CyberLaw Blog

Archive for May 28th, 2009

Australian government admits less than 32% of secret censorship list is related to underage images – Wikileaks

From Wikileaks, May 26, 2009

WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL

The Australian government told a Senate estimates hearing this week that less than 32% of the country’s secret internet censorship list is related to underage images.

During the hearing, the government also stated that the WikiLeaks publication of the full list in March has now been officially referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) ‘blacklist’ is slated to form the backbone of a national, mandatory, internet censorship system.

ACMA admitted that:

* A mere 32% of the secret censorship list is related to a category covering potentially sexually provocative images of persons appearing to be under the age of 18, pages with links to these images or other ‘child abuse’ information. The list is claimed, by the government, to be for tackling child pornography.

* After an unusual delay, the Australian government have now officially referred the publication of the list to the Australian Federal Police. It is alleged that WikiLeaks’ release of the censorship list is illegal under Australian law.

* Subsequent to revelations by WikiLeaks that the secret list contained many harmless or political sites (including WikiLeaks itself) around 150 have been removed from the list. At the time ACMA admitted the list held over 1100 URLs. ACMA now claims the censorship list has 977 URLs.

In light of the Senate testimony, it is worth repeating what WikiLeaks stated when it released the censorship list on the 18th of March, 2009:

‘While WikiLeaks is used to exposing secret government censorship in developing countries, we now find Australia acting like a democratic backwater. Apparently without irony, ACMA threatens fines of upto $11,000 a day for linking to sites on its secret, unreviewable, censorship blacklist — a list the government hopes to expand into a giant national censorship machine.

History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behavior.

This week saw Australia joining China and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries censoring WikiLeaks. We were not notified by ACMA.

In December last year we released the secret Internet censorship list for Thailand. Of the sites censored in 2008, 1,203 sites were classified as ‘lese majeste’ — criticizing the Royal family. Like Australia, the Thai censorship system was originally pushed to be a mechanism to prevent the child pornography.

Research shows that while such blacklists are dangerous to ‘above ground’ activities such as political discourse, they have little effect on the production of child pornography, and by diverting resources and attention from traditional policing actions, may even be counter-productive. For a fascinating insider’s account, see ‘An insight into child porn’.

In January 2009, the Thai system was used to censor Australian reportage about the imprisonment of Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer, who wrote a novel containing a single paragraph deemed to be critical of the Thai Monarchy.

Most of the sites on the Australian list have no obvious connection to child pornography. Some have changed owners while others were clearly always about other subjects.’

Children depend, even more than their parents, on the quality and viability of government. Corruption of those traditions which keep government honest and accountable – public oversight, natural justice, and protection from state censorship – is not just an affront to Enlightenment ideals, but an assault on the interests of children.

The full Senate transcript follows:

Sweden challenges EU data retention directiveSweden challenges EU data retention directive

By Mikael Ricknäs, May 27, 2009 12:08 PM ET

IDG News Service – Sweden is being sued by the European Commission for not implementing a European Union directive requiring network operators to retain details of phone calls and e-mail messages.

Instead of hurrying the implementation process, some politicians view the suit as an opportunity to challenge the directive’s consistency with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Sweden would show real European leadership if it were to see to it that the data retention directive is consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights, wrote Camilla Lindberg, a member of the Swedish parliament for the Liberal Party, and Erik Josefsson, a candidate for the European Parliament for the Left Party, in an article for the newspaper Svenska Dagladet.

The two debated whether general data retention is consistent with what is necessary in a democratic society, and say that the directive is a bad and expensive tool when it comes to protecting citizen freedoms and rights. Lindberg and Josefsson said the directive goes against the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the European Court of Justice would agree.

The two politicians underscored the fact that other countries have been slow to implement the data retention law. Austria, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland are also late, they said.

Swedish Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask told Svenska Dagladet that the implementation of the data retention directive isn’t her favorite project, but a bill is on the way and will be ready soon.

Anything related to personal integrity on the Internet has become a hot-button issue in Sweden in the wake of the Pirate Bay file-sharing trial. The Pirate Party, which is not affiliated with Pirate Bay, received about 8% of the votes, making it the third largest party, in a recent poll ahead of elections to the European Parliament. The party focuses on Internet-related issues.

Also, on Tuesday, Swedish Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth was criticized for praising the guilty verdict handed down against the people behind the Pirate Bay.

eBay not liable for L’Oreal fakes sold in UK: “Ebay won another important legal victory this morning when the High Court
ruled the internet auction group is not legally accountable for the sale of
counterfeit L’Oreal cosmetics on its UK website.”

(Via Law News from Times Online.)

Iranians and Others Outwit Net Censors: “Computers are becoming more crucial in global conflicts, not only in spying and military action, but also in determining what information reaches people.”

(Via NYT > Freedom of Speech and Expression.)

Police retention of photos of innocent man breached his right to privacy, says Court of Appeal: “Police should not have kept photos taken of an arms trade protester, the Court of Appeal has ruled. The retention of the photos long after the peaceful protest was a breach of the man’s right to privacy, the Court ruled.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)