[Hizonner]

... and yet it is not illegal to do that search. You will not be fined, imprisoned, or whatever, for doing the search.

The fact that something can, in some circumstances, be evidence doesn't mean it's a crime, and the distinction is absolutely critical in the context we're dealing with here.

[fsckboy]

all of the evidence taken together is what convicts you of a crime. People have been convicted of murder where no body was ever found. You can't point to any piece of the evidence that was used to convict and say "well that was not a crime, so leave it out". My explanation here of how evidence is used in court in gaining convictions is more accurate and realistic than the distinction you are are trying to make.

[Hizonner]

This started with somebody snarkily asking what the US fine was for just visiting a "forbidden" Web site, in the context of a Brazilian court order applying a large fine for just visiting Xitter. Not visiting Xitter in the course of planning a murder, not visiting Xitter in the context of sedition or whatever, just visiting any content on Xitter for any reason whatsoever.

It's pretty clear that this person thought there were such penalties, but in fact the US has absolutely nothing analogous. No order remotely like that would be issued in the US, because it's so obviously unconstitutional. If some third-tier hick judge did issue such an order, it would be overturned on appeal. If it were issued by the Supreme Court (and, no, not even the current Supreme Court would do that), all hell would break loose throughout the political system. It'd be a constitutional crisis. There are no such fines in the US. The US does lots of things wrong, but this is one of the areas the US tends to get right.

You're dredging up unrelated scenarios involving not-even-hypothetically-existent crimes that nobody was talking about. This is not about trying to use Web site visits to set somebody up for some crime they didn't commit, or even for some crime they did commit. Your weird scenario about, I don't know, being wrongfully charged with something else because your Web history somehow made somebody think you'd done it, is completely out of left field. The issue is entirely whether there's a penalty for visiting a Web site, and what you're talking about is totally irrelevant. And the hypothetical you seem to be trying to spin sounds less like being convicted of murder when there's no body, and more like being convicted of murder when the victim is known to be alive.