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Date: 1998-04-16

GILC-Alert: Die Kyber/Welt im Ueberblick


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q/depesche 98.4.16

GILC-Alert: Die Kyber/Welt im Ueberblick

Es ist ein garstig und ein schönes Bild zugleich, das dieser
Überblick von Kontinenten fünf vermittelt: Zensurversuche
allüberall durch Paragraphen oder Filtersoftware.
Aber auch wie man mit klugen Klagen & obersten Gerichtshöfen so
manchen besonders dreisten Zensur/Gesetzvorschlag einer
Abschiessung zuführt...

GILC-Alert wird von der American Civil Liberties' Union für die
Global Internet Liberty Campaign produziert.




[A] FOREMOST NEWS
[A1] GILC Issues Statement at OECD Meeting
[B] ROUNDUP OF GLOBAL INTERNET ISSUES
[B1] Africa/Middle East
[B1.1] Israel Debates Internet Censorship
[B1.2] Algeria Freedom Fighter Continues Fight on Internet
[B2] Asia/Oceania
[B2.1] India and Telephony
[B3] Europe
[B3.1] Report: European Union Set to Reject Key Escrow for
Cryptography
[B3.2] Irish Bill Takes Aim at Child Pornography
[B4] North America
[B4.1] Court Strikes Down Virtual Child Pornography Law
[B4.2] Virginia's Library Filtering Scheme Unconstitutional
[B4.3] Netscape Plans on Adopting PICS
[B4.4] Canada Set to Move on Encryption
[B4.5] "Democracies Online" Formed
[B5] SOUTH AMERICA
[B5.1] Brazil and Internet


[A] FOREMOST NEWS
[A1] GILC Issues Statement at OECD Meeting

On March 25th, 1998 members of GILC attended an OECD one day
meeting
on "International Co-operation Concerning Content and Conduct on
the
Internet", in Paris, and issued a member statement on "Impact of
Self-Regulation and Filtering on Human Rights to Freedom of
Expression." The statement details the importance of freedom of
speech
and freedom of expression to the online community. It also
explains
the essential role anonymous communications plays in the struggle
for
human rights. Among other things, the statement notes: "Global
rating
or labeling systems squelch the free flow of information: Efforts
to
force all Internet speech to be labeled or rated according to a
single
classification system distorts the fundamental cultural diversity
of
the Internet and will lead to domination of one set of political
or
moral viewpoints. Such systems will either be easy to use and not
have
enough categories for all cultures or it will have so many
categories
to cater for all cultures that it will be unusable. These systems
are
antithetical to the Internet and should be rejected."

The GILC statement:
http://www.gilc.org/speech/ratings/gilc-oecd-398.html

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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[B] ROUNDUP OF GLOBAL INTERNET ISSUES
[B1] Africa/Middle East
[B1.1] Israel Debates Internet Censorship

The Business Arena reported that the Israeli Knesset Committee for
Scientific and Technological Research and Development sought to
"explore the possible imposition of censorship on information
distributed over the Internet." Lawmakers heard testimony from
many
sources. The paper reports that one "Yeshiva student told
horrified
[members] . . . . that he had reached pornographic sites 'while
searching for automobiles.'" The author of the piece then went on
to
argue: "All I ask is why this never happens to me! In the hundreds
of
surfing hours I have notched up in the past two years, never once
has
a pornographic site popped up by accident. Never have I keyed in
'law' and got 'sex.'" The article warns that if Israel "imposes
any
censorship whatsoever on the Internet, it will fall in line with
such
model democracies as the Chinese Republic, Singapore and various
Arab
regimes."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[B1.2] Algeria Freedom Fighter Continues Fight on Internet

Algeria is a country where the government deals with even
suspected
opposition brutally: executions, decapitations, rapes, kidnappings
and
other forms of torture are daily nightmares. Needless to say, the
government outlaws newspapers critical of the extremist – and
armed –
Islamic groups, who allegedly have massacred more than 80,000
people
since elections were suspended in 1992. La Nation was one such
paper
until it's editor, Salima Ghezali (who won the European
Parliament's


prestigious Sakharov award), took the paper to the Internet last
year.
Ghezali is the only female editor of a major Muslim newspaper and
practices what she calls "guerrilla journalism." The Guardian
(London) quotes her saying: "Over one 100 people are now being
killed
every week. This barbarity now seems normal, but of course it is
not.
The regime is so arrogant that if there is no condemnation of its
human rights abuses it will believe it has carte blanche."

