Reading the Fine Print on the Cybercrime Treaty 51
Anonymous Coward writes: "Mike Godwin, Former Counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of Cyber Rights writes about a new international treaty on cybercrime known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. The primary architect is the United States Department of Justice which is using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses."
Worrying for Europeans (Score:2)
As a European (Brit), I'm more concerned about the US interference in this matter. As the article states, the DOJ is pushing for this and they're not even a member of the Council of Europe. And it's more likely that the US will make demands on other nations, than vice versa - A similar thing happened with Norway(?) over the DeCSS issue. The people who will benefit from this are likely to be US corporations and organisations such as the RIAA and MPAA - why else would the DOJ be pushing it?
Essentially, the US Government is influenced by big business and they in turn are influencing foreign governments. At the moment, I can post the DeCSS code on my website, and put up information about reverse engineering etc. It's legal in the UK. I don't want the American government using their influence to change my countries laws for their benefit.
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
This is your assertion, all you now need is some evidence, anecdotal or otherwise to back it up.
For instance, some Muslim countries would consider a photo of a woman showing her bare face or ankles to be pornography, while some asian countries consider prepubescent girls engaged in sex acts to be allowable.
??? You've just tried to back up your assertion of a universal moral position with an example of a difference in moral position. I'm afraid your logic is completely broken.
This is precisely why we need to define the boundaries of what can and cannot be displayed on the internet.
Why? So you can impose your version of morality on a world that has evidently differing standards of morality by your own example?
Your argument is consistent except the instance you've chosen to illustrate your first assertion actually demonstrates the opposite of assertion.
No free speech in UN Declaration of Human Rights. (Score:1)
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
"Freedom of thought" is not "freedom of speech". And no, the speech reference in the PREAMBLE doesn't count. The PREAMBLE is not part of the actual laws laid out.
This paragraph is cool - read ! (Score:1)
The Explanatory Report should clarify that the terms "without right" do not exclude legal defenses, excuses or similar relevant principles that relieve a person of responsibility under specific circumstances. Therefore, conduct undertaken with artistic, medical or similar scientific purposes would not be "without right".
Re:Worrying for Europeans (Score:1)
If anything, EU is where most of potential opressors are.
Re:No free speech in UN Declaration of Human Right (Score:2)
to amount to freedom of speech. What was your point?
Re:Anonymity is a Crime now, and Civil court repla (Score:1)
As David Banisar (of EPIC [epic.org]) said at the recent Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, Carnivore is law enforcement's wet dream.
--
You are incorrect (Score:2)
Treaties are limited [lexrex.com]
But it is dangerous because they are trying to do things our own legislature did not want. It is marketed like : well all these countries aggreed so we should too.
Quote from the link:
"A related and most preposterous allegation is that a treaty "can cut across the rights given the people by the constitutional Bill of Rights"--than which nothing could be further from the truth, partly for two reasons:..."
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
That's exactly the point of the treaty. It was designed to implement a set of standards to determine what is and is not appropriate. While all governments have differing views regarding legality of various content, the treaty is a global initiative to come to a common agreement and comprimise on a set of universally recognized standards.
"Well, for starters, pornography is still legal on the U.S., as it is on many other countries."
True, some pornography is legal in the us, and other countries, but certain content is almost universally recognized as being obscene. For instance, some Muslim countries would consider a photo of a woman showing her bare face or ankles to be pornography, while some asian countries consider prepubescent girls engaged in sex acts to be allowable. This is precisely why we need to define the boundaries of what can and cannot be displayed on the internet.
Bibliography of Cybercrime Treaty Articles (Score:1)
Re:Worrying for Europeans (Score:1)
Not necessarily (Score:1)
The ends do not justify the means except in very very very special circumstances, this is a lesson history will teach us again and again until it sinks in.
Re:Hee hee! (Score:2)
Article VI, Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
In other words, if you ratify a treaty that has something unconstitutional in it, it is no more (or less) permanent than an unconstitutional federal law. Treaties are on the same footing as federal law, which is to say hierarchically under the U.S. Constitution but over state constitutions or laws.
The real problem here is the same as bad patents, only worse: Once you have a bad treaty, you have to make, literally, a federal case out of it to get it thrown out. So if you want to pull some sleazy stunt with the law, it is even easier to do it in a foriegn forum, with no elected or particularly answerable participants, than it is in a Congress - convenience, not conspiracy. Who is going to read a treaty the size of a New York telephone directory? This is bad, but it isn't the black helicopter people coming to get you.
