A US court has backtracked on a statement that child porn images viewed using a computer were legal as long as they were not intended to be saved on the hard drive.
Judge Richard Klein had originally said that the law was not clear when it came to "knowing possession" of content.
The statement was made in the case of Anthony Diodoro, who admitted visiting websites specifically to view images of child pornography.
Judge Klein said that the law dealt with images that were retained rather than viewed and that, since Diodoro had not explicitly saved them on his computer, it did not apply.
However, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania overruled the opinion expressed by Judge Klein in November last year and has ordered a full hearing of the case.