Summary
Background
What You Can Do
Where Can I Learn More?
Organisations
SUMMARY
On July 30th the G7 group of nations met in Paris to discuss terrorism.
Among other responses the G7 have endorsed a number of restrictions and
controls on the Internet. These include the prohibition or censorship of
sources that may contain "dangerous" information, restrictions
on the electronic speech of unpopular political organisations, and the imposition
of "key escrow" or other means of allowing governments to violate
privately encrypted correspondence.
This particularly serious threat, which originates from recent events such
as a bombing at the Atlanta Olympics and the crash of TWA Flight 800, is
another case in a long list of attempts to restrict freedom of speech in
electronic networks, of which there are alarming examples in many countries
including Australia, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Singapore,
the USA and Vietnam, under a variety of pretexts ranging from "pornography"
to "terrorism" and incorrect political opinion.
* The "offensive" material being targeted is no different from
similar material available in libraries and bookshops. *What is legal offline
must also be legal online*. If material cannot be censored at the newsstand
or the university library, it must not be censored in the online newsstands
and libraries of our future.
* Legislators and agency officials are pushing for speedy passage of censorious
and privacy-harming laws, capitalising on fear of terrorism to exclude meaningful
public input in the process and substance of these regulations.
* Because the Internet is global, and every culture has its own rules about
what is and is not permissible, the open nature of the Internet must be
protected. No local jurisdiction should be allowed to impose its rules on
the rest of the world.
BACKGROUND
This alert is being issued by a coalition of online civil liberties
organisations that support online privacy, freedom of speech and human rights.
The organisations are listed at the end of this alert along with contact
details.
Since its inception the Internet has more than doubled in size every year.
If this growth continues, more than one billion people will be using the
Internet by the turn of the century. Each of these users can as easily publish
material as they can read it. The Internet has the potential vastly to improve
the workings of democratic government and to spread liberty across the globe.
In light of recent bombings in the US and elsewhere, there are again calls
to ban from the Internet information on explosives, as well as any other
issues that can be related to "terrorism". Anti-terrorist hysteria
has become the excuse for governmental attempts to circumvent online freedom
of expression, guaranteed by constitutions, laws, and the UN Declaration
of Human Rights.
Information on how to make bombs, as well as other things that would be
"banned", is widely available, often from the very governments
pushing for censorship. Banning such publications from the Internet won't
make it any less widely available. However it could become the tool for
the censorship of any debate or opinion which happens to displease the authorities,
or "pressure groups" that do not share those opinions. This is
a pure and simple violation of free speech, no matter how it is disguised.
Currently, communicating via the Internet is like sending messages on postcards.
Anyone between the sender and receiver can read the message. Encryption
(data scrambling) technology can be used to ensure the privacy of communications.
It's like placing messages in envelopes. Although widely available the technology
has not yet become a part of the Internet because of pressures from the
"intelligence" and law enforcement agencies.
Some countries, such as the United States, treat cryptography as if were
a weapon, like missile or a machine gun, and ban its export. Other countries,
such as France, have an outright ban on cryptography. Such policies threaten
to undermine information infrastructure not only locally, but globally,
leaving computer networks open to industrial espionage, and as we are seeing
in recent news of electronic spying on the European Parliament, even governmental
espionage, as well as criminal exploitation.
What the G7 have called for is a way to read all messages sent by terrorists.
The only way they can achieve this is to have some way of reading messages
sent by anyone. What the G7 are demanding is that the privacy of all communications
be compromised in the name of protection from terrorism. However, no real
terrorist is going to use such a compromised system when uncrackable alternatives
already exist and are freely available. Effectively G7 are demanding that
we all compromise the privacy of our communications - for NO benefit.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
1. Be alert to what your government is doing or planning. Contact
your law-makers and urge them to protect privacy and free speech on the
Internet. Write to or call publications in your area and suggest that they
report on any anti-freedom government action you hear about.
2. Join an online civil liberties organisation. See the end of this release
for contact information for several such organisations.
3. If there isn't an online civil liberties organisation in your country,
why not start one? Some suggestions on how to start an online civil liberties
organisation are available at:
http://pobox.com/~mbaker/creating.html
and
http://www.well.com/~jonl/bonfire.html
WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?
Further details on the G7 meeting and its effect on the Net can
be found in a press release from the Global Internet Liberty Coalition:
http://www.aclu.org/gilc/index1.html
For a summary of efforts around the world to censor the Internet see the
"10 May 96 Silencing the Net" report on the Human Rights Watch
gopher site:
gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:5000/11/int/hrw/general
For background on global efforts to muzzle the Net see these web sites:
http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/
http://www.eff.org/~declan/fight-censorship/
http://www.io.org/~sherlock/doom/threat.html
For information on global and international online freedom issues see the
Electronic Frontier Foundation web site:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Global/
Translations of this alert will be available as follows:
Catalan: http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/ French: pforsans@in-net.inba.fr
Italian: http://www.nexus.it/alcei.html
Spanish: http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/
ORGANISATIONS
The following organisations have issued this alert:
ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei.html
CITADEL - Electronic Frontier France * pforsans@in-net.inba.fr
EFF-Austin (Texas) * http://www.eff-austin.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA) * http://www.eff.org
Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/
Electronic Frontier Ireland * http://www.efi.ie/
Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au
Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier Norway) * http://www.sn.no/~efn
Fronteras Electronicas Espan~a (Electronic Frontiers Spain) * http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/
HotWired * http://www.hotwired.com/
Human Rights Watch * http://www.hrw.org
Reporters sans frontieres * http://www.calvacom.fr/rsf/
Press Contacts:
Please choose an organisation above and visit their web site for contact
information.
End Alert.