ZGram - 6/23/2004 - "Censors trying to harness the Net"

Thu Jun 24 13:19:50 EDT 2004

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

June 23, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

The tone of this article is a bit strident, but it shows the writing 
on the wall.  Also, it gives a variety of related sources where you 
can read up on your friendly neighborhood censors at work.  I think 
that one Orwellian newspeak sentence is particularly telling:

"We are striving to create zero tolerance towards all manifestations 
of intolerance." -- OSCE Chairman Solomon Passy, Berlin 2004.

How's that for logic and consistency - not even mentioning the rights 
of others "to inform themselves across borders" without interference, 
according to United Nations articles?

[START]

Jews Relentless In Pursuit of Internet Censorship
by Jeff Hook
Report; Posted on: 2004-06-16

An international assembly initiated by the OSCE (Organization for 
Security and Cooperation in Europe) met in Paris this week to plan a 
strategy for banning "anti-Semitic and xenophobic propaganda" from 
the Internet.

The two-day conference of 300 delegates from more than 60 states 
began with calls on OSCE members to take extreme measures to keep 
racist material off the Net.

Suzette Bronkhost, a Dutch official of the International Network 
Against Cyber Hate (www.inach.net), said the US Constitution should 
not allow extreme statements by "holocaust deniers," for example.

French Foreign Minister Mihel Barnier told delegates that preventive 
action against spreading hate propaganda online were not enough, 
adding that "we must act directly against the perpetrators." 
Delegates told reporters they hope to find ways to "track down the 
authors of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic material on the web." 
Their plans for the racists, once they've been tracked down, were not 
reported.

The Vienna-based OSCE is currently studying answers to a 
questionnaire sent to member states, probing reaction to their 
recommendations for international legislation. The OSCE, the French 
government and most European officials believe international law 
should take precedence over the US Constitution. They complain that 
local laws are useless because racists can move their sites to 
servers in the United States. "OSCE and European officials believe 
international law should take charge," delegates told reporters.

Robert Badinter, a former French justice minister, complained that of 
4,000 "racist sites" counted worldwide in 2002, some 2,500 were based 
in the United States. Badinter also cited a recent report in Britain 
that showed the number of "violent and extremist sites" had ballooned 
by 300 percent in the last four years in 15 OSCE countries surveyed.

OSCE Chairman Solomon Passy, a Bulgarian Jew with close ties to the 
American Jewish Committee and Israel, summed up the problem by 
saying: "We must not leave the door open to abuse. Freedoms do not 
include a right to spread hatred, lies and abuse, which could 
destabilize our societies."

"France and other European countries already have strong laws banning 
expressions of racism," he reminded the gathering.

The alien, Jewish mentality of chairman Passy is clearly evident in 
this excerpt from a speech he made at another OSCE conference on 
anti-Semitism, held in Berlin in April of this year:

"The Holocaust was a catastrophe and a real tragedy not only for the 
Jewish people, but also for all mankind. The Organisation for 
Security and Cooperation in Europe was created and is called upon to 
... fight all forms of Anti-Semitism. We believe it must be made 
clear not only that we take seriously the problem of Anti-Semitism, 
but that we are striving to create zero tolerance towards all 
manifestations of intolerance.

I am deeply conscious of the fact that any form of hostility towards 
Jews in particular strikes against the foundations of democracy. We 
should probably start with education. On the one hand, bias is 
learned in childhood, and on the other – the sense of guilt for the 
crimes of the Holocaust is waning, we strongly believe that we were 
right to make education a priority of the OSCE. All textbooks on 
history in the Member States should include a detailed chapter on the 
Holocaust, highlighting the full horrors of that sinister chapter in 
the history of Europe. Perhaps we should go further and promote 
specific educational programmes for fighting Anti-Semitism.

The commitment to combat Anti-Semitism has to be supported by 
systematic and reliable information and statistics about 
manifestations of anti-Semitism. We have to gather and process this 
information and make it available to the public. The OSCE Office for 
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has an important 
practical role to play in all this.

Going back to the tragedy of more than 60 years ago, which took the 
lives of six million Jews, it is our duty to look into the future and 
to ask ourselves: What was not done 60 years ago to save the Jewish 
people from genocide and are we doing today everything that is needed 
for averting such tragedies?

As OSCE Chairman-in-Office and as foreign minister of a state that 
has just joined NATO, and is on the threshold of the European Union, 
I am convinced that if such alliances as the OSCE, NATO and the EU 
existed in the 1930s, Hitlerism not only would not have flourished, 
but it would not have germinated even. Because Anti-Semitism is 
equivalent to anti-globalism."

At the Berlin conference, the OSCE passed a resolution declaring: 
"Political issues, including those in Israel, never justify 
anti-Semitism." Suggesting that criticism of Israel is 
"anti-Semitism."

