ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
New European Union cybercrime rules approved by the 15 national justice
ministers last Friday are creating concerns amongst political activists and
legal experts because the rules don't differentiate between a real criminal
and political protesters expressing their views by e-mail. The 15 European
ministers signed up to a code on cybercrime that makes no legal distinction
between an online protester and the terrorists, virus merchants and hackers
the code is designed to trap, according to legal practitioners and
academics. "The code does not ensure that freedom of expression will be
respected," said Thomas Vinje, a partner at law firm Morrison & Foerster
LLP. He described the text agreed as "unbalanced and unfortunate." Ulrich
Sieber, a professor of law at Munich University, said lawmakers should
amend the text, adding a specific reference to the freedom of expression
article in the Convention of Human Rights.
In its introduction, the code references a recently adopted Council of
Europe charter on cybercrime, which defines unsolicited e-mails designed to
hinder the computer system of the recipient of the message as criminal
activity. If EU citizens bombarded British prime minister Tony Blair's
e-mail, fax or phone lines in the way thousands of American protesters
targeted government offices in Washington last week, they could have
committed a criminal offense under this new code, said Leon de Costa, chief
executive of Judicium, a London-based legal consultancy. "This code appears
to catch overt protesters as well as covert criminals," de Costa said,
adding that "it criminalizes behavior which until now has been seen as
lawful civil disobedience." The code forces all 15 Union countries to adopt
a new criminal offense: illegal access to, and illegal interference with an
information system, and calls on national courts to impose jail terms of at
least two years in serious cases. In addition, a person found violating the
code may also face non-criminal proceedings such as sanctions, which could
prevent them from getting public benefits or aid. It could also mean being
placed under judicial supervision or even a temporary or permanent
disqualification from the practice of commercial activities.
Italian European Parliamentarian Marco Cappato said the cybercrime decision
is one of many examples of civil liberties in the European Union being
compromised in the name of security. "It's not an isolated case," he said,
adding that it is "no accident" that there is no specific reference to
people's rights to freedom of expression. Sources: Help Net Security, PC
Advisor, EurActive, EU Observer, IDG
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< Report From University of MD, College Park Anti-War Action |
Papanastasiou: When capitalists get erections, countries go to war. >
pr writes on Thursday March 06 2003 @ 03:44AM PST: [ reply | parent ]
Germany,France,Switzerland,Spain,Greece and the UK with the RIPA do not
inspire confidence with their records.The mother of all battles is coming
for the future of all.A totalitarian world state or peaceful
anarchy...there can be only one. For a RIPA workaraound see...
M-o-o-t aims to beat RIPA powers by storing encryption keys and other data
overseas, beyond the reach of investigators. No data will be stored on the
computer's hardware.
Documents and email messages will be kept on servers outside the UK
government's jurisdiction. Communication with these servers will be secured
by encryption.
It will be possible to store files on any server that allows encrypted File
Transfer Protocol (secure FTP) access. It will even be possible to share
files between different servers, meaning that if one server were
compromised, this would still not provide a complete file.
M-o-o-t will be almost entirely contained on a CD that will run on most PCs
and Macintosh computers. The CD must be placed in a computer at start up
and will then load up a graphical user interface, as well as a number of
applications including an email client and a word processor. Fairbrother
says the system aims to make it easy for anyone to use the suite of tried
and tested cryptographic protocols that M-o-o-t combines.
http://www.haqgear.com/forum.asp?FORUM=2&TYPE=COL313
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/03/05/1361980
