back to article Tas magistrate finds legal book of filth illegal on computer

You can’t invent cases as strange as this: a book that is not only legal, but can be borrowed from various Australian libraries* can, in digital form, land the owner with a child porn conviction. According to News's Hobart Mercury, David Traynor, an alderman in the Clarence council in Tasmania, was convicted for possessing …

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  1. Christoph

    How did they know it was him who put it there?

    If the laptop had been stolen and later recovered, how can they prove that it was the owner and not the thief who put all the porn on it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Easy.

      Date stamps probably. Although technically, you can fake these, I'm sure there are ways you can forensically check them.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't have the words....

    Really, I don't have the words to say how crazy this case is. The thought that a jury was happy to convict in this case is beyond belief. Also that there were no pictures, it was all text.

    But yet again, it has been demonstrated that no sacrifice is to great on the altar of perceived child safety. No matter the injustice it is obviously worth it to people.

    It looks like the same desire to protect off spring that allows a mother to lift a car off their child also also allows otherwise normally sane people to take leave of their senses.

    The first country to be able to weaponize this special kind of crazy will be unstoppable.

    All hail the thought police!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No jury.

      A magistrate alone made the ruling, so no jury involved. Still, beyond belief though.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Top up charge

      It appears after reading the newspaper the story is linked from, that the guy had one other item of CP on the computer. So the book may well have been one of those top up charges to make it looked like more than it was.

      So the guy has all sort of legal pron on his computer, an one or two items of CP. If we are using CP as a round the back way of working out what somebodies procivites are and punishing them accordingly. Then surely the amount of normal pron vs CP should be taken as an indication of this guy's proclivities as well. I suppose it only works in one direction to the thought police....

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Context context context

    This is like porn pictures which are legal in a film certified by the BBCF, but illegal if extracted and taken out of context. Or pictures of kids modelling underwear in clothes catalogues, but potentially illegal if taken out of them.

    This is absurd. No different to making certain words illegal, if taken out of sentence.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. GrumpyOldBloke

    Good!

    If politicians are caught up in this sort of nonsense too then maybe they will think twice before standing with all the stupid OMG-Think-of-the-Children nutters that are attempting to usurp ownership of children.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. Adrian Esdaile
    WTF?

    Well, it is Tasmania...

    I thought it was only illegal down there if it wasn't your sister.

  7. Anonymous John

    The UK can be just as silly.

    Convicting someone for buying a book from Waterstones.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/24/bookshop_conviction_overturned/

    1. Wyrdness

      Not the same level of silliness

      No, because in that case, the person wasn't actually convicted (despite the misleading Reg title).

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Story pulled?

    Has this story been pulled? As it no longer shows up on the front page.

    Is the register getting fed up of these type of stories, as it looks bad for the website?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Consequences

    Break the law --> go to jail.

    Only The Register finds this a mystery it seems. The rest of us do not.

    1. P Zero
      FAIL

      Learn to read

      The book is legal to purchase in Australia, and is freely available from any library. It's like charging someone for making racists remarks because they've read Mark Twain.

    2. Sam Therapy
      WTF?

      Are you really an idiot, or just trolling?

      The story makes it clear the book is legal and only became illegal when it was stored on the guy's computer. How on earth is anyone supposed to know that and avoid the consequences.

      Actually, now I think about it; you're not a troll but you're definitely an idiot.

    3. ph0b0s

      Helpfull...

      Be a troll --> get a down vote

      I would have been quite interested actually to hear from someone who thought that their was nothing wrong with this case.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hey we have very clear ideas of law in this state of Tasmania.....

    ...where else would a Chinese law graduate join an older established lawyer to form a partnership called Wong and White.

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