Aye, they must get a court ordered search warrant and if they have one, then they have the right to search your safe and hard drive. You can't stop them.

Well that's the interesting thing, does the right for the police to search your things via search warrant mean you have to aid them in the search? - i.e. does one have to open a safe for the police? They may have the right to entry to the safe, but do they have the right to force to you help them enter? In other words, do they have to open the safe themselves and can only request that you open it? If so, then they don't have the right to do that with a hard drive either. If however, they can force you to open a safe as part of the warrant, then I agree that they have the right to force you to decrypt your hard drive.

then it is their job to spend those resources and time. not yours. you do not have police enter the house i think (correct me if i am wrong) but they have the right to do practically anything to enter the house.
you do not have to aid police in trying to put you in prison.

It would - to me -seem daft that the police could gain a warrant to search your safe if they could also not also gain the right to make you open the safe - same for encrypted data - otherwise it creates what could be seen as a loophole by which anyone could hide any item or data from the police just by ensuring sufficient security on the device to prevent within budget entry by the police (somewhat hard with a real life safe, but with digital data easily doable with enough encryption software)

Not stopping them is a different thing from aiding them. I am not legally allowed to stop a police search and seizure of my house if they have a warrant, but is that the same thing as actually needing to help them into my safe/encrypted hard drives? I actually don't know. If so, then I agree, the I agree the same logic as applies to safes applies to hard drives.
Perhaps. I've not made up my mind on this in either way on what it should be in my own ideal world - though I'm leaning towards lukasz's position. More importantly, I don't know what the current law is concerning safes and the like and that is the most important factor in how I would judge the judge's decision. :)

Considering the nature of digital data and the fact that the digital world is pretty much a whole separate area of possible crime I think the safe analogy will eventually fall apart. A computer not just being a storage unit, but an active component in the propagation of crime itself.

Crimes that take place totally in the "cyber" world would need to be investigated and I can well see that forcing people to decrypt their data would be a law that would be passed (with a court order - though I'd also expect the clause for forced on the spot access if incriminating data could be at risk of being destroyed).

Otherwise it creates a dangerous level of protection for the cyber criminal.

I have heavily encrypted files myself that would take months to decrypt - or years considering the incompetence of law enforcement agencies. If they demanded I decrypt it for them, I'd tell them to go to hell. I store all my very personal stuff in there in case my PC gets stolen (you never know) or hacked. Important files such as screenshots of my bank details, passwords for certain accounts, etc. The password is 50 characters long and encrypted with Truecrypt - check it out, it's free. I used it at work as well, to hide all my personal stuff like mp3s, etc. so that I simply can unmount it and all of it is gone.

None of what you've said has actually differentiated a physical vs digital crime - courts have the ability to issue fast warrants for risk of destruction of physical evidence. Police can act on probable cause for physical as well as digital crimes. The computer still ends up in the hands of the police just as the safe would. Once there the person doesn't have access to it to destroy data or files. In fact giving the person access to the computer would seem more dangerous in most instances as they could "accidentally" erase the files. In this case, the woman is now claiming she *can't* decrypt - probably a lie, but her lawyers are right that you can't punish someone for doing something that they are unable to do. The safe analogy is perfect in this instance - despite what the security professional against ruling and you for the ruling are arguing. There is a difference in ability to hack a encryption and a safe, but honestly being able to hack into a safe (especially a good one) without damaging the contents inside is extremely tricky and time consuming and not failure-proof. Remember this is also different from requiring say the maker of the protecting software to help you crack the encryption, etc ... That is also acceptable. As is searching the apartment/house for clues as to the password. I'm pretty sure the All Writs act applies to outside companies/individuals being forced help, not the suspect themselves. This is why in Vermont in 2009, the judge said that the person giving the password to the police was self-incriminating testimony. I'm not sure how valid this workaround the Arizona judge made actually is.

how are they gonna force her? waterboarding?

screw them

No you get found in contempt of court and sent to jail until you comply with the order.

In other words, the US once again proves it's as far a police state as you can get in the West. It's disgusting - they throw laws besides them as it suits them. You can bet a rich guy would get off and the judge would happen to have nice and expensive new patio furniture a month later.

Can't you just say you forgot the password?

Not really, her lawyer has time to get a stay and appeal the decision. This is just beginning.
I think her second line of defense is indeed that she can no longer decrypt the files - probably saying that she's forgotten the password. In which case, I'm not sure by what basis they could then use to say she is violating the court order even if the suspicion is that she is lying.

Fairly sure the same law operates in the UK as well
As for the rich part - that operates anywhere you find people ;)

This was my understanding as well, but I'm not certain of it. Eh ... time to check. Be right back.