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Israel's Supreme Court Says Yes To Internet Anonymity

jonklinger writes "The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that there is no civil procedure to reveal the identity of users behind an IP address, and that until such procedure shall be legislated, all internet postings, even tortious, may remain anonymous. The 69-page decision acknowledges the right to privacy and makes internet anonymity de facto a constitutional right in Israel. Justice Rivlin noted that revealing a person behind an IP address is 'an attempt to harness, prior to a legal proceeding, the justice system and a third party in order to conduct an inquiry which will lead to the revealing of a person committing a tort so that a civil suit could be filed against him.'"

15 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Topsy Turvy World We Live In by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok. Let me get this straight. Israel, one of the most right wing western countries has explicitly approved internet privacy, while France, one of the most left wing western countries, is actively trying to put the internet genies back in the bottle.

    Maybe my political analysis toolset needs to move out of the 20th century....

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
    1. Re:Topsy Turvy World We Live In by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, that left-wing vs right-wing thing was misleading even before it became obsolete, way back in the '80's. But, it still has a catchy sound to it, and prevents people looking at the real issues.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:Topsy Turvy World We Live In by linzeal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Token members are in the Knesset but Israel by over half admitted they want to deny rights to Israeli Arabs including the right to vote. This coming generation in Israel is leaning ever harder to the right and I would not be surprised if they start instituting Jim Crow laws.

          The average age of a Jew in Israel is over 40 and 10,000 under the age of 55 leave Israel every year. The average age of an Arab is under 20 and they have almost twice amount of children. There is simply no way for Israel to stay Jewish unless they have significant uptick in immigration because most of the Jewish population is past child-bearing age.

          Why should another state "want" the Palestinians, they deserve their own state and they will have both the Palestinian territories and Israel itself just by outbreeding the Jewish population within 30-40 years. That is of course as long as the Jewish population does not continue in their bid to delegitimize the claims of the Arabs to a full and open democratic system. In our lifetime there will be an Arab prime minister of Israel, let that sink in.

  2. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously? Talk about flame bait. All the other people in the region have tried to wipe them off the map several times, and continue to espouse the total destruction and death to every last Israeli.

    Seriously... if you lived with those kinds of neighbors, you'd be a bit cranky as well.

    If Israel was more like it's neighbors, the media would be controlled and all the locals would be driven out, like has happened to most of all the jews in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Eqypt, etc, etc, etc.

    Stick to the topic.

    Kudos to Israel for respecting privacy rights.

  3. Hardly narrows it down by Guido+del+Confuso · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that there is no civil procedure to reveal the identity of users behind an IP address, and that until such procedure shall be legislated, all internet postings, even torturous, may remain anonymous.

    The occasional posting may well be tortuous, but the vast majority of postings on the Internet are torturous. Check out MySpace and Facebook to see what I mean.

  4. Israel, not Turkey, deserves the European Union. by reporter · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The Israelis, yet again, demonstrate that their nation is part of the West. Israel is a Western democracy that safeguards civil rights and, in general, human rights. Wafa Sultan, a prominent American of Syrian ancestry, correctly and firmly praises the achievements of the Israelis.

    Israel, not Turkey, deserves to be a member of the European Union (EU).

    The Turks have long attacked human rights. In Turkey, suppressing free speech on and off the Internet is almost a national sport. You can be arrested and imprisoned for claiming that the Turks are responsible for the Armenian genocide.

    After a Congressional committee approved a resolution ascribing responsibility for the genocide to the Turks, the Turks withdrew their ambassador from the USA.

    This sort of behavior is not what we Westerners want to see in the European Union. The Israelis act more like Europeans than the Turks and deserve EU membership far more than the Turks.

  5. Re:Even for torts? by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't believe you even bothered to make this simplistic argument, considering you are a kitten-rapist.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  6. Re:No constitution by mcornelius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Capital letters make the entire difference here. It has no formal Constitution that's any more difficult to amend than any other law. It still has constitution, just not a constitution. In that regard, it's like the United Kingdom.

    They still have constitutional rights, in the sense that there is no lawful means for approving some action against a citizen, which historically, has been the norm when referring to constitutional rights, rather than referring to some creative interpretation of a fundamental unabrogable Bill of Rights that take a more difficult procedure to amend.

    Jefferson and Paine argued that George III was violating the English constitution, in that customs Englishmen typically enjoyed, they were being denied in the Colonies sans representation. “He has refused his Assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good” was one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence. Not once did George III refuse royal assent to an act of the British Parliament; it was only the colonial legislatures. The last time a bill passed by the British Parliament was refused Royal Assent was in 1708, so to the Colonial governments, that was something completely unheard of, and violated their constitutional conventions (lowercase C's).

