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Italian MEP Wants To Eliminate Anonymity On the Internet
m94mni writes "The European Parliament wants to monitor your Internet searches for child porn offenders, as previously reported. The declaration was adopted yesterday, and in an interview with the Swedish news outlet Europaportalen.se, the Italian MEP behind the declaration, Tiziano Motti, shares his views on the Internet and anonymity. In essence, Motti wants to completely eliminate anonymity on the Internet. 'Each upload of text, images, or video clips must be traceable by the authorities', says Motti. This is in line with the secretive UN initiative Q6/17, revealed two years ago." The doublespeak here seems to go beyond the imprecision of automated translation.
This troll was not posted anonymously in order to comply with regulations in Italy.
Le français vous intéresse?
"And hand over all your freedom"
Why does that work?
We are all God's parents.
Of course, It's the best excuse...
It is a sad state of our societies that child pornography can be invoked to justify absurd and highly unethical changes that would infringe of fundamental rights. It is almost certain that these would fail to successfully deter those seeking child porn but conveniently would be easy to use by the police and political system to silence dissent.
But I'm sure that fact is just a coincedence...
Governments are only going to get so much mileage out of crying wolf by invoking "Because...well...BECAUSE...CHILD PORNOGRAPHY".
If they keep this up, it's going to dilute honest, real efforts to fight child pornography because people will be conditioned to equate "child pornography" with "government power grab".
It is interesting to point out that child sex offenses have an average sentence in 2009 of 41 years, where first degree murder has an average sentence of 34 years.
There are over 300 people serving "indefinite civil confinement" for child pornography. Many states adopted these rules for sex offenders during the last 15 years, and in many of these states NOBODY has EVER BEEN RELEASED after being placed in such a confinement. This is de facto "life sentence" for possession of digital images.
I won't even BEGIN to argue that the creation of child porn is a good thing, but I will strenuously argue that its mere possession does not warrant a life sentence, regardless of what sort of doublespeak you can come up with about which sort of non-human that person is and what sort of evil deeds they "might one day do".
What about the people producing child pornography? I absolutely agree that simple possession of an image should carry no legal penalty, but I also think there should be a punishment for causing a person to engage in something potentially psychologically damaging before that person has reached the age to make an informed decision about whether to do so. However, I do think that the age of consent to appear in porn should be lowered to 15 or so.
Also, "this wasn't illegal for a long time, and society did fine!" is a bad argument. Hundreds of years ago, most people lived in abject poverty without what we would consider today to be the most basic standard of food, housing, education, or health care. It's only because in rich countries we've mostly solved those problems that we can turn our energies to comparatively minor issues like child pornography.
Le français vous intéresse?
Will they let us see everything that politicians do?
Or is this surveillance all one-way?
I am anarch of all I survey.
They put more effort into hunting down the "addicts" than the "dealers". This does not work.
It is pretty amazing but not suprising just how misguided the above poster is.
It is indeed a very a good question asked by the gp, where does it say anonymity on the net is a fundamental right.
Because WE declare it so? Who is this WE? Because part of "WE" seems to want this anonymity to end.
Entitlement only works if you are willing to fight for your entitlements. Not just shout very loudly about them on some nerd forum.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Basically Berlusconi via a proxy, Motti, is using a classic "Think of the children..." argument in order to convince people of the need to remove anonymity from the internet when really he wants to eliminate anonymity to be able to track down political adversaries. It's classic misdirection. I'm just surprised that he thinks the rest of the world does not see through his ruse, but then again, like Putin, he is a very arrogant man accustomed to acquiescence.
"Child pornography" is the current excuse for oppression in the US. "Communist infiltration" stopped being a serious concern around 1975 or so. Terrorism has been slow lately. Militant Islam isn't getting any significant traction in the US. (Some European countries have real problems there, but the US doesn't seem to.) The "war on drugs" had a good run, but it's turning into a real war in Mexican border cities, and that focuses attention on real problems, not rhetoric.
The excuse has to be for something that doesn't have complaining parties who want their cases solved. Where law enforcement has to deal with victims who report crimes, law enforcement performance is measured by the percentage of crimes solved. This keeps cops focused, and they don't get to set their own agenda.
It's significant that the FBI's "child pornography" enforcement operation hasn't been involved in the Catholic child abuse scandals. There don't seem to have been any cases where the FBI actually caught a priest abusing a child. Yet, given the statistics, that's an obvious place to look.
Note what we don't have. There's no "war on financial fraud". There's no "war on tax cheats". There's no "war on polluters". There's no "war on employers of underage kids".
I'm looking at you Silvio.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
At least as low as the people who have used DWIs/gun-violence/terrorism/boobies/other-boogiemen-of-the-day to infringe on our rights?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...and certain sites like Wikileaks, which uses its own private Tor-based network.
So right now we have the USA crying over "national security" and Italy weeping for the children. That covers the "Terrorism" and "Child Porn" buzzwords. Soon we will learn that drug lords and illegal immigrants use the Internet, too...
...Also, while we're at it - I wish there was a way to eliminate form office any politicians who uses any of the following rhetoric:
"think of the children"
"if you don't have anything to hide, then there's no reason to worry about monitoring/spying/us analraping your privacy"
"the constitution* was written over 200 years ago, it's no longer valid for our times." (*if we're talking about non-US entities, then change that to whatever law/document/convention gives people their rights).
