How to Protect Your Encrypted Data from the Corrupt Government

What you need to know about your security and the government. If you are worried about what's on your computer being stolen by bad guys you need to go one step beyond standard security. You should encrypt at least part of what’s on your hard drive.

The presence of encryption is enough to convince the government officials you have crimes to hide. I don’t dislike government but people with idiosyncrasies run it. If they believe you did something wrong they will twist or create evidence and not be aware they are doing it.

My advice as well as the advice of others, like the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation -- Defending Freedom in the Digital World), don’t give them passwords or anything. Call a lawyer.

“A lawyer may be able to get your property back if the warrant was improper, negotiate a deal with the government's attorneys to limit the search or get important files back, or convince the court to strictly limit the search so that they won't search files that are legally privileged (like confidential legal or medical records), protected by the First Amendment (like private membership lists), or irrelevant to the case”.

They say the only person that can force you to turn over your files or pass words is an attorney. If I felt the prosecuting attorney was too gung ho to convict me of anything he could manufacture I might opt for time in jail for contempt while the decision was appealed. The more material they have the more they can distort.

I’ve used TrueCrypt myself with great success. Once you type in the password it can be accessed, used or changed rapidly as if it weren’t encrypted. Currently, it seems to be the strongest most secure encryption available. Iwish I had a commission agreement with them. About TrueCrypt or see TrueCrypt's release announcement.

Note: If I am paranoid it's because I am a security expert and spend so much effort keeping up with methods people use to take advantage of others.