Originally Posted by Mike_A

I do appreciate what you say Ben. However, the issue has been taken in Canada and was part of what is now a very strong debate with the UK Government in light what the European legislators and authorities had told the UK to do. I refer to my prior post with three points of law.

On your point about changing or controlling equipment. If anyone interferes or accesses a computer by accessing its data, including data in transit, or its operability, including speed, without express prior agreement, then that is a criminal matter. It is more than a mute point, for there are similar laws controlling access to material sent in the post. The criminal legislation is little different here than in USA, Canada, Australia, most of Europe and in China. Until recently in that last country, such interference in data to and from a computer could have resulted in profound penalty: and that with zero possibility of appeal. This genre of law is about protecting private and sensitive correspondence, including its transmission. I do agree the law's a bit of an ass on this one, for it does not fully take into account that a packet of data may exist midway somewhere, but the terms of it I provided earlier apply.