The usa man, who has now not been charged with owning illegal pics, is appealing against his detention.
"He has by no means in his existence been charged with against the law," wrote his lawyer.
The case highlights the us authorities's ongoing warfare with facts encryption.
The man, a former police sergeant, cannot be named for criminal reasons.
The case to this point
In March 2015, investigators in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, seized computer equipment from the man's domestic, together with two password-covered difficult drives.
The investigators had been monitoring the web community Freenet and decided to look the person's home, in step with information web site Ars Technica.
After a district court docket dominated the person could not be forced to decrypt the tough drives, investigators took the case to a federal court docket that issued a warrant to go looking the devices.
The government then invoked a 1789 regulation known as the All Writs Act, which offers federal courts the power to pressure people to co-operate in a crook investigation.
The equal regulation became controversially invoked with the aid of the FBI when it tried to compel Apple to decrypt the iPhone used by California gunman Syed Rizwan Farook. Apple said that the demand changed into a "stretch" of the law.
Consistent with the jailed guy's enchantment, he seemed on the district legal professional's workplace to enter passcodes for the difficult drives - however they didn't paintings.
He changed into then ordered to provide an explanation for his failure to go into the suitable passcodes, but after declining to testify became held in contempt of courtroom and jailed.
"His confinement stems from an statement of his 5th amendment privilege towards self-incrimination," wrote the man's attorney, Keith Donoghue.
The united states constitution's 5th change is designed to protect people from being pressured to testify and doubtlessly incriminating themselves and states: "No individual shall be... Compelled in any criminal case to be a witness towards himself."
The digital Frontier basis, which campaigns for virtual rights, said: "forced decryption is inherently testimonial as it compels a suspect to apply the contents of their thoughts to translate unintelligible evidence right into a shape that can be used against them."
the man's appeal also contends that he ought to not be pressured to decrypt the tough drives because the investigators do no longer recognize for certain whether indecent photos are stored on them.
The EFF agreed: "Complying with the order might speak facts that aren't foregone conclusions already
recognized to the authorities".
The enchantment, which argued the man have to be released from prison while it become considered, changed into filed on 26 April.
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