New York High Court OKs Child-Porn Web Surfing

[Zee]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...-porn-surfing/

Accessing and viewing child pornography over the internet is not necessarily a crime under New York law, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday.

[BenMcr]

Specifically:

The New York Court of Appeals ruled that the authorities, under New York’s child-porn statutes, must prove that an internet surfer knew that his computer automatically stored cached images, or printed or downloaded the images.

[Zee]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Specifically:

yes. in a way this could be seen as good or bad.

if someone links you to one of these websites through those tinyurl sites then it could be an issue for you.

[BenMcr]

To me it's just reaffirming the general rule for any crime is that intent must be proved

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Zee

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...-porn-surfing/

Accessing and viewing child pornography over the internet is not necessarily a crime under New York law, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday.

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Specifically:

Originally Posted by Zee

yes. in a way this could be seen as good or bad.

if someone links you to one of these websites through those tinyurl sites then it could be an issue for you.

I think this relates to the position where someone comes across a site that has child porn images , Realises what it is and leaves. They could be traces left on his machine which COULD make some think he did it all the time ??

Could be wrong but i am sure i saw a news story relating to something like this happening.

Additionally

(A cache contains images or portions of a web page that are automatically stored when that page is visited and displayed on a computer screen. If the web surfer visits a web page again at a later date, the images are recalled from the cache rather than being pulled from the internet, allowing the page to load more quickly.)

Judge Victoria Graffeo concurred with the results in a separate opinion but blasted it nonetheless. She said the decision “will, unfortunately, lead to increased consumption of child pornography by luring new visitors who were previously dissuaded by the potential for criminal prosecution.”

My understanding is not that they have to prove intent, which they should, but they need to prove that the defendant knew those images would be stored on his or her computer.

In this case the defendant was convicted of other porn charges but was found not guilty for the images in his cache because under New York law that doesn't prove he intended to possess them. However he clearly intended to seek them out.

This internet thingy has caused the law so much trouble in having to second guess so many issues..I'm wondering just how many laws will have had to be redefined and re-jigged just to keep up?

[Halcyon]

I think if the user saved images or had bookmarks full of these sites then it would prove intent to view them.

However as others have said, you can easily be sent a link to a site, realise the content of it and then leave. That should not be enough to convict anyone.

Originally Posted by Halcyon

I think if the user saved images or had bookmarks full of these sites then it would prove intent to view them.

However as others have said, you can easily be sent a link to a site, realise the content of it and then leave. That should not be enough to convict anyone.

But that isn't what happened. The guy went down already for having a collection of child porn. The Judge clearly states that the defendant must know that those images would be stored in the cache to be convicted for the images that were stored there. There was nothing about intent to view them as he clearly intended to do both by his own admission ('research') and because he already had images stored elsewhere.