I would unplug the hard drive, and stick a Ubuntu Live disk in the CDROM drive and enable boot from ROM drive. There isn't going to be anything for anyone to have a poke around at then.
You have GOT to be kidding... "Sir, are these pictures solely for your personal masturbation use, or are they intended to be sold to others?" And how do you determine fair "personal use" quantity? Up to a few thousand piccies OK?
i dont know about the states, but in the UK it is now illegal to withhold decryption keys from police if they ask for it. I can sorta see where they are coming from, but if you are a serial killer and evidence is encrypted on your laptop then im sure you would take the max of 5years for withholding the key than life for killing 300 people...
Use Truecrypt to create, say, a 100GB encrypted volume... then inside that volume, create a 90GB hidden volume. Store some tame porn and your bank statements in the outer volume - a few token files for them to find, and then store all your really filth porn ('Pigs in Bondage' et al), your bomb-making manual and Osama's mobile no, and details of your secret account(s) in the Caymans in the hidden volume. When you get stopped, you hand over the pwd to the outer volume and they get to check out Miss July and your £4.76 savings account. Sure, they may suspect there is a hidden volume in there, but short of catching you with it open, there is nothing they can do about it. Plausible Deniability.
You'd get 2 years in jail for that Delphium, although it's yet to be tested in court. (Refusing the key, not using SSH)
