Israeli Bill Would Allow Secret Blacklists For Websites

jonklinger writes with the lead from his report on a move to hamper internet freedom in Israel: "Israel is to attempt, again, to pass a bill that authorizes police officers to issue warrants to Internet service providers to block or restrict access to specific websites involved either in gambling, child pornography or copyright infringement. The bill itself proposes that such administrative procedures shall be clandestine and that court decisions shall be made ex-parte, where some of the court's ruling will not be even dislosed to the owner of the website, and the court may hear and use inadmissible evidence."

Comments

There's a theocratic aspect to this

[Animats]

Note that the proposed law gives the power to censor to the Israeli justice minister. Yaakov Neeman, the current justice minister, is kind of weird. News articles:

• "A glimpse at the life of Israel's controversial justice minister" (Haaretz)
• "Yaakov Neeman, Israeli Justice Minister, Says Jewish Law Must Become Binding " ""Step by step we will bestow religious law upon the citizens of Israel and transform religious law into the binding law of the state,"
• Israel's justice minister advises rightists on how to seek pardons for Jewish terrorists (Haaretz)

There's a sizable ultra-orthodox faction in Israel which wants a political system where rabbis run things. Neeman is from that faction. Israel already has rabbinical courts, but they're currently restricted to ruling on religious issues and divorces. Neeman has said he wants to expand the authority of rabbinical courts, which in Israel are dominated by ultra-othodox rabbis.

Ultra-orthodox groups are very anti-Internet. This goes way beyond censoring pornography. There are special censored ISPs that only allow a list of 400 approved sites, most of which are religious.

So that's where this may be going, or at least where one faction would like to go. (Israel politics is currently deadlocked worse than US politics. There are many parties, none with a majority, and shifting coalitions. Different factions control different ministries as part of the deals made to put coalitions together. Just because the Justice Minister wants something doesn't mean the Government does.)

Re:hitler would be proud

[sentientbeing]

This is bullshit. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. It demands that other people recognize it as such.

The US specifically defines itself NOT as a Christian state.