For more information: http://www.ifex.org/alert/00000298.html

More information in French:
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/md/Forum/algerie/msg00011.html

An interview with Ghezali: http://www.merip.org/ghezali.htm

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[B2] Asia/Oceania
[B2.1] India and Telephony

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), the overseas
telecommunications
arm of the Indian government, announced that customers would be
disconnected if they used Internet telephony to dial overseas (a
fraction of the cost that a normal telephone call would cost).
Asia-Pacific Telecommunications reported that VSNL may actually be
blocking access to certain companies that provide Internet
telephony
software. If VSNL is doing this, the paper argues: "it would seem
illegal, because it amounts to censorship and a restriction of the
freedom guaranteed to all Indians under the Constitution. If VSNL
is
shutting [them] out, there are other Web sites which offer voice
connectivity."

VSNL's policy can be found at: http://www.vsnl.net.in/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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[B3] Europe
[B3.1] Report: European Union Set to Reject Key Escrow for
Cryptography

On April 2, 1998, the Intelligence Newsletter reported that the
European Commission is about to complete a draft directive aimed
at
digital signatures and computer privacy. The EC draft leaves out
any
use of Trusted Third Parties (TTPs), key escrow or key recovery
systems. This draft will be submitted for public comment in
Copenhagen on April 23rd -April 24th. Furthermore, the Newsletter
quotes from a recently released November 1996 memorandum from the
office of William Reinch, the U.S. Commerce Department's
undersecretary for export administration: "he acknowledged that
key
escrow by a TTP was 'more costly and less efficient' than
non-escrowed
products."

Read GILC's Cryptography and Liberty: An International Survey of
Encryption Policy, February 1998, at
http://www.gilc.org/crypto/crypto-survey.html.

Read Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK), "First Report on UK
Encryption Policy" is available at
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/ukdtirep.htm.

Read "Scrambling for Safety" Conference Web site is at
http://www.privacy.org/pi/conference/dti/.

Read the Walsh Report, "Review of policy relating to encryption
technologies": http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Crypto/Walsh/

Read Kryptographie, Cryptography resources in German from FITUG,
at
http://www.fitug.de/ulf/krypto/.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[B3.2] Irish Bill Takes Aim at Computer Child Pornography

The Irish Minister of Justice formally introduced to the Dail the
Child Trafficking and Pornography Bill which would criminalize
possession of sexually explicit material involving people under 17
years of age. The Irish Times notes that the Minister fears that
without the law, pedophiles would try and use the Internet to
molest
people under 17 years (the age of consent). The paper quotes
O'Donoghue: "The offense of possession will apply where, for
example,
a person downloads child pornography from the Internet. This
means
that any person who would try and circumvent the legislation by
means
of computer technology would not succeed."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[B4] North America
[B4.1] Court Strikes Down Virtual Child Pornography Law

A federal district court in Portland, Maine has struck down a
portion
of the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996. While old
definitions
of child pornography required prosecutors to prove that the
"child"
was in fact under the age of consent, the new federal law outlawed
"any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video,
picture,
or computer or computer-generated image or picture . . . of
sexually
explicit conduct, where . . . such depiction is, or appears to be,
of
a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." U.S. District
Judge
Gene Carter found that the inclusion of computer images that
merely
"appear" to show minors engaged in sex to be too broad and would
restrict adult expression: "The statute impacts a significant
amount
of adult pornography featuring adults who appear youthful," Carter
wrote in his 11-page decision. "The court concludes that
expression
involving such adults will be chilled by the subjective language
of
the statute." Carter is the first federal judge to find the law
unconstitutional.

Read Cnet article: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20722,00.html

Read the Act: ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c104/h4331.ih.txt
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[B4.2] Virginia's Library Filtering Scheme Unconstitutional

Relying – and drawing heavily from – the U.S. Supreme Court's
landmark
Reno v. ACLU decision last summer, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia,
invalidated
a local, board-approved library-filtering program. Not only, she
said, did the government misconstrue the nature of the Internet,
but
she also held that "the Library Board may not adopt and enforce
content-based restrictions on access to protected Internet speech
unless it meets the highest level of constitutional scrutiny."
She
dismissed the government's argument that blocking software is
simply
another form of a librarian selecting the books and periodicals to
put
in the library: she noted that cyber-publications only exist in
cyberspace and do not "take up shelf space or require physical
maintenance of any kind." Furthermore, Judge Brinkema noted that
while library books cost money, and therefore, necessitate certain
purchasing decisions, cyber-publications cost no money. Rather,
"it
costs a library more to restrict the content of its collection by
means of blocking software than it does for the library to offer
unrestricted access to all Internet publications."

