picking locks

[chris]

>Is this one of those laws where if you're caught in the middle of the 
>night on a stranger's doorstip with a set of lockpicks then you're 
>comitting a crime (which IMHO is quite reaosnable) but if you happen to 
>be at a friend's house repairing a PDP11/o5 then you do have a legal 
>reason to have said lockpicks?

Yup, that is exactly the kind of law it is. It really isn't enforced by 
itself (they don't round people up for owning lock picks), it is just 
used as an aid to arrest/detain someone that you have a really strong 
hunch is up to no good (and as a way to confiscate the tools from someone 
that you are sure plans to use them to commit a crime... this is done in 
inner city schools when kids pass thru metal detectors and are found to 
have various items that have perfectly legit uses... but you know the kid 
doesn't have it for one of those reasons... box cutters are the most 
common item)

-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>