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[FYI] (Fwd) [GILC-plan] NYT: Europe Hacker Laws Could Make Protest a Crime
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 10:36:57 -0500
To: gilc-plan@mailman.gilc.org
From: Bobson Wong <bwong@dfn.org>
Subject: [GILC-plan] NYT: Europe Hacker Laws Could Make Protest a Crime
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Perhaps some of our European colleagues have some more insights on
this...
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Europe Hacker Laws Could Make Protest a Crime
By PAUL MELLER {New York Times]
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/international/europe/05BRUS.htm
BRUSSELS, 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.
The agreement, reached last week, obliges all 15 member states to
adopt a new criminal offense: illegal access to, and illegal
interference with an information system. It calls on national courts
to impose jail terms of at least two years in serious cases.
Critics from the legal profession say the agreement makes no
legal distinction between an online protester and terrorists,
hackers and spreaders of computer viruses that the new laws are
intended to trap.
Last Wednesday, protesters against a possible war against Iraq
barraged the White House and Senate offices with tens of
thousands of messages by phone, fax and e-mail, as part of what
was billed as the first-ever "virtual protest march."
Under the new agreement, if European Union citizens undertook a
similar electronic bombardment of the e-mail, fax and phone lines of
the British prime minister, Tony Blair, they might be liable for
prosecution, said Leon de Costa, chief executive of Judicium, a legal
consultancy based in London. The new code "criminalizes behavior
which, until now, has been seen as lawful civil disobedience," Mr. de
Costa said.
Ulrich Sieber, a professor of law at Munich University, urged
lawmakers to amend the code to add a specific reference to the
right to free expression as outlined in the European Union's
Charter of Fundamental Human Rights.
Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy, said he
failed to persuade the ministers to insert wording that
differentiates between the online equivalent of trespassing and
someone breaking and entering. The role of the European
Parliament is consultative, so it cannot force changes to the
law.
A European Union diplomat involved in the drafting of the
measures agreed that protection mechanisms in the code are soft
and said that amendments could still be made.
--
Bobson Wong
Executive Director
Digital Freedom Network
1372 Broadway, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10018
U.S.A.
Phone: +(1-646) 223-1282
Fax: +(1-646) 223-1290
E-mail: bwong@dfn.org
Web: http://dfn.org
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