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U.S. Senate Ratifies Cybercrime Treaty

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the worst-law-evar dept.

espo812 writes "A story from Washingtonpost.com says, 'The Senate has ratified a treaty under which the United States will join more than 40 other countries, mainly from Europe, in fighting crimes committed via the Internet.' Ars Technica says it's the 'World's Worst Internet Law.'" From the Ars story: "According to the EFF, 'The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' 'cybercrime' laws--even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdictions' requests to log their users' behavior without due process, or compensation.;"

3 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. I've Had It! by CWRUisTakingMyMoney · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's it! I've had it with the draconian laws put onto us by the US! I'm moving to Canada! Oh, wait. Shit.

    --
    Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
  2. And... it works both ways. by MROD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If a citizen in one of the other countries is accused by the U.S.A. of committing a crime which isn't illegal in their country the same rules apply.

    Even worse, in the U.K. they could be extradited without the evidence even having to be disclosed to a judge or anyone else due to a treaty (supposedly to be only for terrorist cases but recently used on a fraud charge) with the U.S.A. which the U.K. has ratified but the U.S.A. has refused to. Now, that's scary!

    --

    Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
  3. Re:Well, the term "worst" depends upon whether by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For those of us who disagree, there is a movement called anoNet that created a seperate internet. In early 2005, a few people fed up with the way the Internet was heading, began in earnest to create a large wide area network that was secure and lived in its own space. On this new network anyone would be free to do as they saw fit - roam about, host services, or just be social without fear of being monitored or even worse censored. The first step to bring this network to fruition was to encrypt the information that normally travels across the Internet.

    anoNet is a full IP network with many users, an IRC network, wiki, SILC, email, web, PGP, and much much more. For more information: http://www.anonet.org/ or http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/