You might not be familiar with the case of “Brandon X”, so here’s a quick review: he was stopped at the Canadian border, and the authorities went through his computer. They found some manga, decided it was child porn, and arrested him.
So was he a perv? We haven’t seen the art, but the law essentially says you only have to think it’s kiddie porn to arrest somebody. Seriously. It’s the same cheerfully broad law that let Canadian customs impound and possibly destroy lots of comics because they personally found them offensive.
The good news is that Brandon X will face no criminal charges, thanks to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. The bad news is that he basically has to agree that he broke Canadian customs law, even though the Canadian authorities spent a year basically treating him like garbage and they essentially have no genuine case under any sort of sane standards: Brandon X just doesn’t want to risk going to jail.
In a decent world, how he was treated and the actions of these law enforcement officers would be subject to review and he would get a sincere, honest apology. But considering who’s currently running Canada, somehow we doubt that’s going to happen.
image via futureatlas on Flickr