CyberLaw Blog

Archive for November, 2008

Post from: TorrentFreak

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Anti-Piracy Lobby Defeats European Democracy: “

An amendment designed to protect Internet users from the anti-piracy lobby has been rejected by President Sarkozy of the European Council. The rejection goes against the will of the European Parliament, where 88% of the members already voted in favor of the amendment, which was originally destined to protect file-sharers from Internet disconnection under the ‘3 strikes’ framework.

When the European Parliament accepted the amendment this September, it did so to protect the rights and freedoms of Internet users. This was much needed, as in recent years, anti-piracy lobby groups have called for tougher monitoring of Internet users and are actively working to erode their rights further.

The amendment, drafted by Guy Bono and other members of the European Parliament, was supposed to put a halt to the march of the anti-piracy lobby. However, despite the fact that is was adopted by an overwhelming majority, with 573 parliament members voting in favor with just 74 rejections, the European Council went against this democratic vote.

In September, Bono stated in a response to the vote: ‘You do not play with individual freedoms like that,’ going on to say that the French government should review its three-strikes law. Sarkozy had other plans though, and in his position of President of the European Council, he convinced his friends this Thursday to reject the proposal.

The rejection also goes against conclusions from the EU culture ministers last week, who sided with the more balanced view of the European Commission, by encouraging copyright holders to work on offering ‘high quality, accessible, easy to use and consumer friendly’ content online – instead of chasing pirates.

Guy Bono was appalled by the recent decision of the Council, which he referred to as ‘an arrangement between friends.’ Not all is lost though, the amendment might pass in January or February 2009, when it will be proposed again. However, as Bono noted, this initial rejection is likely to result in a negative image of European democracy.

It seems that the lobbying efforts of the MPAA, RIAA and others have paid off, and for France and other European member states the road to a ‘three-strikes law’ for alleged pirates is now wide open again.

In France, Sarkozy will now go forward with implementing his controversial three-strikes law. We can only hope that other European countries wont follow this example. What a great demokarzy Europe has.

You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?: “An emerging field called collective intelligence could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

Press Release:Turkey’s cyber-censorship challenged by MEP Delegation

27 November 2008, 10:00am

Turkey’s status as the only country in the world which blocks ‘YouTube’ is being challenged by a leading advocate of the country’s European Union membership, during a high level parliamentary human rights delegation.

British Labour Euro MP Richard Howitt highlighted that the one thousand websites blocked in Turkey puts the country alongside Iran, North Korea and Vietnam as one of the world’s worst offenders for cyber censorship. Richard Howitt MEP is calling for legal reform both to respect freedom of expression as well as advancing the country’s economic interests.

The British Euro MP will call for the ban to be overturned at a meeting with Turkish Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin in Ankara today.

Richard Howitt MEP, who is Vice-President of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-Committee visiting Turkey this week said:

‘As a modern country looking forward to European Union membership, Turkey should be embracing new communications rather than putting itself in the same bracket as some of the world’s pariah states.

‘Whilst honouring Turkey’s founder, Ataturk, blocking more than 50 websites for insulting his memory cannot be equated with banning sites for child pornography or paedophilia.

‘Britain’s Queen has her own channel on YouTube and Turkey should be exploiting the political and economic opportunities it provides, rather than seeking to ban it.

‘Banning YouTube, Google’s blogging site, the websites of a teachers’ trade union, Richard Dawkins and even a Turkish dictionary stands alongside more than 40 cases against writers and journalists even since the reform of the so-called anti-Turkishness article of the country’s penal code.

‘It shows the battle for free speech is integral to the changes the country needs to make to uphold European and human rights law.’

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Turkey’s Telecommunications Directorate has blocked over 1,000 websites since last year under the country’s law against cyber crime, which includes offences insulting the memory of Ataturk. Turkey is named alongside Vietnam, Tunisia, North Korea Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Iran for internet censorship by the Turkish Bar Association Information Centre. The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders this week condemned a fourth court order blocking access to YouTube, in the same week that British based cyber-rights.org published a new report entitled Internet: Restricted Access in Turkey.

National Secular Society – NSS provokes protest about Turkey’s internet ban on Dawkins: “NSS provokes protest about Turkey’s internet ban on Dawkins

The National Secular Society has joined with a Dutch MEP to complain to the EU Enlargement Commissioner about a Turkish ban on the internet site of Richard Dawkins.

