By Christian I. Bale
Freedom of speech is like baseball, hotdogs, and apple pie. Whereas one survey found that less than half of Americans can name the three branches of the federal government, another showed that 64 percent of Americans can recall that the First Amendment protects free speech . . .
By David Rangaviz and Miranda Jang
Under what circumstances can a citizen be forced to unlock their smartphone for government inspection? On March 6, 2019, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Dennis Jones, in which the Court held that the government can compel a suspect to unlock their smartphone, and so disclose all of its contents, if it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect knows the passcode to the phone in question. The SJC held that the only “testimonial” aspect to an act of decryption is just the person saying that he or she knows the code to the target phone. Jones was the first decision from any state supreme court in the country to set out the constitutional rules around compelled decryption, which is one of the most significant self-incrimination issues in the digital age . . .