[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] on Monday that computer and PO box use restrictions placed on those convicted of child pornography offenses [statute text] are reasonable as long as they are reasonably connected to their conviction and are construed narrowly enough to allow legitimate computer and mail use. The issue came before the court due to a challenge made by Robert Goddard against restrictions placed upon him as conditions of his supervised release [statute text] after he was convicted of downloading and possessing child pornography. The court clarified the limitations placed on computer use and upheld the PO box and other restrictions:

We believe that two of the computer conditions are problematic if broadly construed, because they could be read to prohibit all use of a computer except for work and to make the use of a work computer impracticable. However, these conditions involve no greater a deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary if narrowly construed to allow personal computer use as approved by the probation officer and not to condition routine or automatic software additions, deletions, upgrades, updates, installations, repairs, or other modifications on prior approval. So construed, we approve the computer conditions and conclude that the remaining conditions are also reasonable. [citations omitted]