Sleepycatz

A Bad Treat

Thursday night the Senate ratified the Convention on Cybercrime, an international treaty between members of the Council of Europe. The treaty had been pushed hard by the Bush administration and major copyright holders, such as Microsoft, RIAA, et. al. The overall idea of the treaty is to create consistency between traditional laws and cybercrime law - a generally good idea. However, the treaty includes some pretty broad provisions, which will further deteriorate Americans’ rights of privacy and free speech.

The overall problem is generally referred to as a ‘lack of dual criminality’ in the treaty. It doesn’t sound so bad when phased like that, but what is means is that any nation signing the treaty can compel the US federal authorities to spy on US Internet users and aid in their prosecution — even if the crime they are charged with is NOT illegal in the US. So, for instance, a pro-democracy advocate in America can be surveilled by the FBI at the behest of the Russian government; a US organizer for gay rights in Poland could find all of their Internet traffic tapped and handed to the Polish police. Cnet summed it up by noting:

[The treaty] says Internet providers must cooperate with electronic searches and seizures without reimbursement; the FBI must conduct electronic surveillance “in real time” on behalf of another government; that U.S. businesses can be slapped with “expedited preservation” orders preventing them from routinely deleting logs or other data.

Large American Internet companies have shown that they are more then willing to turn their users over to torturers for a few pieces of silver. It now appears that they’ll have the protection and aid of the US government in deflecting criticism of these acts. For it’s part the US government can now move forward with plans to force ISPs to provide data-tapping facilities for all Internet traffic - something which both users and ISPs oppose, and which probability wouldn’t pass in congress.

For his part, US AG Alberto Gonzales said. “The Convention is in full accord with all U.S. constitutional protections, such as free speech and other civil liberties, and will require no change to U.S. laws.” This should make us all feel better though, as Mr. Gonzales has a splendid record on protecting civil rights

This entry was posted by steve on Sunday, August 6th, 2006 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Internet, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.