The Dutch MEP Sophie in ’t Veld, who is an Honorary Associate of the NSS, has written to Oli Rehn, the commissioner in charge of considering whether candidate countries are ready to join the European Union, complaining about a Turkish court decision to ban Richard Dawkins’ website.

In the letter, Ms in ’t Veld writes that she wishes Mr Rehn to investigate ‘the blocking of the website of Professor Richard Dawkins, the world-famous evolutionary biologist. A criminal court in Istanbul reportedly banned the site in September 2008 on the grounds that it ‘violated’ Adnan Oktar’s personality after Professor Dawkins criticised Oktar’s lavishly-produced creationist book Atlas of Creation, which is being distributed in Europe in large numbers.’

Ms in ’t Veld says that it is a requirement that countries seeking to accede to the European Union must observe a fundamental right to free expression. On the face of it, the case referred to was a violation of that principle.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, who had asked Ms in ’t Veld to take the matter up, said: ‘Such a crude denial of basic free expression is surely not acceptable in a country that seeks to be part of the EU. We hope that our action will cause Turkey to urgently rethink this matter.’

You can ask your own MEP to support Sophie in ’t Veld’s protest. If you don’t know who your MEP is, you can find out here

See letter and appendices here

Watch Richard Dawkins ripping into The Atlas of Creation.

28 November 2008″

(Via .)

‘Letter to the European Parliament on Turkey’s banning of RichardDawkins.net’ by Sophie in ‘t Veld MEP – RichardDawkins.net

Brussels, 18 November 2008

Olli Rehn
Commissioner for Enlargement
European Commission
rue de la Loi 200
1040 Brussels

Dear Commissioner Rehn, dear Olli,

I am writing to express my concern at reports of a Turkish court compromising freedom of expression in the context of Turkey’s application to join the EU.

I would like you to investigate the specific example given below and attempt to see if it forms (as we fear) part of a wider picture of concern, and take the matter up with the Turkish authorities.

The example we cite relates to the blocking of the website of Professor Richard Dawkins, the world-famous evolutionary biologist. A criminal court in Istanbul reportedly banned the site in September 2008 on the grounds that it ‘violated’ Adnan Oktar’s personality after Professor Dawkins criticised Oktar creationist book ‘Atlas of Creation’, which is being distributed in Europe in large numbers.

The basis of our complaint is the web/press reports shown in Appendix 1, which were drawn to my attention by the UK’s National Secular Society of which I am a Honorary Associate. I am also writing as the Chair of the EU Working Group for the Separation of Religion and Politics.

Such blockings are in stark contrast to the progress you have been calling for as one of the conditions for Turkey’s succession to the EU. What is happening is worse than Turkish authorities not standing up for freedom of expression; it appears that the state’s mechanism itself is enforcing the restriction on freedom of expression.

Our concern about the banning does not rest in principle on Professor Dawkins’ eminence; however the court’s decision is all the more worrying, given it is difficult to think of anyone more qualified than him to speak on science matters, being the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/index.shtml

We believe it essential that the EU remains committed to insisting that countries are not permitted to accede until they conform to fundamental rights. We admire your work in this area and note in Appendix 2 below a number of references you have made to requiring Turkey to improve freedom of expression, for the benefit of others who read this letter, which we regard as an open one.

I look forward to receiving confirmation that you intend to investigate the matter, and subsequently what action you intend to take, including making references to renewed concerns in your reports about the progress being made by candidate states in the vital areas of fundamental rights.

Yours sincerely,

Sophie in ’t Veld MEP

European parliamentarians urge Turkey to remove YouTube ban

28.11.2008

A delegation from the European Parliament urged Turkish officials to make the necessary legal arrangements to enhance freedom of expression and eventually lift the ban on access to YouTube.

European parliamentarians urge Turkey to remove YouTube ban

‘Banning YouTube, Google’s blogging site, the websites of a teachers’ trade union, Richard Dawkins and even a Turkish dictionary stands alongside more than 40 cases against writers and journalists even since the reform of the so-called anti-Turkishness article of the penal code,’ Richard Howitt, the vice president of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-Committee, said in a written statement on Friday.

The British Euro MP called for the ban to be overturned at a meeting with Turkish Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin in Ankara on Thursday, the statement added.

Howitt criticized the ban, saying that around 1,000 websites are blocked in Turkey and this places the country alongside some of the world’s worst nations for cyber censorship.

As a modern country looking forward to European Union membership, Turkey should be embracing new communications rather than putting itself in the same bracket as some of the world’s pariah states, Howitt added in the statement.

