My favorite TLF reader points out this bizarre story about wireless “piggybacking,” over-zealous police officers, and (a lack of) child porn. It’s a safe bet that the police officers involved have better things to do than harass people using the WiFi connections of public libraries (!) from their cars. The notion that doing so would be criminal theft of service is absurd: presumably, no one would have thought twice if he’d accessed the network while physically inside the library building. It’s not clear how it suddenly becomes a crime once it’s outside.
It seems even more clear that the police were out of line in seizing the guy’s laptop and searching it for child pornography. No reasonable person would take the fact that someone is using the Internet from his car as evidence that child porn is being downloaded.
On the other hand, the trespassing charge isn’t crazy, especially if it happened more than once. Still, a proportionate remedy would have been to write the kid a ticket, not take his laptop.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.