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U.S. Senate Ratifies Cybercrime Treaty
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 04, 2006 07:01 PM
from the worst-law-evar dept.
from the worst-law-evar dept.
espo812 writes "A story from Washingtonpost.com says, 'The Senate has ratified a treaty under which the United States will join more than 40 other countries, mainly from Europe, in fighting crimes committed via the Internet.' Ars Technica says it's the 'World's Worst Internet Law.'" From the Ars story: "According to the EFF, 'The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' 'cybercrime' laws--even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdictions' requests to log their users' behavior without due process, or compensation.;"
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I've Had It! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've Had It! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I've Had It! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the term "worst" depends upon whether (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, the term "worst" depends upon whether (Score:5, Insightful)
anoNet is a full IP network with many users, an IRC network, wiki, SILC, email, web, PGP, and much much more. For more information: http://www.anonet.org/ [anonet.org] or http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/ [brinkster.net]
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Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly a Constitutional Issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Clearly a Constitutional Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Clearly a Constitutional Issue (Score:5, Informative)
"The U.S. is not a party to the Vienna Convention. However, the State Department has nonetheless taken the position that it is still binding, in that the Convention represents established customary law. The U.S. habitually includes in treaty negotiations the reservation that it will assume no obligations that are in violation of the U.S. Constitution. However, the Vienna Convention provides that states are not excused from their treaty obligations on the grounds that they violate the state's constitution, unless the violation is manifestly obvious at the time of contracting the treaty. So for instance, if the US Supreme Court found that a treaty violated the US constitution, it would no longer be binding on the US under US law; but it would still be binding on the US under international law, unless its unconstitutionality was manifestly obvious to the other states at the time the treaty was contracted. It has also been argued by the foreign governments (especially European) and by international human rights advocates that many of these US reservations are both so vague and broad as to be invalid. They also are invalid as being in violation of the Vienna Convention provisions referenced earlier."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_law_o
AFAIK, the constitutionality of any treaty has yet to be tested. As in matters of military law, SCOPUS might be very reticent to take on a treaty case involving international agreements.
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The treaty explicitly allows us to preserve rights (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, I'm not new here, but people need to RTFM, including the submitter. From the Ars article, just a little further than halfway down:
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Re:Clearly a Constitutional Issue (Score:4, Informative)
Given these safeguards, fears of political persecutions seem overblown, as do concerns that these requests will simply be issued directly from Beijing (which is not a signatory) to Comcast HQ without court oversight.
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Re:Not lawful, is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
RandomTotaliarianGovernmentX declares that avowing oneself - publically - to be a homosexual is a crime.
American goes on craigslist and says he wants to hook up for some play. Some girl decides she wants to try her hand with another girl.
Enter the US State Dept. which contacts RTGX and says "Hey, you know how we have those sanctions on you? We'll drop 'em if you agree to insist that we extradite all the publically avowed homosexuals to you..."
Think it's crazy? They cane you for spitting in Singapore...
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Re:Not lawful, is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's like Wikipedia... (Score:3, Interesting)
Can treaties be considered unconstitutional? It seems to me that the whole point of the constitution was to limit what laws could be made, with anything not permitted prohibited in the light of the inherent rights of mankind. This unlimited law-by-treaty seems rather destructive to the whole point of the constitution.
Ryan Fenton
Sigh, Slashdot editors win again! (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps they should make it an international Internet crime to post stories without checking even the most basic facts (ie, first two paragraphs of the document you link to).
All the laws in the world... (Score:5, Insightful)
Aka - you don't stand a chance in HELL to police the internet. Anyone who think so ought to get their brain examined.
Data is like fluids, you can't filter everything - it's bound to get in everywhere at some time. And the number of data you'd have to filter is increasing with such a speed that there's no chance that ANY law system would be able to hire enough personnel or create software to control it all.
Want a real life example? Take spam - you can't control that either, and we have laws on it already almost EVERYWHERE - but does it work? Didn't work 10 years ago, not 5 years ago - doesn't work today, won't work in the future. Fluids will get in everywhere anywhere anytime.
Best way to filter is utilizing the individuals using the computers, mind filtering --> the no 1. filter in this world. The very same filter can also be used to FIND the content you really want rather than looking trough heaps of endless useless information (spam).
Even if they DID control the net (or the way we access the net) they would be unable to do so - because information always finds a way just like fluid, another net - wireless or by wire...doesn't matter. You can't stop the flow of information now, way too late! And thank goodness for that.
