Intent is at heart of Canadian case of cybercrime
Date: January 28, 2005Source: Legalbrief Today
The Supreme Court of Canada will be hearing one of the first test cases of Internet crime.
At issue is a 26-year-old Edmonton man’s recipes for napalm, Molotov cocktails and other weapons, that he was selling on a Web site. The question the court will try to answer, reports The Globe and Mail, is whether Hamilton harboured the necessary legal intent to counsel an offence that was never actually committed.
Allowing Hamilton to escape conviction for being blind to the possible violent consequences of his cyber-marketing invites criminal abuse of the Internet, argues the prosecution. But defence counsel says the Internet has not changed the basic requirement that offenders have guilty intent. ‘Although encouraging others to commit crimes without intending that they in fact do so is morally reprehensible . . . the criminal law should not be extended, at the expense of established principle, to snare such persons.’
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| 2005-09-02 08:28:52 - Good blog Mira |
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