Read the Cnet article:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20920,00.html

Read the ACLU press release:
http://www.aclu.org/news/n040798a.html

Read the ACLU's complaint:
http://www.aclu.org/court/loudoncocomplaint.html
Read the Judge's entire decision:
http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/loudon/80407mem.htm
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[B4.3] Netscape Plans on Adopting PICS

The popular Internet browser, Netscape, has recently announced
that by
the end of this month, its newest version (Netscape Communicator
4.05)
will adopt the controversial Platform for Internet Content
Selection
content-rating and content-filtering scheme. Netscape will call
its
implementation of PICS NetWatch and will launch in German with
English
and other versions to follow shortly thereafter. PC World News
Radio
quotes Cassidy Sehgal, an attorney working on cyber-issues for the
American Civil Liberties Union (a GILC founding member), who is
concerned about the Netscape development: "There are serious
long-term
implications. I think that people need to realize that it's not
as
simple as turning [the filter] on and off . . . because what will
happen now is if you want your speech to be read you're going to
have
to rate [your site]. That is antithetical to First Amendment
views."

Read GILC comments on PICS:
http://www.gilc.org/speech/ratings/gilc-pics-submission.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[B4.4] Canada Sets the Stage for Encryption Action

On March 31, 1998, leaders of Canada's cryptography industry and
privacy advocates met in Ottawa to discuss and suggest an
encryption
plan for Canada. Wired News reported that "the consensus among the
group was that Canada should continue its current stance of not
implementing any domestic crypto controls, and liberalize its
existing
export policies." The article quotes David Jones, president of
Electronic Frontier Canada (EFC is a GILC founding member): "We
are
firmly opposed to any policy or legislation that would prohibit
the
export of encryption of encryption products, either stored or
transmitted." In February, the Canadian government invited public
comment when it issued "A Cryptography Policy Framework for
Electronic
Commerce," where it depicts several different cryptography
possibilities. According to Mark Hughes, executive director of
the
Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues said: "its call for
public
comment is, in my view, a cruel joke because the paper was only
just
issued (February 21, 1998) and all public comment must be made by
April 21, 1998. As few Canadians comprehend what encryption is
and
how it affects them, two months is simply not enough time for
Canadians to sufficiently educate themselves in order to make
informed
comments on the future of their electronic privacy."
Read Wired story: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/1

Canada's "Framework" proposal:
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/cy00005e.html

Electronic Frontier Canada: http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[B4.5] "Democracies Online" Formed

Housed at the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Hubert
H.
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, a
new
organization dedicated "to build[ing] a strong foundation for
improving democracy as democracies around the world converge with
information networks" has just formed. "Democracies Online" will
provide a twice-monthly newsletter ("Democracy Notes") that will
objectively cover trends, issues, and efforts related to the
convergence of democracy and information networks. "Democracies
Online" will also supply a newswire and online peer networks.
The
organization also proposes to host a Democracies Online World
Virtual
Summit in the Fall of 1998.

They can be found at: http://www.e-democracy.org/do

To subscribe either to the newswire or the Notes: send an e-mail
message to: listserv@tc.umn.edu In the body of your message,
write:
subscribe do-wire "Your Name (Place)" To join both the Newswire
and
Democracy Notes, send the following two lines: subscribe do-wire
"Your
Name (Place)" subscribe do-notes "Your Name (Place)"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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[B5] SOUTH AMERICA
[B5.1] Brazil and Internet

Internet access in Brazil had been limited to wealthy English
speakers
with good telephone lines. Reuters recently reported that the
situation is slowly changing: "there are signs that the Internet
is
becoming more accessible. The paper cites to a survey released
late
last month that covers many aspects of Internet usage in South
America's largest country. According to the survey, more women are
traveling the information superhighway (17% used it in 1996
compared
to 25% in 1997). Language is also becoming less of an obstacle:
whereas 68% of Brazilian, Internet-users understood English in
1996,
today only 58% do. "The surveys showed Brazilian Internet users
to
have many traits in common with their American counterparts: most
are
well-informed (68% subscribe to a newspaper or magazine) and most
are
adults (34% are 20 to 30 years old, 24% are aged 30 to 40)."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Raafat S. Toss
GILC Organizer Developer
American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street
New York, New York 10004
212.549.2559
212.549.2656 (fax)
rtoss@aclu.org
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Links to all information in this alert can be found at
http://www.gilc.org

You are welcome to pass the GILC ALERT to all who may be
interested.
And you have permission to re-print GILC ALERT and distribute it.

If you are not a subscriber but would like to be, please send an
email
to gilc-announce@gilc.org with the following message in the body:

Subscribe gilc-announce <your email address>

PUBLICATION OF THIS NEWSLETTER IS MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM
THE
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE (OSI)










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edited by Harkank
published on: 1998-04-16
comments to office@quintessenz.at
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