From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 07:52:43 +0800
To: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Subject: Re: Australia's New South Wales tries net-censorship
In-Reply-To: <199604081601.JAA23412@netcom6.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <glOIyXm00YUvEJA6YF@andrew.cmu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 8-Apr-96 Re: Australia's New South
W.. by Mike Duvos@netcom.com 
> I'd be interested to know if the courts have ever had a case in
> which a person has been declared to have been in "possession" of
> illegal material merely by virtue of its momentary presence in
> their cache, screen buffer, or usenet spool.
>  
> There is a case now involving the University of Pittsburgh in
> which the Feds are attempting to prove that an individual was in
> possession of certain child porn images on his own PC during a
> brief span of time in 1993.

For it to be a crime, I would presume that the courts would require
"guilty knowledge" of the act. (At least I hope they would!)

As for the Pitt "child porn" case, I've spoken with the fellow's
roommate and have some more info at:

  http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=1924

-Declan