Slashdot Mirror
French Net Censorship Plan Moves Forward
angry tapir writes "French lawmakers have voted to approve a draft law to filter Internet traffic that Slashdot previously discussed. The government says the measure is intended to catch child pornographers. The Senate, where the government has a majority, will soon give the bill a second reading. If the Senate makes no amendments to the text, that will also be its final reading, as the government has declared the bill 'urgent,' a procedural move that reduces the usual cycle of four readings to two."
If IMMI goes ahead in Iceland, then all that censorship may turn out to be nothing more than a colossal waste of bureaucracy.
You can only attack content in the place where it is hosted - filtering the reception end just doesn't work reliably. Even China doesn't have a perfect rate, and Iran had to throttle its whole network in order to cut off communication...
Europe is so ahead of you. Greece plans to make cash transactions of more than 1500 Euros illegal "to curb tax evasion".
The above post is completely irrelevant with the article and misinforming, at least. The plan in Greece is to prohibit people from doing any transactions over 1500 euros done in *cash*, in order to reduce tax evasion. Such measures already apply in most European countries. In fact Greece is the only country in the EU where one can go to a car yard with a suitcase full of money (ie 30.000 euros) and buy a car, without a receipt.
You are aware the general populance here in europe doesn't even know what net neutrality actually is?
English isn't my native language, but I would be very surprised to find that "cash transactions of more than 1500 Euros" does not mean "transactions over 1500 euros done in *cash*". And of course the requirement that merchants document sales is completely separate from the payment type.
Bonne chance.
Premier.
Almost, ou presque.
Yes, but with all five political parties in the bundestag against the law, it is pretty likely that it will 1) never be enforced 2) get cancelled eventually
The "urgent" status is actually because this censorship bill is part of a larger law, named LOPPSI 2, that addresses several "security" matters : more jail for everyone, Internet filtering, trojans for cops in "organized crime" investigation, and so on.
There are regional elections in France in about one month. The government tries to scare people on security matters — the good old "I want *everyone* to *remember* _why_they_need_us_ !". They want to pass the law before the elections, and gave it an "urgent" status that of course isn't justified in any other way.
Actually, "Pensez aux enfants" is correct.
Horst Köhler signed the "Zugangserschwerungsgesetz" yesterday. A veto from the Bundespräsident was the last thing that could have stopped the law in the normal legislative process.
Yes, but he only signed after the government answered to his request for more information. In this answer, the government assured that they will order the "Bundeskriminalamt" (something like the FBI) to not produce any lists of addresses to be blocked.
The situation is rather absurd now: the (previous) government passed the law last autumn, then the coalition government changed (conservatives with liberals instead of conservatives with social democrats), and by now no party is in support of the law anymore. By signing the law, the President put the politicians under pressure to find a way out of this mess they got themselves in, so I'm actually not unhappy that he did it. :) The left parties in the parliament want to start a motion to abolish the law completely. Normally, the conservatives and liberals would not support something coming from that corner of the political spectrum, but it's something that eg the liberals were demanding before the election. So it's going to be interesting how they handle the situation. I kind of enjoy the mess they got themselves in with their short-sighted actions... ;)
The fallacy here is that this measure will do nothing.
I wish I could say otherwise, but you're wrong about that. It will do nothing to stop the production or spread of child pornography, but it will constitute another erosion of freedom of speech or information.
I wish I could say otherwise, but even this is not entirely correct. The measure will actually HELP the spread of child pornography.
...
It's pretty simple really:
1) Net censorship will eventually of course mean less access to "illegal" information. For example access to information deemed illegal at sites like Wikileaks.
2) Without widespread access to "illegal" information such as the illegal ACTA leaks, there will be little to no organized resistance to the ever-tightening Copyright and IP laws and treaties being signed (ACTA, GATS, TRIPS etc)
3) Strict IP and copyright laws keep third world countries poor [1]. The majority of Child Pornography stems from human trafficking from third world countries, an unfortunate risk of growing up in a third world country [2].
If the French Government really cared about Child Pornography, it would be taking studies like [1] below seriously and not playing cloak and dagger with treaties like ACTA.
[1]
Commission on Intellectual Property Rights declared the internationally-mandated expansion of intellectual property (IP) rights unlikely to generate significant benefits for most developing countries and likely to impose costs, such as higher priced medicines or seeds. This makes poverty reduction more difficult. The intensively researched, 180-page report is entitled Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy. It is the culmination of much study and follows on more than a dozen meetings and workshops, 17 working papers, an exhaustive literature review of the field, visits to several developed and developing nations and a major conference. The report makes some 50 recommendations aimed at aligning IP protection with the goal of reducing poverty in developing nations. Topics include IP and health; agriculture; traditional knowledge; copyrights, software and the Internet; and the role of WTO and WIPO in advancing developing country interests. The Commission is an independent international body made up of Commissioners from both developed and developing countries with expertise in science, law, ethics and economics. The Commissioners come from industry, government and academia* (see list of Commissioners below). "Developed countries often proceed on the assumption that what is good for them is likely to be good for developing countries," said Professor John Barton, Commission Chair and George E. Osborne Professor of Law, Stanford University. "But, in the case of developing countries, more and stronger protection is not necessarily better. Developing countries should not be encouraged or coerced into adopting stronger IP rights without regard to the impact this has on their development and poor people. They should be allowed to adopt appropriate rights regimes, not necessarily the most protective ones."
http://www.biotech-info.net/independent_commission.html
[2] Third world are the major "Source Countries" of child pornography and other human trafficking related crimes.
Yes, but he only signed after the government answered to his request for more information.
Not relevant to the problem. Fact is still: He signed something, whose only known effect is the protection (trough concealment) of child abuse, and which is unconstitutional. Making him de-facto punishable for treason (usually at least 10 years jail) and aiding of child abuse (also not a small thing). And he is fully aware of this.
In this answer, the government assured that they will order the "Bundeskriminalamt" (something like the FBI) to not produce any lists of addresses to be blocked.
Yeah because the BKA is oh such a trustworthy source when it comes to “assuring” something. This is more a guarantee that they will produce those lists, but want to keep the fact secret.
Oh wait... They already have a list, and it leaked already too.
So what does Köhler want? Go to PMITA prison over some stupid politic circus? Not such a wise move.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
And the terrible fact that web based CP is not how it's distributed any more, paid for cp is done through virtualisation connected to via encrypted VPN. These laws are ridiculously out of date / lies.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter