Canada's Top Court Quashes Child Porn Warrant

m.ducharme writes "The CBC is reporting that the Supreme Court of Canada has handed down a decision quashing a search warrant used to obtain the computer of a man accused of possession of child porn. 'Urbain P. Morelli maintained his charter rights were violated when police searched his computer for child pornography after a technician who had visited his home to work on the machine expressed concerns to police.' What the Slashdot community may find notable about this decision is the distinction drawn between 'accessing' and 'possessing' digital images, most particularly the recognition that a user does not 'possess' cached data. From the decision: '[35] When accessing Web pages, most Internet browsers will store on the computer's own hard drive a temporary copy of all or most of the files that comprise the Web page. This is typically known as a "caching function" and the location of the temporary, automatic copies is known as the "cache." While the configuration of the caching function varies and can be modified by the user, cached files typically include images and are generally discarded automatically after a certain number of days, or after the cache grows to a certain size. [36] On my view of possession, the automatic caching of a file to the hard drive does not, without more, constitute possession. While the cached file might be in a "place" over which the computer user has control, in order to establish possession, it is necessary to satisfy mens rea or fault requirements as well. Thus, it must be shown that the file was knowingly stored and retained through the cache.'"

Comments

I wonder,

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

What is in the caches on the supreme court judges' computers?

Your Honor

[future assassin]

that oz of weed in my hand was just a cache copy which I used to smell and preview the item. It wasn't actually planning on buying it until I knew how good the quality was. Since the quality of the cannabis was sub par I was about to dump my cache on the ground and move on.

Re:court intelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other problems in Canada. The immigration/refugee system, for instance, is very broken. Being apparently intelligent, well-educated, and knowing English, you'd probably have no chance of getting in. You'd be forced to jump through hoop after hoop over the course of many years, and likely would get rejected in the end.

Now, if you were an uneducated Somalian with gang ties, a long criminal record, and no knowledge of English or French, you'd be bumped to the front of the line. You'd get significant amounts of social assistance, you'd never have to work, and you'd get a passport within a few years. You'd be able to travel the world, committing a variety of serious crimes, and then you could cry to the Canadian government to bail you out when you get caught. Rather than letting your sorry ass rot in a third-world prison, they'd waste millions of dollars to get you back to Canada, although you never paid a cent in Canadian taxes.

Third-worlders have ruined huge parts of most major Canadian cities. Yet the government, regardless of which party is in charge, keeps bringing more and more of them in. This is just beginning to become a problem, and it will only be getting worse and worse.