Re:Who foots the bill? (Score:2)
I have no idea. Like I said, IANAL. But, I simply don't like the idea of betting potentialy large sums of money on a company deciding not to enforce a contract clause. If ISPs and others with similar clauses (such as re-hosting companies) don't have any intention of using them, why put them in?
Once upon a time, I was a simple trusting soul who basically thought that if I dealt with large reputable firms all would be well. However, a few months of reading Slashdot (DeCSS, cue-cat etc) has lead me to the conclusion that large companies and corporations couldn't care less about screwing their customers over. My policy is now not to rely on trust.
Of course, if someone who is a UK lawyer were to demonstrate that I have nothing to worry about and that these clauses would not be enforceable then that would make my life significantly easier.
Re:Who foots the bill? (Score:2)
Well, obviously, this often isn't physically possible because the agreement is an online contract-o-matic, (which I agree may not be legally binding). The solution wiith my current cable provider was to sign the paper agreement, which didn't mention indemnity and then click "I don't agree" at the contract-o-matic. This means that I don't get any email addresses or web space, but I can get those elsewhere and they haven't complained. As an additional protection, I pay by monthly cheque rather than direct debit. That way they need to take me to court to get money rather than just taking it and leaving me to fight to get it back again.
they wouldn't turn away good business.
Maybe not in the USA, but here in the UK following the Demon libel case ISPs are very nervous and will drop people's accounts at the first hint of trouble. If someone strike a clause then they are going to instantly suspect trouble!
Re:No free speech in UN Declaration of Human Right (Score:1)
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
Sounds pretty much like freedom of speech to me! Yeah. "Like". And the sales tax laws make it look "like" you don't have to pay sales tax on stuff ordered from out of state, right?
The 10th amendment to the US constitution states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The UN charter contains no such provision. This means that if a right is not EXPLICITLY GRANTED to you, it isn't. The UN reserves all other powers.
Re:Who foots the bill? (Score:1)
You don't seriously think the ISP will ever recover that money, clause or no clause...
In either case, if law enforcement thinks they have a case, *they* should foot the bill.
The US doesn't have very good credentials. (Score:1)
It does not seem to me like a good thing to me if a country with such a poor record is trying to organize "crime fighting" in democracies that have a much better record on crime and crime fighting.
why this, but not the Rome Statute? (Score:1)
Danny.
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
As you say, some porn is legal in Western countries, but what's considered mild (or even completely innocent here, eg. a woman with an unveiled face) is considered otherwise in other countries. Or other countries (eg. Japan) may be more lax on the porn allowed (particularly in manga/cartoon form) than the West generally is.
But there are some universal standards out there. Sexual abuse of children is one - pix showing this are universally out. And fraud is always bad (no nation I know uses the Ferengi laws!
After that, if one country allows its net users to display kinky sex on their homepage, and another won't allow unveiled women on your pages, so be it. That's national jurisdiction for you. The fact that you can see pages with these pix from anywhere in the world is immaterial for national laws, and cutting those would require filtering by the more oppressive countries. The issue here isn't that they want to impose a standard from above which conflicts with other countries, but that they want to get a global statement of what's legal as a baseline - the intersection of every legal system.
Grab.
How the US handles treaties (Score:1)
Yes, this will give whatever fascist element there is in our government another argument to pass these laws ("Look! All those other countries did it!"), but the bottom line is our UN reps are not circumventing the system.
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
Re:The usual suspects (Score:1)
Re:Int'l law is only way to get around Constitutio (Score:1)
What about crimes that could be made illegal here, but are currently legal?
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:1)
I'll never forget when I stepped off the plane in the Netherlands. Full frontal nudity of women AND men on broadcast, government-owned channels. Porn of every type. Drugs legal or quasi-legal.
But on the TV, they would chop out violence that would easily make it into broadcast TV in the US. Like when Arnie grabs that innocent cop in t2 in the parking structure and throws him into the post, knocking him out with a crack. Or when the T1000 slams that heavy hanging thing into his head again and again. Not chopped in US broadcast, chopped there.
Whoo hoo! I live in the land of the, umm, free.
Re:The usual suspects (Score:1)
> agreements, and secrets creeping into mainstream activities.
Been around for a long time in other industries.
> Commercial law that overrules the common law
> practices of accepted usage ignores the fact
> that business is only a means to achieve social
> outcomes and not just a scam to siphon money
> from silly sharemarket speculators.
Business, contrary to popular socialist belief, does not exist as a means to achieve social outcomes. It is the consensual activities of groups of people, using only their own property, thus deriving directly from freedom of person, freedom of association, and freedom to own property (not just nominally, but to do with it what you wish.)