The Nation State.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it. When companies the size of GE and Microsoft run into hassle with different laws in different jurisdictions, they just lobby for harmonisation. And that's what they've gotten. I expect to shortly have what rights I have on the internet reduced to the abysmal level of those living in the US and UK, and what the hell, Iran. All in aid of the children or rich yuppies or whatever. This is why you need proportional representation.
And... it works both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even worse, in the U.K. they could be extradited without the evidence even having to be disclosed to a judge or anyone else due to a treaty (supposedly to be only for terrorist cases but recently used on a fraud charge) with the U.S.A. which the U.K. has ratified but the U.S.A. has refused to. Now, that's scary!
Not for long, though (Score:5, Insightful)
Not for long, I think. In fact, the whole post-9/11 draconian government thing is rapidly dying in the UK, Tony Blair just doesn't realise it yet (or at least doesn't admit to realising it in public).
Yes, there was the recent case of three banking executives who were transferred to the US under dubious circumstances. However, that caused a huge political storm, because the "anti-terror" legislation was clearly being used for something that had nothing to do with safeguarding the land from terrorists. In this case, I suspect that either the US will ratify the treaty and agree the reverse as well very soon, or the UK government will be forced to pull out.
It's the same story elsewhere. Just this week, Walter Wolfgang, the long-standing Labour party member removed by heavies from last year's party conference for daring to heckle Jack Straw over the war on Iraq and then denied re-entry under anti-terror laws(!), was elected by the party membership to their national governing body. Not only does he get to speak at the next conference as a result, it seems he's guaranteed the chance to do so from the same platform as Blair et al.
ID cards and the National Identity Register... Ah, yes, New Labour's greatest threat. Except, of course, that even those people who would like to be involved with it as a lucrative business opportunity are openly questioning whether the government's scheme can even be implemented, never mind bring the claimed benefits. Both the significant opposition parties in England oppose the scheme. The Information Commissioner (our quasi-independent guardian of data protection and freedom of information issues) has issued some of his most damning comments ever on the subject, and ruled against the government several times on information disclosure issues. The timetables are obviously slipping badly, but no-one will admit how badly. The costs are huge, but no-one will disclose how huge. Sooner or later, the whole illusory stack of cards is going to collapse, and all Tony Blair's big "it's be a centrepiece in our next election manifesto" rhetoric is doing is digging his successor's grave early.
Likewise, a bill described as "Blair's (latest) enabling act" because of its attempt to reduce Parliament to pretty much a rubber stamp was quietly all but dropped a few weeks ago.
The government has been ruled against yet again in the past few days over the whole restraining order/detention without trial thing. This is one of those awkward issues: it's a good bet that a high proportion of the people subject to restraining orders really are nasty bits of work, but I think the principle of freedom from arbitrary detention transcends the importance of removing some liberties from a small number of individuals who may or may not pose some level of threat. It would be far better, if the government really has enough good intelligence to believe these people pose a current threat to our security, that the government should bring charges against them in a suitable court of law and make its case properly. In any case, one of the most senior judges in our land has now said outright that if the Home Secretary wants to impose this sort of thing, he's had ample time to consult Parliament since some of these suspects came to light, and therefore he can't just award himself new powers without scrutiny to do as he sees fit. (This on top of one of the most damning judgements in recent legal history from the High Court during the previous round of the case, which pulled few punches as far as telling the government it was way out of line.)
Personally, I increasingly think this is Gordon Brown setting Tony Blair up to take the fall for al
Parent
VOTE the BASTARDS OUT! (Score:3, Funny)
Ok, guys; I got nothin'...looks to me like we're fucked.
All those bad other countries (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait, since torture is illegal in the US, maybe those countries can be of use after all. Better not get our agents in legal trouble. What countries are those anyways? Are they US allies in the fight against terror and for a free and democratic world, like Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Columbia or rather evil countries like Venezuela and France?
Obvious Why They Did It (Score:3, Funny)
Obvious.
Don't know why they didn't think of this before - outside of the known use of the Echelon system by each country that is a part of it to allow other countries to spy on their citizens and share the info. The NSA doesn't spy on us (well, supposedly they didn't USED to!), they just let Britain do it and tell them about it.
They just extended the principle with this treaty.
Antarctica! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Antarctica! (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, Ars Technica actually thinks this is GOOD (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. The Ars Technica article put "World's Worst Internet Law" in quotes for a reason. In fact, it flat out DISAGREES with EFF, even, and says that, "Given these safeguards, fears of political persecutions seem overblown," and that "the Convention provides enough safeguards to prevent the worst kinds of abuse, and additional protocols can always be negotiated if problems become insurmountable."
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