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Subject: Cyberspace: Two Coalitions Deplore G7 Threats to Internet (fwd)
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From: jo 
Subject: Cyberspace: Two Coalitions Deplore G7 Threats to Internet (fwd)

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Subject: Cyberspace: Two Coalitions Deplore G7 Threats to Internet
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## author     : hrwatchnyc@igc.org
## date       : 07.08.96

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Human Rights Watch has joined with two coalitions to deplore
threats by the G7 to restrict free speech and privacy
rights. The two alerts follow:

======================================================================
ALERT FROM A COALITION OF ONLINE CIVIL LIBERTIES ORGANIZATIONS
            G7 THREAT TO ONLINE FREE SPEECH AND PRIVACY

      IN THE NAME OF COMBATING TERRORISM THE G7 IS PLANNING TO
      CURB THE FREE SPEECH RIGHTS AND PRIVACY OF INTERNET USERS
                           7 AUGUST 1996

   PLEASE REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WIDELY WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
REDISTRIBUTE ONLY IN APPROPRIATE PLACES & ONLY UNTIL 30 SEPTEMBER 96
______________________________________________________________________
IN THIS ALERT:
  Summary
  Background
  What You Can Do
  Where Can I Learn More?
  Organizations

______________________________________________________________________
SUMMARY

On July 30 the G7 group of nations met in Paris to discuss
terrorism. Among other responses the G7 have endorsed a
number of restrictions and controls on the Internet.  These
include the prohibition or censorship of sources that may
contain "dangerous" information, restrictions on the
electronic speech of unpopular political organizations, and
the imposition of "key escrow" or other means of allowing
governments to violate privately encrypted correspondence.

This particularly serious threat, which originates from
recent events such as a bombing at the Atlanta Olympics and
the crash of TWA Flight 800, is another case in a long list
of attempts to restrict freedom of speech in electronic
networks, of which there are alarming examples in many
countries including Australia, Belgium, China, France,
Germany, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the USA and Vietnam, under
a variety of pretexts ranging from "pornography" to
"terrorism" and incorrect political opinion.

* The "offensive" material being targeted is no different
from similar material available in libraries and bookshops.
*What is legal offline must also be legal online*.  If
material cannot be censored at the newsstand or the
university library, it must not be censored in the online
newsstands and libraries of our future.

* Legislators and agency officials are pushing for speedy
passage of censorious and privacy-harming laws, capitalizing
on fear of terrorism to exclude meaningful public input in
the process and substance of these regulations.

* Because the Internet is global, and every culture has its
own rules about what is and is not permissible, the open
nature of the Internet must be protected.  No local
jurisdiction should be allowed to impose its rules on the
rest of the world.

______________________________________________________________________
BACKGROUND

This alert is being issued by a coalition of online civil
liberties organizations that support online privacy, freedom
of speech and human rights. The organizations are listed at
the end of this alert along with contact details.

Since its inception the Internet has more than doubled in
size every year.  If this growth continues, more than one
billion people will be using the Internet by the turn of the
century.  Each of these users can as easily publish material
as they can read it.  The Internet has the potential vastly
to improve the workings of democratic government and to
spread liberty across the globe.

In light of recent bombings in the US and elsewhere, there
are again calls to ban from the Internet information on
explosives, as well as any other issues that can be related
to "terrorism."  Anti-terrorist hysteria has become the
excuse for governmental attempts to circumvent online
freedom of expression, guaranteed by constitutions, laws,
and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Information on how to make bombs, as well as other things
that would be "banned," is widely available, often from the
very governments pushing for censorship.  Banning such
publications from the Internet won't make it any less widely
available.  However it could become the tool for the
censorship of any debate or opinion which happens to
displease the authorities, or "pressure groups" that do not
share those opinions. This is a pure and simple violation of
free speech, no matter how it is disguised.

Currently, communicating via the Internet is like sending
messages on postcards.  Anyone between the sender and
receiver can read the message. Encryption (data scrambling)
technology can be used to ensure the privacy of
communications.  It's like placing  messages in envelopes.
Although widely available the technology has not yet become
a part of the Internet because of pressures from the
"intelligence" and law enforcement agencies.

