Tor exit nodes and "mere conduit"?

The operator of a Tor exit node has been charged with distributing child pornography / indecent images of children, according to this report on Ars Technica.

For those who have not come across Tor before, it is a system for anonymous communication:

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.

I am not familiar with Austrian law, but, were I in this position — and I must confess that I have advised against running Tor exit nodes before, on the basis of the possibility, which I'd actually rated as a likelihood, of law enforcement activity against you as the operator — I would be looking to argue that I was protected by Art. 12, 2000/31/EC:

Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the provision of access to a communication network, Member States shall ensure that the service provider is not liable for the information transmitted, on condition that the provider:

• does not initiate the transmission; 
• does not select the receiver of the transmission; and 
• does not select or modify the information contained in the transmission.

This the "common carrier" wording which most Internet access providers rely on as a shield from prosecution for exactly this sort of activity — there's a bit of a disjunct around whether the activity is actually the provision of an electronic communications service rather than an information society service, but the underlying principle seems that it should apply here.

Internet access at home a human right

The question whether Internet access is a human right seems to come up pretty frequently. But I'd not seen the construct that Internet access at home was a human right — and that's what the Court of Appeal in the UK appears to have said, according to the Guardian.

In overturning a decision prohibiting a sex offender from going online as part of his sentence, the court ruled that it is "unreasonable nowadays to ban anyone from accessing the internet in their home."

Wow.