CyberLaw Blog

Archive for June 19th, 2009

Iran Threatens Bloggers, ‘Deviant News Sites’: “Iran’s bloggers and in-country journalists are told to tone down their rhetoric by the fearsome Revolutionary Guard, or face some unpleasant consequences.

(Via Wired News.)

Porn and Pedophilia: Cause and Effect?: “Recently, Morality in Media President Robert Peters called into question the efficacy and integrity of the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP).”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

German parliament passes bill in fight against child pornography sites | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 19.06.2009

The German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, has adopted a new set of laws making it possible to block child pornography Web sites.

The legislation requires Web hosting companies to post ’stop’ signs when internet users try to access child pornography sites. The bill still has to go through several stages before it becomes law.

The motion has been the subject of a protest petition, with opponents claiming it is a first step towards Internet censorship. The petition has gathered 130,000 signatures calling for the bill to be scrapped.

The proposed law has been promoted by Family Affairs Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who claimed it was an ‘important sign from society.

‘We in Germany won’t stand for it any longer that images of children being raped can be called up on the Web,’ said Leyen.

Lawmakers modified the bill to respond to the criticism and added a sunset clause whereby the legislation would expire after three years.

Others claimed that the bill did not go far enough in restricting access to child pornography.

Internet users will still be able to access child pornography sites even after the stop sign appears, but they will have to click through the warning, which informs them that viewing child pornography is a crime.

Once the legislation passes, police officials will have to draw up a list of Web sites that feature child pornography and send the list to all telecommunications companies.

The bill also requires Germany’s chief privacy commissioner, Peter Schaar, to regularly view the lists. Schaar has opposed this, saying it is not his job.

av/AP/dpa
Editor: Rick Demarest

Censored Street Views: Google Bows to German Data Privacy Demands: “The dispute between Google and the data protection office in Hamburg over the company’s Street View service has been settled. Google has agreed to erase identifiable raw data depicting people, property or cars upon request.”

(Via SPIEGEL ONLINE – International.)

Iran’s Twitter Revolution: Ahmadinejad’s Fear of the Internet: “With the Iranian authorities cracking down on the international press, the West is reliant on the Internet to find out what is happening on the ground. Hard as it might try, it will be difficult for the regime to easily stop the flow of information online. Web users around the world are rallying behind the protesters.”

(Via SPIEGEL ONLINE – International.)

China Orders Patches to Planned Web Filter: “Efforts to improve a censorship application suggest that the government still supports its use.



“

(Via NYT > Technology.)

Google, Facebook rush Iranian language support: “

Twitter has the starring role as opening up Net communications about Iran’s turbulent politics, but Google and Facebook are jumping in with their its own hasty efforts.

Google is adding Farsi, or Persian, language support to its translation service, the company announced Thursday night. Google rushed out the support …

“

(Via The Iconoclast.)

Directorate of Communication – Council of Europe Conference of Justice Ministers – Twelve Council of Europe member states sign the Convention on Access to Official Documents

Press release – 486(2009)

Council of Europe Conference of Justice Ministers – Twelve Council of Europe member states sign the Convention on Access to Official Documents

Tromsø (Norvège), 18.06.2009 – Twelve Council of Europe member states today signed the Convention on Access to Official Documents (CETS n° 205), the first binding international legal instrument laying down a general right of access to official documents.

This new Council of Europe Convention is the first binding international legal instrument to recognise a general right of access to official documents held by public authorities. Transparency of public authorities is a key feature of good governance and an indicator of whether or not a society is genuinely democratic and pluralist, opposed to all forms of corruption, capable of criticising those who govern it, and open to enlightened participation of citizens in matters of public interest. The right of access to official documents is also essential to the self-development of people and to the exercise of fundamental human rights. It also strengthens public authorities’ legitimacy in the eyes of the public, and its confidence in them.

Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Montenegro (*), Norway, Serbia (**), Slovenia, Sweden and ‘the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ signed the Convention at the beginning of the 29th Conference of the European Ministers of Justice which is being held on domestic violence on 18 and 19 June in Tromsø. The convention will enter into force once it has been ratified by five states.

The Convention sets forth the minimum standards to be applied in the processing of requests for access to official documents (forms of and charges for access to official documents), review procedure and complementary measures. Limitations on the right of access to official documents are only permitted in order to protect certain interests like national security, defence or privacy.

Establishing a common basis of minimum standards, derived from the widely diverse experience and practice found within the Council of Europe’s 47 member States, the Convention has the flexibility required to allow national laws to build on this foundation and provide even greater access to official documents.

Internet proxies let Iranians and others connect to blocked Web sites | Science & Technology | Deutsche Welle | 18.06.2009

New media tools like Twitter have helped organize protests from Georgia to Guatemala and, now, Iran. Experts say regimes can block access to such sites, but proxy technology helps keep lines of communication open.

With independent media blocked from reporting on recent demonstrations in Iran after Friday’s election, many people around the world turned to the micro-blog service Twitter for a detailed account of events in Tehran and other Iranian cities.

But if the Iranian government so chose, it could attempt to cut off Iranians’ direct access to Twitter and other social media services to prevent the spread of information, according to Yaman Akdeniz, director of the UK-based Cyber-Rights.org.

