encryption.
I don't know how to do PGP encryption, but I am looking into it.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/24/024233 follow the links for more detail.
I would be very surprised if the gov can't undp PGP encryption. As I recall it is not that sophisicated. NSA has the most sophisticated computers on the planet, and the people who know how to use them.
=jlw
The prosecutor probably means that there is no one in their office that can pass the encryption. They must follow the law and access the information without destroying it.
Instead of spending the money to get an expert to do it, they are pressuring the defendants to do it for free and incriminate themselves. Even going to an expert, the chain of evidence could be broken and the results could be deemed suspicious.
Any of that would blow their case.
The judge that made the ruling must be tired of dead end cases and trying to clear the way for easier means to prosecute suspects. Don't tell, you go to jail, tell and you go to jail.
The whole concept of having a personal computer is for that information to be secure and for your own use. It is not a public computer, it is for one person's use, period.
IMHO