[FYI] (Fwd) [GILC-plan] [NEWS] Wired on COE Convention, Second Protocol

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

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Date sent:      	Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:44:39 -0500
To:             	gilc-plan@gilc.org
From:           	Marc Rotenberg <rotenberg@mail.epic.org>
Subject:        	[GILC-plan] [NEWS] Wired on COE Convention, Second Protocol

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50529,00.html

Beefed-Up Global Surveillance?
By Declan McCullagh

2:00 a.m. Feb. 20, 2002 PST

WASHINGTON -- An addition to an international treaty could permit
police to cooperate more closely on intercepting and decrypting the
communications of suspected terrorists.

The Council of Europe, which includes nearly all European nations, is
meeting this week to prepare additions to a controversial "cybercrime"
treaty that would cover decoding terrorist messages. The United
States, Canada and Japan are non-voting members of the council.   
Peter Csonka, the head of the Council of Europe's economic crime
division, said when the drafting process for the so-called Second
Protocol is complete, the document will address "how to identify, how
to filter, and how to trace communications between terrorists."

Details are scarce, and the Council of Europe has repeatedly refused
to elaborate. Csonka would not confirm or deny whether the Second
Protocol will advance limits on encryption technology, coordinate
code-breaking efforts among member nations, or increase electronic
surveillance performed against people linked to terrorism.

This week's closed-door meeting, reportedly taking place at the
council's headquarters in Strasbourg, France, includes
representatives from the U.S. Justice Department, which was one of the
most enthusiastic backers of the original treaty.

Privacy groups and civil libertarians have spent nearly two years
criticizing the existing cybercrime treaty, which is now awaiting
ratification by the legislatures of member nations. If the council
plugs additional surveillance powers into the treaty, opposition seems
certain to increase substantially.

In December, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers asked the
Steering Committee on Crime Problems to draft the "Second Protocol to
the Convention on Cybercriminality to cover also terrorist messages
and the decoding thereof." That is scheduled to happen after an
antiterrorism working group completes its report by April 30, 2002.

This week's meeting is a preliminary one. After the drafting process
begins in earnest later this spring, the steering committee will
prepare a detailed proposal in June and send it back to the Council of
Ministers by the end of September, according to the Csonka.

The still-secret Second Protocol will be, as the name implies, the
second set of additions to the underlying treaty. Currently the
Council of Europe is busy working on the First Protocol, which
criminalizes "hate speech" and racist remarks and likely will run
afoul of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Some observers predict the U.S. delegates to the Council of Europe
will not sign the First Protocol. But the underlying cybercrime
treaty, without the "hate speech" components, is likely to go to the
U.S. Senate for a vote.

"There is a group of experts working on the First Protocol. Once
this committee produces the First Protocol in June, then the
steering committee will consider giving terms of reference for a new
committee," Csonka said. "The second group of experts operate on terms
of reference that will be drafted by the European Steering Committee
on Crime Problems."

Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, confirmed
that his agency's computer crime section sent representatives to this
week's meeting on the Second Protocol but steadfastly refused to say
what they were doing.

"We're not at liberty to discuss our position or even what's going
on," Sierra said. "We would prefer to talk about these matters with
the people we're meeting with instead of with reporters."

The French activist group Imaginons un Réseau Internet Solidaire
obtained a list of participants from a December 2001 meeting
relating to the "hate speech" protocol. The three U.S.
representatives are: Jason Gull, a trial attorney at the Justice
Department; Kenneth Harris, the associate director of the criminal
division's Office of International Affairs; and Richard Visek, an
attorney in the State Department's law enforcement and intelligence
section.

"This shows that the cyber rights community was justified in its
opposition to the cybercrime treaty," David Sobel of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center said of the Second Protocol. "It is
becoming the vehicle for an ever-expanding list of invasive
intergovernmental activities."

Privacy groups have opposed the underlying treaty, which, according to
the Council of Europe, no countries have ratified so far. Among the
objections: Encouraging self-incrimination, no clear limits on police
eavesdropping powers and unwarranted traffic data collection and
storage.

One industry representative who attended a meeting on the cybercrime
treaty at the Justice Department earlier this month said it was
suprising that the government attendees never mentioned the Second
Protocol: "It was interesting because it didn't come up. This was a
clear opportunity to have that discussion."

A foreign affairs officer at the U.S. State Department said the
department is monitoring the process, but hasn't taken a position on
the Second Protocol. The person referred calls to the Justice
Department.

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