> Officers uncovered a customs-related offence during 38 per cent of those searches, said the agency.
I really want to understand what kind of digital data is considered a customs-related offence.
I really want to understand what kind of digital data is considered a customs-related offence.
I basically had my mornings free every day until I ate lunch then i would sit down and start work for the day.
I actually learned this the hard way, I was in your shoes, 100% remote job, for a US company, US clients, and went to Europe and thought I might work while traveling. I was detained at the border, interviewed, and very nearly denied entry. I was let after a couple fairly lengthy interviews (I was detained for about 16hours) and proving I had funds to support myself without working. I was given a "visitor record" and a firm exit by date, not sure what all the record entails but I get questioned every time I enter now.
Anyway, point being, legally speaking what generally matters is where you are located when performing the work, and that's really the only way that makes sense to judge where the work takes place.
With all that said, in reality being caught is extremely unlikely and plenty of people get away with it and I don't think there are many countries actively trying to crack down on that sort of short term work while being a tourist. If you want to be above the board though, unless your work counts as what a business visitor can do, you would need a visa to perform any work. There is generally no distinction between traveling for the purpose of working, and working while traveling for other reasons.
I'm not a lawyer though but I've spent a fair bit of time actually looking at the restrictions on the tourism and business visitor visas to stay legal while traveling long-term and working remotely.
Your use of the word obvious is not well supported by your argument. Do you have an unstated premise that Border Services only detect "obvious" offenses?
Not to suggest that all of the 38% count for that, but with the popularity of drawn pornography I'd wager it makes up a sizable chunk.
[0] Hentai refers to anime-style drawings of fictional characters.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=canadian+...
[0] https://www.cbr.com/canadian-court-drops-criminal-charges-in...
Also, if I have a copy of Nabokov “Lolita” on my kindle, will I get in trouble? Stephen King’s It? An apt pupil?
Enforcement is selective.
So the bible and the quran cannot be imported legally into these countries?
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201601...
Until there is evidence of that, it seems strange to say that's a conclusion at all, or that it's likely. In fact, Patrick Galbraith's work on how users of fictional CP actually interact with their materials suggests exactly the opposite: they have developed a form of sexuality for the representations themselves - the more fictional, the more real to them. To add to that, the research I've read shows that pornography is not associated with increased rates of sexual assault or rape. If the link isn't even there for regular porn, what would make you say it's "likely" there for cartoon representations?
Furthermore, do we apply this standard elsewhere in society? If there were no research on the link between video games and violence, would you conclude that it is "likely" it indirectly creates a demand for videos of real violence? Is the fact that someone might be spurred on to do a different act sufficient to illegalize the original act which spurred them? I would say not, unless we were to illegalize drugs (for example) because those who partake are likely to be violent? Should we prosecute cannabis users because they create demand for drug cartel products which finance murder? Apple users because they create demand for the appalling treatment of Chinese workers?
Most researchers on the philosophy of law in this area (e.g Suzanne Ost) while obviously opposed to actual child pornography find no philosophical basis in the harm principle to illegalize fictional representations. As such, it's not reasonable at all. You need to justify why you think it's "likely" and just what that standard means. If it cannot be justified, then we may say that any likelihood is sufficient to illegalize any material, but I doubt that's a conclusion you'd want to follow to its extreme.
Finally there's the issue of penalties - isn't punishing someone for something they might do (access real CP) unjust? This seems shockingly close to the notion of pre-crime. To avoid that, you'd want to look more at punishing the creators of the material rather than those who have consumed it and harmed nobody (other than themselves perhaps).
If there is no cultural understanding of the real people themselves, how they read the text and how they interpret it, any law is based merely on speculation and I must stand firmly against such speculative laws.
> do we apply this standard elsewhere in society?
If there is a demonstrable link between them, sure. The same way real CP is illegal because it creates demand, which causes more CP to be made. Remember, owning CP does not directly harm anyone.
> If there were no research on the link between video games and violence, would you conclude that it is "likely" it indirectly creates a demand for videos of real violence?
No, because video games and videos are completely different things. People who play violent video games don't do it because they like watching violence, they do it because they like playing video games.
> isn't punishing someone for something they might do (access real CP) unjust?
