Fourth Amendment questions (Liberty Safe controversy)

In My Humble Opinion
1

A recent news story has me curious about 4th amendment rights, and responsibilities of homeowners when facing a search. Like many legal issues, it seems simple until you get into the details. IMHO due to speculative, what-if questions.

Short summary of the event:
FBI is investigating Jan 6th suspect, goes to search his home with a warrant. He had a gun safe made by Liberty Safe, and FBI asked the company for an access code* to the safe’s electronic lock. Liberty complied, and the FBI opened the safe.

The company seems to be in a miniature Bud Light situation, as this infuriated some of their customer base. Partly due to the ease of opening their safes with “back doors” and partly due to the company’s willingness to hand over the codes.

NYT article about the incident.

My questions are about legal responsibilities of homeowners, suspects, and acquaintances when confronted with search warrants. FTR: I have no pending need to know, and would consult a lawyer on the vanishingly small chance of it happening. But I’m curious…

First: Is a suspect or homeowner legally required to assist or provide access to police with a warrant? I mean are they required to unlock and provide access to areas? I realize it might be unwise to refuse, but are homeowners required to unlock a safe for the police? What about a spouse who has the combo? Would a warrant legally obligate the manufacturer of a product to help?

Second: What if the search warrant is for digital files or documents, and the owner has encrypted them? Is he required to produce the passphrases? It seems like a big jump from “Give me the keys in your pocket” to “Give me the thoughts in your head.”

Thanks in advance for any answers (or opinions). I’m puzzled about where the line between “providing access” and “self-incrimination” is drawn.

*The “access code” is apparently the Manufacturers Reset Code (MRC), unique to each safe’s lock mechanism. Normally used for unusual situations like inheritance, forgetfulness, or other valid reasons for others to gain access. The owner can override the MRC if they prefer (and have read the fine print in the manual).

2

I assume the FBI could have legally cut open the save by whatever means necessary.

Is there some legal protection on safe code or email password overrides that supersedes a warrant?

3

We discussed this a while back. Long story short: the police have means available to them to search a safe besides asking/coercing the owner to give the code (or provide the keys or give his thumbprint or yada yada), or trying some backdoor method like getting the safe company to help out. I imagine an arc welder is involved.

Now, as to the larger question of whether or not a company is required to cooperate in a situation like this, that’s a larger matter that courts across the country are trying to sort out. As of now, the general consensus seems to be no, they are not. But that hasn’t stopped companies large and small from helping out anyway.

If I were the owner of Liberty Safe, I’d have told the cops to fuck off. Not because I’m sympathetic to Jan 6 defendants, but simply on principle. Think of it as the Fourth Amendment version of “I disagree with what you’re saying, but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say it.”

4

According to Liberty Safe’s own initial release, they provided authorities the backdoor passcode upon confirming this search was part of a valid warrant. Part of the dispute AIUI has broadly become whether that should have been enough, or if Liberty should have waited until a court order was directly issued to them demanding the code or else, and if even then they should have fought it.

Of course the loudest voices on social media are on the side of having them tell the cops to fuck off no matter what. But not on any proper legal basis but because, freehdumm, tyranny, woke, yadda yadda.

Remember a few years ago when some people were all over Apple for not having an access “backdoor” to give to authorities to crack the iPhone encryption in the case of the San Bernardino shooters? And that was a case in which it happens that the system by design was made to NOT have an easy backdoor. The DOJ demand that Apple find and share with them a way to break their own product was still in court when DOJ’s own hackers figured out an exploit and the whole thing was dropped as moot.

Whether it’s a safe or an encrypted device, I would lean on that the consumer should prefer for there to just NOT be an easy “backdoor”, period.

5

The de facto answer: many LEOs will tell the homeowner that they will be arrested for obstruction if they don’t. Either because of ignorance or deliberate action (qualified immunity is a wonderful thing) they may actually arrest the owner and if it were my state, they’d release you with an “oopsie doopsie” (thank goodness for qualified immunity) later because in Colorado (and many states) obstruction requires force or the threat of force. Simply standing on your rights is not obstruction.

So are you willing to spend a few hours in jail while they prove a point that you must respect their authoritah and F your rights?