These associations (businesses) are the livelihood of the people involved. As such, stealing their product is no less a crime than stealing bread.
Philosophers have long talked about the morality of stealing a loaf of bread if you're starving. You'll have a very hard time arguing some poor person in a third world country is in imminent danger of dying if they don't get their fix of Britney for their CD player, and soon.
The usual suspects (Score:4)
The treaty has supporters, of course. The Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry of America Association, and the Business Software Alliance all favor the treaty's requirement that certain copyright infringements be handled under criminal law.
What a surprise.
Re:You're not making sense (Score:2)
????
You've gotta stop doing those 'ludes and drinking at the same time, man. One day those bugs crawling on the walls will get you.
Let me interpret what this means: (Score:2)
Bad person online: (and you know who you are) This will mean that everything you do online will be watched, tracked and reported. Which is as it should be, because you're a bad person.
No just kidding. I'm trolling. It basically means the Internet is FUCKED. Because not only does your government (that you elected, presumably) get to throw your sorry ass in jail, but it means some tin-pot dicator (libya?) will get to do the same.
Do you want to speak out against the French? Don't do it online. I'm sure its illegal in France, and therefore the US government will be obliged to be an agent of France.
More than likely though, this will be used by RIAA/MPAA groups to hound people in Europe and Asia so that the government is using foreign governments to criminally prosecute what are essentially civil disagreements.
But hey, Copyright is so fucking important, that we might as well be good corporate sheep and pay money everytime we fart because that's already been copyrighted.
To those of you who think this promotes "balance", get your head out of your ass. We lost balance about 30 years ago and we're all running behing a huge boulder marked "corporate interests".
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
Surely you mean: "This is precisely why we cannot defined the boundaries of what can and cannot be displayed on the internet."
Some people find Teletubbies offensive on moral grounds. If you want to legislate the net that way, you end up with total ban on everything.
But Justice is trying to do what Congress wouldnt (Score:1)
Who foots the bill? (Score:3)
However every ISP that I have ever dealt with has had an indemnity clause in their user agreement. Now, IANAL, but I get the impression that I have agreed that if my ISP spends money in staff and legal costs investigating a complaint about me from police in for example Riga or Washington then they can send me the bill and I will have to pay it.
Note: I am in the UK, but I assume that a similar system exists in other countries?
This is giving me chills... (Score:5)
Kasreyn turns to Benjamin the Goat...
"Benjamin, my eyes are failing. Can you read to me what the First Commandment says?"
The old donkey sighed, then squinted at the side of the old barn... Finally, he spoke.
"Every animal is allowed freedom of his thoughts and ideals, as long as they are not expressed in a way that would offend others."
Kasreyn sighed. "I could have sworn it used to say something about freedom of speech... didn't you? Well, I guess it doesn't really matter - Comrade Napoleon is always right."
Does this strike anyone else as VERY FUCKING SCARY? This is the fucking U.N. charter, and it doesn't include freedom of speech, but everyone just *assumes* it does.
It really does feel to me like the part from the middle of Animal Farm, where the pigs were surreptitiously rewriting the Commandments, with no one the wiser. Finally they were able to abuse the other animals terribly, all the while claiming it was merely their virtuous prerogative under the laws.
I think Orwell's little attempt at humor or consolation, in calling it a "Fairy Tale", was misguided, even in as bleak a pessimist as he.
-Kasreyn
Emerging Global Legal System (Score:3)
Of course, the authorities do not have an answer to this. They may not want to have an answer to this.
The mental health authorities do not have any answer to this. Yet you would think they would have some effective answer to trustworthiness that would not have orwellian overtones. But their focus is not on human values like social virtues like being trustworthy. Their focus is very much elsewhere. Ultimately their focus is on control.
But I do not blame them for this, because that is not where the money is. For many many years the big bucks for research have gone into the high profit areas, such as advertising and drugs. Madison Avenue has paid billions of dollars to find out how to more effectively manipulate their market. The drug research has gone to helping people be outwardly calm and peaceful. NOTE: Calm and peaceful sounds nice, but I do not think that calm and peaceful is always an appropriate response to a situation. But being passive is often defined as the appropriate and healthiest response
This is troubling in the context of the emerging Global legal system. The rule used to be that you had to be in a country to break it's laws (such as a traffic accident). Now we have a problem of WHOSE laws and standards are going to be enforced world wide. The emerging answer is EVERYONES, and when in doubt, well you have the lunacy of France barring Yahoo for content on USA sites.
