CyberLaw Blog

Archive for September 18th, 2008

Turkish court bans Richard Dawkins website | World news | guardian.co.uk: “Turkish court bans Richard Dawkins website

Riazat Butt, religious affairs correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 18 2008 13:46 BST

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (above) described the work of Muslim creationist Adnan Oktar as ‘preposterous’

A Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after a Muslim creationist claimed its contents were defamatory and blasphemous.

Adnan Oktar, who writes under the pen name of Harun Yahya, complained that Dawkins, a fierce critic of creationism and intelligent design, had insulted him in comments made on forums and blogs.

According to Oktar’s office, Istanbul’s second criminal court of peace banned the site earlier this month on the grounds that it ‘violated’ Oktar’s personality.

His press assistant, Seda Aral, said: ‘We are not against freedom of speech or expression but you cannot insult people.

‘We found the comments hurtful. It was not a scientific discussion. There was a line and the limit has been passed.

‘We have used all the legal means to stop this site. We asked them to remove the comments but they did not.’

Oktar, a household name in Turkey, has used hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDS to contest Darwin’s theory of evolution.

In 2006 his publishers sent out 10,000 copies of the Atlas of Creation, a lavish 800-page rejection of evolution.

Dawkins, one of the recipients, described the book as ‘preposterous’. On his website the British biologist and popular science writer said he was at ‘a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the ‘breathtaking inanity’ of the content.’

It is the third time Oktar and his associates have succeeded in blocking sites in Turkey.

In August 2007 Oktar persuaded a court to block access to WordPress.com. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material that the company was unwilling to remove.

Last April, he made a libel complaint about Google Groups, which was subsequently blocked.

He failed to ban Dawkins’ book the God Delusion in Turkey after a court rejected his claims that it insulted religion.”

Qaida’s Propaganda Sites, Smacked Down: “Al-Qaida’s once-robust online propaganda network has taken a major hit. The release of a 9/11 anniversary video was delayed by nearly a week. And one of the most-popular video-distribution sites is offline. One paper blames American bloggers. Online jihadists think it was the CIA.

(Via Wired News.)

Notorious Crime Forum DarkMarket Goes Dark: “The top hangout for credit card thieves and phishers announces it’s closing its doors, following the arrest of a Turkish hacker — and alleged kidnapper — prominent on the site.

(Via Wired News.)

(Via Techdirt.)

Will YouTube Ban Videos Of Putting Your Head In The Sand Next?: “It appears that Google’s YouTube subsidiary is caving to various government pressure concerning whatever videos the government doesn’t like. This started a while back when Google gave in to pressure from Thailand’s government to ban videos critical of that made fun of the country’s king. But, now the pace is ramping up. Last week, Google gave in to Senator Lieberman, agreeing to ban videos from terrorists, and the latest is giving in to pressure from the UK government to ban videos that show weapons used to intimidate people. Now, YouTube has always banned hate speech or threatening videos, so this new ban seems to go above and beyond that — including videos that show weapons being used to intimidate that aren’t threatening videos themselves. That seems pretty pointless again. The same videos will quickly appear on other sites, and rather than using YouTube as a way to track down anyone who might be breaking the law, Google is helping the UK government put their head in the sand and pretend no one ever is filmed doing anything bad with weapons.

Old news, but a new article on the Zundel Holocaust Denial prosecution in Germany.

Germany Convicts Non-Resident Blogger for Inciting Hatred by Denying Holocaust : Internet Business Law

Kelly O’Connell, IBLS Editor, Monday, September 15, 2008

Claiming the Holocaust is a hoax is illegal in Germany, even online, and a non-resident alien man who denied the veracity of the Third Reich’s “Final Solution” on a blog was imprisoned for the act. A German court sentenced Ernst Zündel, a former Tennessee, USA and Canadian resident, and lifelong Holocaust denier to five years in prison for incitement of racial hatred. His publications include “The Hitler We Loved and Why.” Zündel was convicted in Berlin on February 15, 2007, and received the harshest sentence possible for his acts.

