Re: <nettime> Re: no comment department

[". __ ." <mail_box@gmx.net>]

Forward of thethe discussion about the same topic in widdershins... and as 
I said down there, the future may not be so dark as we fear ;-)

You should never forget, that the EU is in the end a baby compared to all 
the other states... there are a lot of things going on incredibly fast and 
with each problem, be it the passenger data (where the EU finally reacted 
and decided not to support sharing all the data but advised companies to 
wait till a system in conformity with the EU data protection is up and 
running) or the recent crisis with Iraq... the EU is learning and fnotes 
the problems and possible solutions so that they will hopefully not be made 
again...

The NYT article also shows that the media often does not grasp the real 
problems in a document and focusses on the wrong ones :( while there 
certainly are problematic articles in the EU proposals for  new CyberLaws I 
would see them not in this unintented but spectacular case but more in the 
domain of data protection and data sharing...

Cheers,

g

####

On Wednesday, March 5, 2003, at 12:25 PM, Alexandra Samuel wrote:

>Thought this story from todays New York Times would be of interest.
>Have folks heard more about this legislation?

No, but I did some digging...

Council of the EU: 2489th Council meeting on Justice and Home Affairs,
Brussels, 27-28 February 2003, items discussed on 27/2/2003
(provisional version) @ http://ue.eu.int/pressData/en/jha/74719.pdf

Proposal for a COUNCIL FRAMEWORK DECISION on attacks against
information systems (presented by the Commission) @
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/media/condac/backgrnd/ 
com2002-173/com02-173_en.pdf

>RUSSELS, March 4 The justice ministers of the European Union have
>agreed on laws intended to deter computer hacking and the spreading of
>computer viruses. But legal experts say the new measures could pose
>problems because the language could also outlaw people who organize
>protests online, as happened recently, en masse, with protests against
>a war in Iraq.

A closer reading of the above documents might indicate that this is not
strictly true.  The unnamed legal experts were probably referring to
Framework Decision Article 4 "Illegal interference with Information
Systems". A Denial of Service attack is illegal regardless of whether
it is performed by protesters or terrorists, however last Wednesday's
virtual march was not a Denial of Service attack.  Indeed, the
transmissions were organized specifically so that there would be no
interference, only a higher volume than one would usually expect.  The
articles also include language with respect to intent and right, so I
suspect actions in the EU similar the US virtual march will not have to
fear for this agreement.

####

Another viewpoint - the same outcome... this EU-Law has to be ratified in 
national parliaments to get in effect. A law outlawing democratic 
expression of opinion would not be passed in the national parliaments, 
because it would collide with the rights granted by national constitutions 
etc and a violation could be appealed to national supreme courts and the 
EU-court.

I think this was more an oversight than an intent to criminalize democratic 
action... this could also be proven by taking into account the stenographic 
protocols of the discussion about this law - the court would then be 
enabled to decide in the "spirit" of the law and not by the mere meaning.

So, the future might not be too dark,

cheers,

g
i

####



At 17:54 05.03.03 -0500, Martin Lucas wrote:

>After the largest anti-war march in history I guess they couldn't be
>expected to leave it alone.
 <...>

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