We'll have to have porno like disclaimers saying "warning this content may be illegal outside of the USA" with perl and java setup to block access from non-USA ip addresses.
The fragmentation of the Internet continues, and the legal system is a bloody mess.
The process was flawed (Score:2)
When Canada and the United States wanted to harmonize the technical requirements for equipment that would be attached to the telephone systems in the two countries, they started and promoted an open forum for the exchange of ideas, of proposals, and of implementation techniques. The same process continues under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), again in the sunshine of open exchange. With the ITU, you may not have direct access, but you do have input through your country's standards-making process.
With this treaty, we have a branch of the United States government supported by taxpayer dollars acting as a "consultant" to a European treaty body without full knowledge and consent of the people footing the bill, let alone preventing citizens from having any input into what is proposed. In other words, the law enforcement arm of the Poster Boy For Democracy is engaging in secret talks that affect the bill-payers, and the results of that political end-run is made public only after the concrete has been poured and cured in the document.
Why was the FBI involvement kept secret? Why was there no notice before the United States sent its advisors to Europe?
Perhaps it is time for the EFF to use FIOA to get a record of who did what, and exactly what process was used to make this happen.
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:1)
I will decline your offer for the following reasons. I don't know you, and I'm a bit leery about revealing personal information to strangers. OTOH, I feel quite confident that the government I know and love can be entrusted with my personal information. In fact, they probably already have quite a bit of personal information for me. This does not disturb me in the least because I have nothing to hide.
Have you ever seen a movie where the bad guys are constanly looking behind their backs to make sure the police aren't coming after them. Perhaps you're so paranoid because you have something to hide. Meanwhile, those of us who are law abiting upstanding citizens applaud the government for taking the initiative to clean up the Internet.
I think the web cams in all rooms analogy is a bit extreme, but I wouldn't mind having a government operative cruising chat rooms or IRC channels in search of illegal activity. Whether you like it or not, the Internet is a public forum. Your messages are getting broadcast across public lines to the outside world, and anything that you do not want to be released out in public, you probably shouldn't be saying on the Internet. It would be like smoking a joint outside of a police station.
I have two children, ages 5 and 9, and I'd love for them to be able to experience the wealth of knowledge that is available on the Internet, but as it stands, I am hesitent to allow them access because of all the filth and perversion that is present out there.
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:1)
Re:The usual suspects (Score:1)
Copyright is a form of control (legal coercion) which if taken to extremes, means you are not allowed to communicate with your friends. Already we see NDAs, restrictive service agreements, and secrets creeping into mainstream activities. Commercial law that overrules the common law practices of accepted usage ignores the fact that business is only a means to achieve social outcomes and not just a scam to siphon money from silly sharemarket speculators.
LL
Passage (Score:1)
Re:Who foots the bill? (Score:2)
Be smarter. Type up the paper agreement in the same font, or scan it, and leave the offending clause out. This is not falsification, as this is something you sign, not sth which bears somebody else's signature. Chances are, they won't notice.
Re:No free speech in UN Declaration of Human Right (Score:1)
Real freedom of speech (which is truly rare) means you can say what you want, even if it makes people mad, is an affont to their dignity, and generally is insulting.
That is scary to most people and is why its generally not allowed.
Maybe people now understand what rebels the US founding fathers really were. They were for guns, free speech, government had no power over individuals conduct.
Very scary stuff!
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
Then friggin' monitor their time on the Internet for pete's sake! You are the parent, it is what you are supposed to be doing. Think about what you want to allow and what you don't want to allow then sit your kids down and set the groundrules. I work in an IT department and every parent with children your age do this. When my son id at that age I will have to do the same thing. Heck I have one co-worker who has set up VNC on his teen's PC and occassionally checks to make sure the chat conversations are appropriate. Hint, your children are too young to be on the Internet without some parental supervision and even with the cybercrime treaty that issue wouldn't change.
What is the difference between telling a child not to trust every person they meet in a chatroom and telling the child not to wander off with a stranger in a mall?
What is the differnce between telling your child to be home by the time the streetlights are on and saying Internet time is over at 8 pm?
What is the differnce between having a rule that your 5 year old must stay in the yard within your sight and only allowing the child to visit the Disney and Teletubbie websites?
And what do you do when your child breaks one of their "real world" rules? I doubt nothing. And what do you do when your child is exposed to something you consider inappropriate? Daddy, why did that man call that other man a *insert obsenity here*. Or they see the news and hear about a rape/murder victim.