6

This is a controversial and unsettled subject. Under the Fifth Amendment, you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself. But there have been conflicting rulings whether requiring an individual to provide a password or passcode for a device for which the police have a search warrant would be compelling testimony and therefore unconstitutional. Courts have ruled both ways.

7

What principle? The FBI had a warrant, in accord with the requirements laid out in the Fourth Amendment.

8

Does the 4th Amendment require the public (or in this case a company) to assist law enforcement with a search?

9

But when nobody’s Constitutional rights would be violated by choosing to assist law enforcement, choosing not to assist is not in itself upholding any Fourth Amendment principle. There is no Fourth Amendment violation.

The only principle that might be at stake would be a derivative one, asserting that it is your choice whether or not to help if you felt that law enforcement were forcing you to assist them. But that’s not a Fourth Amendment issue.

10

I think HeyHomie is saying the principle is you don’t sell your customers out to the cops. I get the impression that Liberty Safe is all about 2nd Amendment, freedom and patriotism but I could be wrong.

11

Ok, but that’s a “principle” only in the loose sense that it’s a personal choice about how you want to behave, what you feel is your civic duty. It has nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment.

And it’s pretty dubious as a principle, implying that there is a duty to your customers that overrides your civic duty to assist when a judge has issued a lawful warrant. Would @HeyHomie stick to this principle if there were reasonable grounds to believe that there’s weaponized anthrax in the safe? Presumably not, so essentially he’s setting up himself (or in this case the private corporation), rather than the judicial system, as arbiter of when a search should be carried out.

12

Like I said, my completely unfounded belief is that Liberty Safes is all about personal freedoms, and so lacking a requirement to help the cops with their warrant, I think that they would feel there is a principle to not help the cops search a client’s safe. Specific to your point

I believe people and companies still have the choice to help or not.

13

It’s not clear whether they do or not under the law, but a law that says a third party must help with a lawful search does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

14

There were no “DOJ’s own hackers”. The FBI just hired Azimuth Security or a similar firm to crack it. The analogy would be hiring a professional safecracker.

15

IMHO, the company should have waited and required a subpoena for the info.

However, what could have been in the safe that would aid the FBI for the charges made? or were they just hoping to find an illegal weapon?

Here is a non-paywalled article-

Now, of course, if convicted , he could no longer own the guns, but generally he could sell them.

16

I wonder what would happen if a suspect’s passphrase was “YesIRobbedFirstStateBank”? Assuming that bank robbery was the reason for demanding access to his files, it would be interesting at least.

There are robotic autodialers, which can try all possible* combinations in about 4 or 5 days. I would assume a similar system exists for keypad / electronic lock systems (it’s probably even faster).

*possible = doing just the normal low-hi-low, or hi-lo-hi setups and skipping obvious stuff like 2 or 3 numbers being the same. They don’t really need to cover all 1 million possibilities.

Thank you. I swear when I first looked at the NYT article it wasn’t paywalled.

17

Are you sure? Because that seems unlikely.

Let’s say you’re standing on a public street. A store is robbed a block away and you see the robber fleeing on foot down the street past you and then turning a corner. A police officer arrives on the scene a few seconds later and asks you if you saw where the robber went. You point your finger in the wrong direction to send the officer the wrong way.

Are you saying this would be legal in Colorado? That you can knowingly misdirect a police officer and thereby obstruct them in their job but it’s not illegal because you didn’t use any force?

18

Thank you for the correction on that point!

19

There’s a good argument that not following the law is anti-patriotism.

20

To say that it is “standing on your rights” is just assuming your conclusion of what your rights actual are under the law.

The text of the Colorado law is here:

A person commits obstructing a peace officer , firefighter, emergency medical service provider, rescue specialist, or volunteer when, by using or threatening to use violence, force, physical interference, or an obstacle, such person knowingly obstructs, impairs, or hinders the enforcement of the penal law or the preservation of the peace by a peace officer, acting under color of his or her official authority

All I can say is that it is poorly written. “Violence, force, physical interference” are in accord with @Saint_Cad 's interpretation. And if “use…an obstacle” is intended to encompass something other than purely physical means, it’s a strange way to express it. But this Colorado law firm website does include “giving law officers false information” under their examples of obstruction.