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Actus reus and mens rea are both necessary in order for there to be a crime. In order to commit a crime, you need to do the criminal act and have the intention
by Canada 8y ago
Actus reus and mens rea are both necessary in order for there to be a crime. In order to commit a crime, you need to do the criminal act and have the intention or knowledge of the criminal act. And you have to do it willfully, which means you can't be forced to do so under duress.
If someone throws a bag full of contraband into your house you're not guilty of possession. It can sit there for an arbitrary period of time without making you guilty of anything as long as you don't know what it is.
If, against your will, someone handcuffs a locked briefcase that you know contains contraband to your wrist, you cannot be guilty of possession of it even though you're in a real sense in possession of it. It can remain there for an unlimited amount of time, and you are not guilty of anything merely because you are unable to remove it.
Immutable data structures pose an interesting problem. Normally we can say that someone knew, or ought of have known something was there. If someone handcuffed a briefcase to you, it's expected that you would freak out and do whatever you could to detach and dispossess it. We haven't had to deal with situations like someone being forcibly tattooed with what they know to be child pornography. If that happened, would the person so marked be guilty of possession if they didn't burn or cut it off?
New technology definitely makes those assumptions highly questionable. Is Google guilty of possession and redistribution of illegal material because it indexed and cached it? It is not. Distributed situations make the issue even more acute. Your computer might need to download, process, and redistribute to others some representation of child pornography, or copyrighted material you have no license to distribute, stolen credit card numbers, classified material, or some other prohibited material. You might even be aware that it is there. But if it is necessary that your software take those actions with that data, that you have no choice, in order to send to confirm receipt of funds, then is it justified or lawful to make it a crime for you to do so?
- johnwyles 8y ago> is it justified or lawful to make it a crime for you to do so? Certainly not. My point above yours although you were not replying to it is asking a question I'd like to also ask you. We clearly have a very clear definition on what intent is and how that is the resounding factor considered in such a case. However, do we simply do nothing because it's the nature of the project itself to be distributed and immutable history through time. We clearly cannot change the overwhelming applications that technology has so my guess is the only way this is dealt with is a few easy low-hanging fruit items can be done to safeguard against it and if anyone is caught operating outside of that with the sole intent of some illegal activity then we deal with it like we would any other case of illegal materials being found in someone's possession. The nice thing here is that everything is traceable given enough time and calculating power and that this person can theoretically be caught, even if at one point they were to have paid cash for coins with someone off the street. Good old detective work can kick in from there. I guess I am more curious if these instances can be used to shoehorn law enforcement or the federal agencies into areas that hinder the full capability of the various blockchain applications. I remember back to the San Bernardino shooters cell phone needing to be unlocked and how nail-biting it was that Apple might give away that they had a secret backdoor they were willing to give out to all of our horror. Likewise I hope this doesn't go that same route, and it seems really unlikely, that something such as this would slow the progress of these technologies - not building a backdoor but slowly down transactions to check for illegal content essentially.