Re:Who foots the bill? (Score:2)
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:1)
We don't want your bad laws; trust me you don't want ours.
ps. People who use "kiddie porn" are evil. Using it to support arguments is evil too.
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:1)
For a new law (Score:2)
IP laws from the U.S.A.
Encryption laws from the UK.
Privacy from the Russia.
Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:2)
The only part of the article that concerns me is this statement:
"The primary architect is the United States Department of Justice which is using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses."
I don't understand how this couldn't benefit citizens and businesses. It seems to me that any law inforcement group that focuses on bring justice and order to the Internet can only be beneficial to ordinary citizens and businesses. Wouldn't you like to see a crackdown on all the pornography, child molesters and fraud that exists on the internet. Unless you're a peddler of fraudulent goods or services, or a pornographer, this could only be helpful to most people.
This is BS. (Score:3)
computer. Governments would also need the ability to capture in real time the time and origin of all traffic on a networks, including telephone networks. For serious crimes, they would be required to
intercept the actual content of the communications.
Third, nations would have to cooperate with other nations in sharing electronic evidence across borders. And this cooperation requirement would apply to all crimes. They don't have to be the cybercrimes
laid out in the first section of the treaty or even actions unlawful under U.S. law.
So, regardless of any country's 'right to privacy' this says you have none.
There's no mention of encryption that I can find, though. Does that mean that if everything I do is encrypted then it cannot be recovered? Or that there is no encryption available because it would cause the search and recovery impossible?
This sounds like a really REALLY bad idea.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
Re:Cybercrime Treaty is a positive step (Score:1)
That's the main problem I see with this law. Who should decide what is illegal all over the world? The country with the most guns? The one with the smartest people? The one with the most Internet users? The global mayority? The world ain't exactly a democracy, now.
Unless you're a peddler of fraudulent goods or services, or a pornographer, this could only be helpful to most people. Well, for starters, pornography is still legal on the U.S., as it is on many other countries. In other countries, it's not. I agree that frauds should be investigated, but then each nation has it's own set of laws, and it would be messing with other people's business if the American Dept. of Justice just started telling them how to run their legal systems.
Well, that's my opinion on the subject.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Hee hee! (Score:3)
Anonymity is a Crime now, and Civil court replaced (Score:1)
The US Gov and Italy tried this angle in 1992.
Now they want to try again, plus "Think of the Children!"
Those poor children being victimized by computer rendered porn.
They also want desperately to make Civil crimes such as non-financial benefitted trading of intellectual property into a Felony.
They hate the US constitution so they try to use WIPO and NAFTA and NATO and the various free trade agreements to take away our few remaining rights.
They already claimed that Bomb building discussion on paper or on radio is free speech, but the same chemistry on a web site is a federal offense?!?!?
Only the US Library of Congress is entitled to distribute such information.
What a crappy country.
No less than two new tiny branches of the government created less than two years ago with one mission.... to write keyboard loggers for black bag jobs.
The Executive branch has a department whose sole job is to make dossiers on systems level educated software engineers and to write keyboard sniffer infiltration tools, and the Judicial branch created one too.
Both are intended to spy on us citizens.
Have you heard the latest? The US president has tried no less than 6 times in the last 8 years to make it legal to record your keystrokes without a phone-tap level wire tap authorization.
Luckily they need to let you know your keyboard has been tapped, but they are allowed to inform you many weeks after they started.
Using a laptop to enter pgp passphrases is one solution. All the hardware devices are USB and PS2 usually.
And keeping your boot system with you at all times in a locked briefcase may be your only privacy in the future.
After all... Only terrorists and child porn sellers use PGP and other encryption.
Encryption is no longer freedom of speech its a BURGLAR TOOL, even though burglar tools are supposed to be devices.
More amusingly, many governments (USA too soon) make crimal offenses DOUBLED if a gun was used or encryption was used. This is even if the gun is unloaded and merely on the persons body concealed and never brandished, or in the trunk of a car.
Basically gun ownership, and PGP email ownership are crimes.
These new treaties are merely ways to entrench echelon onto fibre. The us gov cant make a vampire tap or an emmisions tap on transcontinental fibre legally do they want to make more tap points than MAE-East and MAE-WEST and the 7 other illegal tap NOCs they have already.
The CO$ (scientologists) really really want this new set of laws... they hate the old court documents floating around on the net. They helped kill the email anonymizers.
Mixmaster never caught on, but the us gov wants to ensure it will never be legal to run.
They want to stretch all the RICO laws and all the Property Confiscation laws to the maximum.
Rarely do freedoms ever return. They are only taken away.