The accused 67-year-old man was convicted in the regional court in Mannheim, Germany on 14 counts of incitement, including one charge involving offense and slander to the memory of the dead. The successful prosecution was a symbolic win for Germany, which has expressed a strong interest in making the act of Holocaust Denial an EU-wide crime, which has been defeated in such countries as Spain and Italy.

Mr. Zündel is a German citizen born in the Black Forest region, who immigrated to Canada at age 19 to avoid the draft. He spent the next four decades in Canada, where he began his pamphleteering career, releasing Nazi and anti-Jewish works. In the late 1970s he created Samisdat Publishers, one of world’s biggest distributors of Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda and memorabilia. He has also become a central “revisionist” figure and author for his Zündelsite, since 1995 a hub for Holocaust-denial propaganda.

Zündel was not popular with the Canadian Government, as his activities led to many trials when he lived in the country, between 1958 to 2001. Zündel married his neo-Nazi Webmaster, Ingrid Rimland, and they immigrated to Tennessee, USA in 2001. But his stay was short-lived as U.S. officials deported him back to Canada for visa violations, due to his Nazi-promotions as a security risk. When Zündel arrived in Toronto, he was arrested and detained until a Canadian judge ruled in March 2005 his activities posed a threat to national and international security. He was deported back to Germany.

German courts wasted no time prosecuting Zündel, charging him with inciting racial hatred, for publishing on his site such works as Arthur Butz’s “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century,” and Austin App’s “The Six Million Swindle.”

The law used in Zündel’s prosecution is found in the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB), promulgated on November 13, 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 945, p. 3322), in Section 130 Agitation of the People.

The law specifically focuses on Holocaust-deniers saying,

(3) “Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or renders harmless an act committed under the rule of National Socialism…in a manner capable of disturbing the public piece shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine. ”

One of the most controversial aspects of this case was the fact that all the publications had been made outside Germany, which some analysts argued took the crime outside of Germany’s jurisdiction to prosecute. Since all of Zündel’s publications were made outside of Germany, and created in Canada and the U.S., it could have been argued that the robust Anglo-American law of freedom of speech should have applied.

But German courts had already ruled on this issue, in the case of German-born Dr. Fredrick Töben, who was also charged with denying the Holocaust from the Adelaide Institute, in Australia. Toben was sentenced to 10 months in prison. He appealed on the grounds that since his Internet material was “printed” outside Germany, it should not be subject to German legislation. In response, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled that any persons publishing pro-Nazi material on the Internet is subject to German law, regardless of their country of origin.

Post from: TorrentFreak

Pirate Party Official Raided after Uncovering State Trojan: “

The spokesperson of the German Pirate Party saw his house raided after the party published a leaked document which showed that the government uses a homemade ‘trojan’ to wiretap Skype conversations. In addition, a server from another party member was seized.

The Pirate Party is known for it’s battle against the ever increasing government surveillance on the public. So, when an anonymous whistleblower sent them a internal document which showed that the government went as far as installing trojans on computers, they didn’t hesitate to publish it.

German authorities weren’t too happy about the leak, which might be illegal according to a criminal law specialist, and went after the source. Earlier this week police searched the home of the Pirate Party spokesperson where they hoped to find more information. In addition to the home search, a server from another party member was seized. The server, however, was fully encrypted, so chances are low that it will uncover the whistleblower.

In a response, Andreas Popp, Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party said: ‘A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized.’

Pirate Parties around the world will continue to speak out against these, and other privacy threats. The trojan in question (German) was able to tap into Skype calls and intercept traffic to encrypted websites.

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Bill seeks guidelines for US laptop searches: “

Some rules for border agents, please

US border agents can still snatch and search your laptop, mobile phone, or hard drive without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. But a bill introduced in Congress last week may enforce some guidelines on how the inspection is done.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)