LOPPSI 2 looms in France
p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- As we pointed out in the January 12 world headline roundup, French president Nicolas Sarkozy wants ISPs from each G8 nation to meet in Deauville before the G8 and produce a report on:
- What regulation is necessary for the Internet?
- How to respond to problems of terrorism, pedophilia.
- The right to be forgotten.
So said Deutsche Welle, going on, “In November 2010, France also began sending out warning e-mails to illegal file-sharers across France as part of a controversial new anti-piracy government agency, known as Hadopi.
“The French Internet advocacy group, La Quadrature du Net, which has repeatedly spoken out against Hadopi and other online regulatory measures in France, also told Le Monde on Tuesday that Sarkozy’s desire for increased Internet regulation was ‘not a surprise’.”
It wasn’t.
Sarkozy, whose wife has been immortalised in a comic book, doubles as the French president only when he’s not fronting the Hollywood and Big music world-wide Three Strikes and you’re Off The Net agenda.
Now we’re waiting on LOPPSI 2.
“Having just passed its super-controversial Creation et Internet ‘graduated response’ law, [Hadopi] you might think the French government would take at least a brief break from riling up the ‘internautes’,” said Ars Technica recently, going on:
“Instead, the government is prepping a new crime bill that will, among other things, mandate Internet censorship at the ISP level, legalize government spyware, and create a massive meta-database of citizen information called ‘Pericles’.”
Under Loppsi 2, said the post, “French ISPs would also need to participate in a Web censorship regime that initially appears targeted at child pornography. Critics like Jean-Michel Planche, who advises the French government on Internet issues, are already calling the new bill the end of an open and neutral Internet.
“Finally, the bill allows for a database called ‘Pericles’ that can pull together information from various existing French databases to create a ‘super-dossier’ on people. According to Le Monde, such a database could contain all sorts of crucial, personal information, and sounds certain to set off the same debates that have taken place in the US whenever similar projects have been floated.”
Reporters Without Borders is is also concerned, saying the French government and parliament “seem deaf to the concerns being voiced by civil society about a proposed domestic security law known as LOPPSI 2 and the threat it poses to online freedom of expression”.
With LOPPSI 2 slated to come before the senate for its second reading on or soon after January 18, RWB says it “reiterates its call for the elimination of article 4, under which the authorities would be empowered to filter and block pornographic and paedophile content without referring to a court.”
It goes on >>>
Ange Bleu, a French NGO that combats paedophilia, has itself said that LOPPSI 2 is using the protection of children “as a Trojan horse for generalized online filtering” and has described the proposed law as “ineffective,” “counter-productive” and “dangerous”.
Reporters Without Borders is also concerned about two other articles in the bill. There are no guarantees for the confidentiality of journalists’ sources in article 23, which would allow the police to use remotely-introduced spyware under an investigating judge’s supervision to obtain information from computers without the knowledge of those targeted.
And article 2, making identify theft punishable by imprisonment or a fine, poses a threat to the widespread use of pseudonyms and to the creation of profiles aimed at caricaturing or satirising well-known people (read more).
Adoption of this law would constitute a serious violation of the constitution, article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and French jurisprudence. In its June 2009 ruling on the Internet law known as Hadopi 1, the Constitutional Council said limiting Internet access restricts freedom of expression and therefore needs to be authorized by a judge.
RWB says Socialist Party deputy Patrick Bloche’s plans to refer LOPPSI II to the Constitutional Council.
Stay tuned.
Deutsche Welle -France wants to put Internet regulation on the G8 agenda, January 12, 2011
Hadopi – HADOPI online: check it out, October 2, 2010
comic book – Carla Bruni-Sarkozy: comic book heroine, November 20, 2010
LOPPSI II – With HADOPI in place, here comes LOPPSI, November 1, 2010
Ars Technica – Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship, May 19, 2009
Reporters Without Borders - Bill that would threaten online freedom continues its way through parliament, January 13, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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January 13th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Interesting: seems they want to have people by the balls. Maybe they should have called it ‘Testiclees’