This isn't about the children at all....The goal is the same as it's always been, regardless of the argument: Control. They want control, they don;t like people being able to anonymously share information and organize - and if I were them, trying to do a lot of the things these people are doing, I would feel the same way - because they're basically criminals - they want to manipulate us out of our freedoms and protections with scare tactics.
In this day and age people should be educated enough about history to recognize these ploys and know what they mean..Unfortunately (particuarly in the US) the majority aren't.
Original article from europaportalen.se
Headline: "I do not want to save Google searches"
Caption: Tiziano Motti now says he does not want to save Google searches. Photo: European Parliament
Italian Tiziano Motti, who was behind the proposal to save searches on Google says he has been misunderstood. Yesterday, his proposal got a majority in the European Parliament.
"It's not the colour of the cat that matters; it's that the cat catches the mouse. And I'm the cat."
This is how Tiziano Motti presented himself in an Italian TV programme when he was a candidate in the EP elections last year. He was a private entrepreneur without a political party who travelled around in north-east Italy and met young people to get their votes with the slogan: "Vote for me – I'm like you".
The campaign was successful. In just a few months, Motti succeeded in getting enough support for a Christian democratic party to "adopt" him three days before the lists of candidates were to be published, and in the election, he defeated the region's incumbent MEP.
Motti did not do his campaigning in marketplaces or party meetings. Instead, he went to night clubs, where he often stayed until six in the morning. "You have to be where the young people are, and they're at the discos. On on the Net", says Tiziano Motti.
He has a tan, a flawless smile, wears a jacket and jeans, which is unusual for a MEP, especially an Italian one. The election campaign is not the only connection to the Net in Tiziano Motti's case. He is the author of the high-profile proposal to expand the controversial data retention directive to include search engines as part of the fight against child pornography. "Another step on the way to a surveillance society!", critics say.
After Europaportalen wrote about Motti's proposal a few weeks ago, a few MEPs started to withdraw their support. They had not understood what they had signed, since the data retention directive was not mentioned in the proposal. Only the technical identifier, 2006/24/EC, was mentioned. Cecilia Wikström (Liberal People's Party, Sweden) sent a letter to alla 736 MEPs, warning them.
Tiziano Motti is aware of the Swedish debate. He feels it is unfair, but is not surprised. "I expected these reactions. Every time one discusses data retention and the Internet, it's like two worlds colliding: one that wants broad freedoms on the Internet and another that is of the opinion that the right not to be violated on the Net is very important.
And a defender of rights is what Tiziano Motti considers himself to be. He is the founder of the Europe of Rights movement with more than 100 000 members in Italy. Among the honorary members are several MPs, mostly from Silvio Berlusconi's party The People of Freedom. The movement aims to protect ordinary citizens' freedoms and rights.
How does the defence of citizens' rights go together with storing everyone's Google searches? "It doesn't", says Tiziano Motti.
He does not want to save all searches on the Net. "The proposal is actually about so-called 'content providers'; the people who let you put material on the Internet, such as Facebook, Youtube or blogging tools. They are the ones who should retain IP numbers, just like ISPs must do today according to the data retention directive.", he says.
Motti says that the debate is built on a misunderstanding of his initiative. However, the text is clear: "The European Parliament [...] Asks the Council and the Commission to implement Directive 2006/24/EC and extend it to search engines in order to tackle online child pornography and sex offending rapidly and effectively".
Why, then, did you write 'search engines' instead of 'content providers'? "I did t
Of course it's not a good idea to operate a ton or more of equipment while incapacitated. Only a moron would think it's a good idea.
But, the fact that some people are morons does not justify setting up roadblocks to question every passerby who happens by. Nor does it justify sitting at the nearest watering hole, waiting for people to exit and drive home, then pull everyone over. Nor, does it justify today's blood alcohol limits, which are unreasonable.
When I first got my commercial driver's license in the '80's, the department of transportation still had regulations that said a driver could drink a drink with his dinner. Not get drunk, not drink a sixpack, not drink a 5th - he could have a drink with his dinner. The brewery in Frankenmuth Michigan had free beer in the driver's room, for the drivers to sample. You could drink one or two, and still be sober.
Today, if you sniff a bottle cap, you're legally intoxicated. That's bullshit, plain and simple.
The laws for non-commercial drivers are lagging behind those for commercial drivers, but they are following right along. I've seen that "open container" law applied to people picking up aluminum cans along the roadway. FFS, the laws should at least be SANE!
"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
One of the MEPs who started this initiative Mr Motti is an interesting figure. After the vote on the Telecoms package - one of the MEPs who initiated this topic - Mr Motti already foreshadowed his intentions:
Also notable is, how much he is is interested in anonymity and blogs:
In another speech Mr Motti also addressed freedom of speech in Italy, i guess this points in the same direction like what is happening currently in Italy regarding google.
On an ironic side note Mr Motti also seems to be highly interested in setting up cameras in kindergartens:
and
It's ironic, how someone fighting pedophilia wants to setup cameras in childcare centers.
all his debates are available, also his parliamentary questions