  7. Re:Wow! by TheMiddleRoad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Perhaps everyone hates them for a reason?"

    And following your logic, perhaps the Nazis killed them for a reason, right? Yeah, it's called antisemitism and stupidity. It's found on both the far left and far right, both in great abundance.

  8. Re:Wow! by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uh seriously? Can we please mention Israel without getting into a Zionists vs Hamas flame war?

    --
    93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
  9. Nazis killed Jews. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They weren't trying to kill Israelis. There really is a difference.

    Of course, Hitler would no doubt have targeted Israel had it existed at the time, but you need to stop with the Godwinism, because a, say, '30s-era Krakow optician had little in common with any Israeli you're ever likely to meet.

    Example: I have many Jewish friends, which is hardly surprisingly, since I too am Jewish. But I have very few Israeli friends. The reason? Because I've met few Israelis I care to be associated with. The majority of non-extremist Jews probably share a similar view.

    Interestingly - at least, I think so - I and many other Jews have Muslim friends. Jews and Muslims have much in common, and we get along rather well, generally speaking, but the same cannot be said about Israelis and Muslims, unless you include the fact that they are vying for the same dirt.

    Too many Israelis, all of them really, roll out the Nazis, and the Holocaust, and all of those other terribly emotive images whenever they or their motives and behavior is questioned or challenged, but the truth is that Israelis are their own worst enemies.

    Now watch the mods spill their crack as they scramble to consign my post to the oblivion of -1 land, because we all know that Israel is sacred.

    1. Re:Nazis killed Jews. by jiggerdot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, I'm pretty comfortable in justifying my country's actions by stipulating they are done mostly in self defense.
      No need to invoke Godwin.
      when rockets start raining down on your town from a neighboring refugee camp, what will be your proposed solution?

      As a side note- Yes, I know the issue is much more complex. Yes, I know there are settlements, and bad history and oppression. However, Israel has outgrown that phase in its history. Everyone except the most hard-core right wingers have accepted the need (and moral duty) to retreat from the occupied territories and allow the Palestinians to form their own country.
      We even pulled out of Gaza. Completely. No strings attached. Just upped and went. We also had to evacuate about 10k families, some of them forcibly, so it really wasn't easy. Almost tore our country apart politically, but we did it because it was the right thing to do.
      And the people of Gaza did rejoice, and they created their own country and, once they have achieved their long-fought-for dream, settled down to build their future in peace. Sort of. not completely. Well, actually, not at all. They started bombing Israeli towns across the border. When asked what they want in order to stop the bombing, their answer is "to destroy Israel". It's in their charter. Really. You can check.

      So no. I don't have to invoke the Nazis. I'm not happy about what we do, but I'm damned If I'll apologize for it to fools like you.

      --
      "can't run, can't hide...oh well, return 0"
  10. Re:Wow! by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously. Read the entire history of Israel, not just the propaganda that you learned in Sunday School, and in the mostly biased United States media outlets.
    Israel has the utmost contempt for a non-Jew's life and/or rights. They've proved that repeatedly.
    GP's irony is on target.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  11. Re:Wow! by daniel_i_l · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously. Read the entire history of Israel, not just the propaganda that you learned in Sunday School, and in the mostly biased United States media outlets. Israel has the utmost contempt for a non-Jew's life and/or rights. They've proved that repeatedly. GP's irony is on target.

    Seriously. Get out of your cave and look at some of the current news. If by "Israel" you mean the government then I can find quite a few examples disproving your statement. A nation with utmost contempt for a non-Jew's life probably wouldn't send a response team to Haiti, which isn't exactly known for it's thriving Jewish poplulation, accept and provide aid to Somali refugees or send relief units to Kenya. How many other western countries have done that? And if by "Israel" you mean the population then you just made a gross over-generalization. I live in Israel and neither my friends nor myself have an "utmost contempt for a non-Jew's life and/or rights". Quite the opposite actually. You accuse the OP of listening to biased news outlets, but it seems as if you prefer to extrapolate from your narrow understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to Israel's view of the entire world. Wow.

  12. Re:Wow! by Peaker · · Score: 4, Informative

    In 1967, Arab armies were holding offensive formations next to Israeli borders, so Israel had to build up a reserve force for defense.

    Israel's economy couldn't sustain holding the reserves for so long, so eventually Israel decided it had to either call of the reserves (and risk being defenseless against the coming Arab attack) or perform a preemptive strike.