They're not being punished for something they might do, but that they did do. If fictional CP is illegal and someone is in possession of it, then they've committed a crime.
The possession of real CP in most places isn't illegal because it creates demand, but because in order for its creation it required the actual abuse of children, and it's a violation of their privacy. Arguments against possession nowadays rely on two factors: the risk of harm (which is frequently not justified) and the violation of privacy. The second is a direct harm. CP is more often than not accessed for free in ways where the original uploaders have no way of knowing how many people consume the material - in the same way that Usenet posts circulate, and in an even more opaque way to BitTorrent. You can't see how many seeders you have on CP sharing sites. Paying for it is dangerous, so most consumers tend to coast on what they can find for free.
>No, because video games and videos are completely different things. People who play violent video games don't do it because they like watching violence, they do it because they like playing video games.
They are different, but the argument could also be made that comic books (in which lolicon hentai is most often published) are different to videos, and Japanese visual novels (which are branded and appreciated as games in their own right) which contain virtual CP are different to videos too. Yet we also would suppose that most people who play violent video games select violent video games for a reason over other non-violent games. The violence is an allure just as much as playing the video game is. For what reason, I don't know - perhaps to experience the limitless world of the imagination, or a break from life. Either way, people who read underage hentai don't do it because they like the idea of children being abuse, they do it because they can find a way to engage their erotic desires in a fictional world - but again, they must also have some reason to select lolicon over other content, and that's accounted for in the history of the status of women in Japan and the concept of moe. We can abstract away from video games and violence too; what do you think about movies that show violence, comic books that show disgusting levels of violence and pain, anime that shows violence...
>They're not being punished for something they might do, but that they did do.
Then the law is unjust - we would be punishing a victimless crime if we outlaw possession of things which cause no harm. Evidently the crime itself can't be located in the mere fact of the violation, since presumably it's a crime for other reasons. If it's a crime because "the viewer might do x, y, z" then it's punishing someone for something they might do through the creation of a law which punishes something they did do. It's simply adding another layer of explanation and indirection to the process, it doesn't automatically add any more justification. That's how the concept of pre-crime works, the pre-crime itself is made into a crime that can be prosecuted. I'm not suggesting that due process is being abandoned here, I'm saying that the rules in deciding what should and shouldn't be crime are being abandoned in favor of speculation.
> I only say that it is not inconceivable to me that fictional CP increases demand for real CP.
On the same token with the same amount of conviction (i.e none) I can say that it's not inconceivable that fictional CP lowers (or doesn't affect) demand for real CP. Now I don't really believe that's true, but I have as much reason to believe that as you do to believe the opposite. Perhaps posting on HN increases the demand for brutal startup founders who abuse their employees.
Among a huge number of intractable problems with fictional works, this also would make it illegal for many abuse victims to talk about what happened to them.
It's just so dumb, and I've heard a lot of older people especially who will say the common "Why is it a problem if you've got nothing to hide?". I think some people fail to understand the kind of data people can have stored, and how much of some people's lives are part of their digital devices. I'm sure they wouldn't want police coming into their house and searching it.
Even though it has a trivial workaround of not looking the part. The Lod Airport Massacre "terrorism swap" with Japanese Red Army Terrorists and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-External Operations in 1972 shows just how useless it is as a measure.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/who-lives-in-border-p...
They can't extend the traffic stop to bring in the dogs unless they have reasonable suspicion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodriguez_v._United_States
Photo of someone smoking a joint in a legally (at the state level) operated dispensary. A pirated MP3 or video file.
There's all sorts of minor "customs violations" that would come into view looking through a device that frankly, aren't serious enough to warrant the violation of privacy.
In the first place, piracy is not illegal in Canada. Provisions surrounding copyright violations fall under bill C11, and that's a civil juncture, not a criminal one. So CBSA agents wouldn't be looking for that in the first place, nor would they have any grounds to do anything about it, since they aren't the rightsholders.
And even if they did, they have an interesting burden of proof in proving a given file was obtained via piracy. And what would they do? Detain you indefinitely because they want to "have a discussion" about some pirated Katy Perry song? I would agree that photos of doing drugs could be met with refusal at the border, but be reasonable.
It's not the data, it's what the data reveals.
Like an SMS with 'I put $100K in your panama account'.
Obviously a bad example but you get the idea.