“Undemocratic countries like Iran rely on crude blocking and filtering mechanisms to limit their citizen’s usage of the Internet temporarily, or indefinitely,” he said. “The true extent of the Internet censorship attempts in Iran remains to be seen.”

Tehran blocked the popular networking site Facebook for two days before the elections and only restored access after a massive public outcry. Since the elections, authorities have attempted to deny access to several pro-opposition Web sites and news portals likely to challenge current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announced victory, according to the media rights group Reporters Without Borders.

Anonymous Web surfing

There are, however, technical ways for Iranians – and others living under repressive regimes that filter the Internet – to access all the material on the World Wide Web, according to Akdeniz.

“However hard the governments try, total censorship and control will not be achieved on the Internet,” he added. “Going back to the topic, the Iranians will find ways and means of accessing the Internet, regardless of their government’s crude attempt to control the free flow of information.”

Computers outside the country filtering the Web can be set up as so-called proxy servers, which pass along information from one Internet connection to another like an anonymous virtual messenger whose presence doesn’t tip off security authorities.

Reporters Without Borders has for years encouraged cyber-dissidents to make use of such proxy services, including the popular program Tor, which passes data through a random series of three computers before it arrives at its destination.

Mirroring Internet traffic

The program, which builds a network of currently about 2,000 volunteers who act as online go-betweens, allows, for example, an Iranian to see otherwise blocked sites by encrypting and routing his request through a series of three random computers with access to the entire Web, then sending the data they acquire back through the same anonymous network, explains Andrew Lewman, the executive director of the Tor Project.

“Someone watching the Internet would not be able to track who you are and where you are going,” he said, adding that the number of Tor connections from Iran has doubled since last week’s election, moving the nation up the Tor user list from near the bottom 50 to within the top 15 of the some 500,000 people using Tor each day,

More people using the network, regardless of their location or what they’re doing on the Web, makes Tor more effective at making the Internet anonymous, Lewman said, adding that the service is simple to install and wouldn’t work if only activists and dissidents used the program.

“The more normal people who turn on a connection on their home computer the better, because then it looks more and more like the general Internet,” he said. “If Tor becomes an activists’ network and anyone watching would say, ‘That’s an activist network connection; we should watch that.’”

Proxy critics remain

Despite the protection proxy services offer those living under oppressive governments, the system does have some detractors. Critics say the network can be taken advantage of by terrorists and other criminals. That’s an argument Lewman said isn’t as persuasive as it may seem.

“Criminals have far better anonymity and privacy than most likely anyone in the world,” he said. “If you’re already willing to break the law, then you can do far more private things. If you steal a person’s identity on the Internet you’ll have more anonymity than any tool can provide.”

While Tor and other tools can help Web users get around the blocks and filters governments put on the Internet, they should not be seen as the final answer in the fight to stop online censorship, according to Akdeniz.

“Circumvention technologies provide only a partial solution to the problem of Internet censorship,” he said. “Unless there is a process towards democratization and openness, censorship will be the norm.”

Author: Sean Sinico

Editor: Susan Houlton

CBS Editorial Urges Internet Providers Remove “Hate Speech”

Kurt Nimmo, Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 17, 2009

James von Brunn, the accused Holocaust museum shooter, has predictably become the poster child for attacking the First Amendment and conducting a purge of free speech on the internet.
featured stories CBS Editorial Urges Internet Providers Remove Hate Speech.

Christopher Wolf, chair of the Anti-Defamation League’s Internet Task Force and Immediate Past Chair of the International Network Against Cyber-Hate, writes that Web 2.0 technology has transformed “the way the Internet is being used. Any hater and propagandist can reach a mass audience, even an audience that didn’t think itself receptive to such hateful ideas. With the users of Web 2.0 comprised largely of younger people, the impact of the information posted there may persist for generations to come.”

Web 2.0 is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the web. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, and blogs.

“Blogging and social media sites are changing the way people communicate their reactions to events in the news and interact with each other. Those who harbor anti-Semitic beliefs are comfortable expressing themselves in cyberspace, where they can provoke a reaction from others or find like-minded individuals to affirm their beliefs,” writes Wolf.

Infowars and other truth and patriot movement web sites, according to the ADL, facilitate hatemongers such as Richard Poplawski, the accused Pittsburgh cop killer. “One of Poplawski’s favorite places for such conspiracy theories was the Web site of the right-wing conspiracy radio talk show host Alex Jones. Poplawski visited the site, Infowars, frequently, shared links to it with others, and sometimes even posted to it,” the ADL wrote April 8, 2009. Infowars utilizes Web 2.0 technology in the form of interactive commenting on news articles.

On April 13, Infowars reported on the Department of Homeland Security’s “Rightwing Extremism” document. The DHS conflated white supremacists with activists opposed to gun control, abortion, and illegal immigration. An earlier report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center specifically denoted Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr supporters as potentially dangerous terrorists. The MIAC report also concentrated on white supremacists and militia groups.

Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin said after Alex Jones broke the MIAC story and the DHS report surfaced “that the source of all of these reports is either Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) or the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), or both.”
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