‘Whilst honoring Turkey’s founder, Ataturk, blocking more than 50 websites for insulting his memory cannot be equated with banning sites for child pornography or pedophilia,’ he said.

Access to the world’s largest video-sharing site, YouTube, has been blocked from Turkey for months. Last week, Turkish Prime Minister surprised everybody when he said that he can access the YouTube and everyone else should do as well.

(Via .)

This is something we addressed recently in Internet: Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey.

Turkish Daily News: Banned YouTube still in Top 10

November 26, 2008 Wednesday

Despite being banned, the video-sharing site YouTube remains as one of the most popular Web sites in Turkey, with many, including the prime minister, finding ways to get around the ban

According to the www.alexa.com Web site that categorizes the popularity of over 100 million sites, YouTube is the tenth most visited site in Turkey

Google Turkey, Face Book and Google are the most popular websites.

According to alexa.com, more than a million Internet users in Turkey visit the site

Two courts ordered YouTube banned in response to videos that it deemed insulting to Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Under Turkish law, it is a crime to insult Ataturk. However, surfers can still use proxy servers such as vtunnel or ninjacloak to enter blocked sites by hiding their IP address. The irony highlights the legal system’s mistreatment of the medium and lack of technical knowledge

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan surprised everybody when he said last Thursday that he could access YouTube, despite the ban. Erdogan said he watched the ceremony of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party, or CHP, in which headscarf-wearing women became members of the party, on YouTube

When the reporters reminded him of the ban. “I can access (YouTube), you do it, too,” he replied

Just be entering “YouTube’a nasil girilir?” (How to enter Youtube?) or “YouTube’a girmenin yollari” (Ways to enter YouTube) in google or yahoo search engine, up come hundreds of thousands of results, showing just how hard it is to censor the Internet in the information age

Post from: TorrentFreak

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Reports: Orange Customers Blocked From The Pirate Bay: “

The Pirate Bay isn’t new to the experience of being blocked by European ISPs. Now, according to many customers of the ISP Orange, it has been impossible to access the site for the last five days, unless they route their traffic through a proxy. Are Orange really taking the bold step of censoring the world’s largest tracker?

Orange is a very large ISP, serving more than 10 million customers across the UK, France, Spain, Switzerland and several other countries.

No stranger to criticism, in March 2007 UK consumer protection TV show ‘Watchdog’ held a survey which deemed Orange to be the worst ISP in the UK, with the most unreliable broadband service. The survey revealed that the company also had the greatest number of dissatisfied customers and, if recent reports prove correct, Orange are about to start accumulating a few more.

Last Friday, reports started coming in from UK Orange Broadband users, all of them complaining that they can no longer access The Pirate Bay. Initially it seemed that the difficulties could be related to technical issues but as the days have passed, the situation hasn’t changed. Worryingly, the situation is mirrored by Orange customers in France who are also complaining the ‘bay is off-limits.

Some Orange customers with this problem remembered that when The Pirate Bay was blocked in Italy, a new domain was setup (labaia.org) to sidestep the restrictions, but unfortunately this domain is inaccessible to them too. However, many are finding that if they use a proxy site, such as BlockedSiteAccess.com or Megaproxy, The Pirate Bay reappears.

Customers have been complaining to Orange themselves, who haven’t given any indication of how to successfully solve the problem, while neither confirming nor denying claims of a block. Yesterday, TorrentFreak contacted Orange’s PR company for comment and, after a reminder today, received this response:

Our understanding is that Orange doesn’t block access to any sites other than those identified by the Internet Watch Foundation, that relate to illegal child abuse imagery. However, we’re looking into this and will update you again as soon as we can.

Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak that they are aware of the problem and are looking into it.

We will update this post as soon as Orange respond definitively, but in the meantime, if you are an Orange customer we would like to hear of your experiences in the comment section.

Update 26/11/08: It’s now 48 hours since we first asked Orange about this problem (and 6 days since it started receiving complaints direct from its subscribers) and we have heard nothing from them, other than the quote above. Sorry folks, but whatever the reason for the problem (block/DNS/other technical issue) it seems Orange doesn’t want to respond to customer complaints.

ICO to get powers to audit public bodies without consent: “The Information Commissioner will be able to perform spot-checks on government departments and public sector bodies to make sure they are complying with the Data Protection Act under new plans announced by the Government yesterday.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

The UK does not need a data breach notification law, says Government: “The Government has rejected calls for a law that would require significant data security breaches to be notified to the country’s privacy regulator. It said that notification to the Information Commissioner should be a matter of good practice, not law.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)