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Didn't anyone at the store find it suspicious that an expensive big Lego set would suddenly be heavily discounted?
I Lego fan might, but would the average person know that a plastic toy should cost more than $50?
And signal to every camera that they're up to no good
Obscuring the license plate is illegal
I suppose that depends on how the scanners work. I suspect they scan the frame for things which look like license plate numbers. If the IR lamps create enough glare, the scanner might record nothing.
I am looking forward to the comical legal exchanges which are likely to ensue the first time someone is accused of "obscuring" his license plate in this way.
Do you remember Alexander Makedonsky? Who fighted against, guess who, Persia? So guess what, it is Persian Gulf, it will be Persian Gulf, it was Persian Gulf when there was not even English language at all.
I think you mean Alexander of Macedonia. In English he is sometimes called Alexander of Macedonia, but he is more well know as Alexander the Great. If Makedonsky were a Russian surname, it would be appropriate to leave it untranslated. But since it is not, you must translate it into English if you want to be understood.
Prosecutor: "So, you viewed child porn, were aware that it was still on your computer, and didn't take any action to remove it? That sounds like a clear-cut of possession to me"
A good judge very well may see through this and but most won't. I think it will be immaterial soon enough because every law will get updated to criminalize the act of viewing (or requesting for the purpose of viewing, or something similar).
I agree with you completely. Prosecutors try to shortcut the difficult process of proving possession all the time. And the laws will definitely have to be updated. Let's hope that when they are, the law makers focus on the acts of the human being and what he sees on his screen (as the judges in this case seem to have done) rather than the inner workings of his computer. I think the law makers should ask themselves "what would constitute possession of a pornagraphic magazine? What are the equivelent actions on the World Wide Web?" The dissenting judge in particular seems to be exploring this question.
The question is: does one posses (in a legal sense) the contents of one's browser cache.
That seems like an absurd question. Of course you do, generally speaking.
I am not sure. I have been reading definitions of legal possession and they frequently require the possessor to excercise control over the object in order for it to be considered in his possesion.
When I read this legal decision, I get the impression that the justices are reluctant to directly answer the question of whether a web browser user is in possession of any given file in his browser's cache. They say that he can't possibly be if he has never heard of the browser cache. Then the majority and the disenter separately advance their theories as to when a person gains possession of an image which has been displayed in his browser window. The majority says that he goes from seeing it to possessing it when he orders the computer to keep it (I am paraphrasing here). The disenter says that he comes into possession of it when he, after understanding the nature of the website, begins to use it actively.
Nowhere can I find a statement by either the majority or the dissent which would suggest that a person who opened a web page with child pornography without knowing in advance what was on it has violated any laws, even technically.
They do not specifically discuss whether a person who accidently opened a page with child pornography is legally oblidged to flush his browser cache. It would of course be a good idea and if one had did so it could be proof that one deliberately rejected possession of the images. But, I think a court might decide that a person who left it in the cache (along with thousands of other files with meaningless names) until it had expired had abandoned it and thus not taken possession.
We will have to wait and see how this developes.
The difference between viewing pornography on the Internet and possessing pornography may be illustrated this way: Suppose that word gets around a school that "there is a dirty picture in the third stall in the boy's room" and some of the boys make excuses to go and look. They do not become possessors of the picture. But one could become a possessor by taking the picture down, taking it home, and hiding it under his matress. And, if we assume (for purposes of argument) that what the boys did was wrong, what the last boy did was more wrong.
Thanks for the lesson but your analogy is off. Under NY state law, looking at that picture on the wall is not illegal (federal law is another story but not in play in this case) but taking a picture of it so you can look again without going to the stall (i.e. caching it locally) means you now possess it. But what if the kid who took the picture didn't know that he has the picture, didn't look at it again, and didn't even take it on purpose. Can he be said to possess for purpose of criminal prosecution? The court said no. Taking it home and hiding it under his mattress would be a completely different story.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The whole browser cache question comes to which of these two scenarios is most like the use of a browser with a cache. I would say it is more like the latter. The knowledgable user will know about the cache but probably never examines the files in it and does not consider them to be "saved". He lets the computer take care of it. It is as if the boy knew in theory that the camera in his prosthetic eye must have saved a picture of the bathroom wall for a few minutes, but doesn't care and doesn't try to extract it.
I don't think that's quite right. It was not that he did not know he possessed them, it was that he did not posses them even though they were in his browser cache
That's a great theory, but it doesn't seem to match up with what the ruling actually says:
We must consider, among other issues, the evidentiary significance of "cache files," or temporary internet files automatically created and stored on a defendant's hard drive, and the defendant's awareness of the presence of such files. We conclude that where the evidence fails to show that defendant had such awareness, the People have not met their burden of demonstrating defendant's knowing procurement or possession of those files.
I interpret this to mean that if the defendant didn't know about the cache, the claim that the cached files (all by themselves) are contraband is dead in the water. But I am not sure they are saying that a user who knows about the cache becomes the possessor of a web page the instant it appears on his screen. Look at what they said later:
We also agree that where a promotion or possession conviction is premised on cached images
or files as contraband, the People must prove, at a minimum, that the defendant was aware of the presence of those items in the cache.
We hold, however, that regardless of a defendant's
awareness of his computer's cache function, the files stored in
the cache may constitute evidence of images that were previously
viewed; to possess those images, however, the defendant's conduct
must exceed mere viewing to encompass more affirmative acts of
control such as printing, downloading or saving.
This is a little confusingly worded, but the majority seems to want to see proof that the defendant tried to keep the images by storing them elsewhere on the hard disk. The dissent wants to see proof that the defendant wanted to keep the images on his screen. Both seem to see the cache (at least when used as intended) more as part of the trail of evidence which shows what buttons the defendant pressed in his web browser. They seem to want to see proof that the images were present on his computer by his orders and not simply as a side-effect of the technology.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but technically don't you download a page in order to view it?
Technically, yes. Your computer may also "save" the page in your browser cache. But you do not take possesion of what is on the page until you press a button and save it somewhere where you can find it again.
Just wanted to mention that in the disent a number of deliberate acts which could be considered the taking of possession are named. It is suggested that a person may be taking posession of PD images if he opens additional pages, keeps them open in tabs, or does other things to indicate that he wants PD images to be on his screen. This seems to be a good way to preserve the intent of the statute in the Internet age.
But even in this more liberal interpretion of possession, person would have to take some action to possess CP that appeared unexpectedly on his screen.
That would mean that one could be guilty just by knowing that the browser cache exists, even if you didn't try to keep the files that were in it. That makes little sense.
It's pretty straightforward actually; perhaps you're looking at this from the wrong end.
You are guilty if found to be in possession of CP.
I understand that. The question is: does one posses (in a legal sense) the contents of one's browser cache. You seem to be saying that you do if you know that the browser cache exists. But this would mean that if two persons open the same web page without knowning its content, see that it contains CP and immediately close the window, the one who does not know about browser caches is innocent but the one who knows is guilty of possession. This is what the courts call an absurd result. They try to find a way to interpret the law so as to avoid such results.
The only situation I can think of where you can view it without downloading it is when it was already saved onto the computer by somebody else. But if you are the owner or operator of the computer, I'm not entirely sure how you're going to believably argue that it wasn't you who downloaded it or saved it there.
You are thinking like a computer programmer. Yes, downloading one or more files is a part of the technical process of viewing a web page. But it is very different (as perceived by the user) from downloading a file and saving it for later use. The essence of this ruling is that what matters is what the human being operating the computer did, not what the computer did behind the scenes in order to carry out its master's will.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.