In one particularly nauseating moment, Passy presented German foreign 
minister Joschka Fischer with the yellow star his grandfather had 
been forced to wear during World War II to identify him as a Jew. His 
family always had said that one day the star would be returned to a 
German, Passy said. Fischer, his voice cracking, took the box, and 
said, "Let me thank you, both as a person and as foreign minister of 
Germany, for this historic gift."

That conference featured addresses by U.S. Secretary of State Colin 
Powell, German President Johannes Rau, and professional "holocaust 
survivors" Simone Veil and Elie Wiesel.

Christopher Wolf, Chair of the Internet Task Force of the 
Anti-Defamation League, served as a moderator at this week's OSCE 
Paris conference. His speech included the following thoughts:

"Today and tomorrow, we are discussing the international legal 
framework for dealing with hate speech online.

Innocent users of the Internet inadvertently may be exposed to hate 
online. When uninformed or easily influenced people come across hate 
propaganda, they can fall prey to its deceptive reasoning and adopt 
hateful beliefs themselves.

I think Jews get bashed on the internet more than all the other 
groups combined and I have no explanation as to why. If anyone could 
shed some light on the situation I'd appreciate it. I'm no expert, 
but IMHO it has something to do with the relative anonymity of the 
internet. By its very nature, the Internet promotes anonymous 
collaboration, which allows hate mongers to exchange ideas, 
information and plots online, out of view.

The Anti-Defamation League has a full-time staff of Internet monitors 
who, working with the latest technology,  watch for and report on the 
activities of such extremists. We have served this role for years, 
ever since the Internet reached the public at large."

Brian Marcus, Director of Internet Monitoring for the Anti-Defamation 
League, also attended the OSCE Paris conference. Here's some of what 
he had to say:

"As Chair of the Internet Policy Committee of the Anti-Defamation 
League, I am well aware of the means by which the Internet may be 
misused to disseminate messages of hate. The dawn of hate on the 
internet has wreaked havoc on American society with a marked increase 
in hate crimes. Many Web sites include articles that condemn Jews and 
set forth biased accounts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a lawyer specializing in Internet law, I am also well aware of the 
challenges faced by legislators to keep up with the daily barrage of 
hate propaganda on the Internet. I am particularly pleased to discuss 
the ways in which law may be used to positively affect the Internet.

If an offensive Web Site is shut down in Germany, it may pop up 
overnight in Sweden, and thus still be available worldwide on the 
Internet. Where countries have attempted to restrict access to the 
Internet through "official" portals or government-operated or – 
sanctioned Internet Service Providers, end runs around those portals 
can be as simple as a long distance telephone call to a foreign ISP.

...the most efficacious way to control Internet content is through 
regulation of the ISPs or the principal access points for the 
Internet. To the extent the codes of conduct are memorialized in an 
ISP’s terms of service, they become contractual undertakings, 
enforceable as a matter of law. In this way, the law does assume a 
role. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) based in the United States, 
as private actors, are not bound by the First Amendment."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, 
agreed with Marcus. He says one strategy should be to get Internet 
service providers in the United States to honor anti-racism language 
in their own contracts.

Chairman Passy also agrees with Marcus. "The best approach is 
co-regulation, through developing codes of conduct, and through 
increasing providers’ awareness and sensitivity to the problem. And 
they should be supported by clear guidelines from governments and 
clear legislation," he said.

With the help of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the ADL, the AJC and 
other Zionist organizations, the OSCE will deliver all of the 
"guidelines and legislation" needed to get rid of Web sites that Jews 
don't like.

Sources:

Paris conference seeks to curb racism on internet
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=58&story_id=8597

Conference Probes Online Bigotry
http://www1.africana.com/newswire/homepage_article.asp?ID=494

OSCE meets on racism, anti-Semitic propaganda
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/439975.html

Speech by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Solomon Passy at the OSCE 
Second Conference on Anti-Semitism, Berlin, 28-29 April 2004
http://www.germadiplo.com/www/en/aussenpolitik/friedenspolitik/osze/as_konferenz/pressemitteilungen/passy_html

Conference in Berlin Condemns anti-Semitism, Calls for Monitoring
http://www.jewishftlauderdale.com/content_display.html?ArticleID=115123

Hate Speech Prosecutions in the U.S. (ADL submission to the OSCE
http://www.adl.org/osce/osce_legal_analysis.pdf

Remarks by Christopher Wolf, Chair of ADL's Internet Task Force
http://www.adl.org/osce/osce_wolf.pdf

Conference on Internet hate, racism opens
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Online%20Hate

OSCE Offical Transcripts of Meeting
http://www.osce.org/events/conferences/anti-racism/

Source: Jeff Hook

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