Some countries, such as the United States, treat
cryptography as if were a weapon, like missile or a machine
gun, and ban its export.  Other countries, such as France,
have an outright ban on cryptography.  Such policies
threaten to undermine information infrastructure not only
locally, but globally, leaving computer networks open to
industrial espionage, and as we are seeing in recent news of
electronic spying on the European Parliament, even
governmental espionage, as well as criminal exploitation.

What the G7 have called for is a way to read all messages
sent by terrorists. The only way they can achieve this is to
have some way of reading messages sent by anyone.  What the
G7 are demanding is that the privacy of all communications
be compromised in the name of protection from terrorism.
However, no real terrorist is going to use such a
compromised system when uncrackable alternatives already
exist and are freely available.  Effectively G7 are
demanding that we all compromise the privacy of our
communications - for NO benefit.

______________________________________________________________________
WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Be alert to what your government is doing or planning.
Contact your law-makers and urge them to protect privacy and
free speech on the Internet.  Write to or call publications
in your area and suggest that they report on any
anti-freedom government action you hear about.

2. Join an online civil liberties organization.  See the end
of this release for contact information for several such
organizations.

3. If there isn't an online civil liberties organization in
your country, why not start one?   Some suggestions on how
to start an online civil liberties organization are
available at:

   http://pobox.com/~mbaker/creating.html

   and

   http://www.well.com/~jonl/bonfire.html

______________________________________________________________________
WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?

Further details on the G7 meeting and its effect on the Net
can be found in a press release from the Global Internet
Liberty Coalition: http://www.aclu.org/gilc/index1.html

For a summary of efforts around the world to censor the
Internet see the "10 May 96 Silencing the Net" report on the
Human Rights Watch gopher site:

  gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:5000/11/int/hrw/general

For background on global efforts to muzzle the Net see these
web sites: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/

and

  http://www.io.org/~sherlock/doom/threat.html

For information on global and international online freedom
issues see the Electronic Frontier Foundation web site:

  http://www.eff.org/pub/Global/

Translations of this alert will be available as follows:

  Catalan:  http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/
  French:   pforsans@in-net.inba.fr
  Italian:  http://www.nexus.it/alcei.html
  Spanish:  http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/

________________________________________________________________________
ORGANIZATIONS

The following organizations have issued this alert:

ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei.html CITADEL -
Electronic Frontier France * pforsans@in-net.inba.fr EFF-Austin (Texas) *
http://www.eff-austin.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA) * http://www.eff.org
Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/
Electronic Frontier Ireland * http://www.efi.ie/
Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au
Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier Norway) *
  http://www.sn.no/~efn
Fronteras Electronicas Espan~a (Electronic Frontiers Spain) *
http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/
HotWired * www.hotwired.com
Human Rights Watch * http://www.hrw.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     GILC OPPOSES EFFORTS TO REGULATE INTERNET: GROUP CALLS G-7
                      EFFORTS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC

     PARIS July 30, 1996 -- The Global Internet Liberty
     Campaign said today that it would oppose efforts to
     regulate privacy technology and free speech on the
     Internet. The announcement follows a meeting of G-7
     leaders in Paris where plans were announced to regulate
     the Internet in ways that threaten the Free Speech and
     Privacy rights of it users. The G-7 countries include
     the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
     Canada and Japan. Russia also participates in the
     meetings of the G-7.

     The G-7 proposal, while couched in careful diplomatic
     terms, appears to endorse a U.S. Government initiated
     plan to require key escrowed encryption on the Internet
     -- a scheme where the keys for decryption would be
     accessible to governments. There is also language which
     suggests plans to restrict the electronic publication
     of information by unpopular political organizations.

     Earlier attempts by officials in the US Administration
     to pass similar measures through Congress have failed.

     Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director of the ACLU, said
     "The US government may not accomplish through an
     international endrun what the US Congress and the US
     Courts have rejected."

     The ACLU was lead plaintiff in the successful challenge
     to the Communications Decency Act. In that case, a US
     federal court held that the government may not regulate
     speech on the Internet.

     Simon Davies, director general of Privacy
     International, said that the human rights community
     must not permit national governments to seize control
     of privacy enhancing technologies. "National
     governments will use the horrendous incidents in the
     States to build a international web of surveillance to
     the detriment of their citizens."

     Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy
     Information Center in Washington, said that the
     proposals would meet with fierce opposition from the
     Internet community. "Net users will simply not allow
     governments to trample on the rights of citizens. Our
     rights to privacy and free speech are clearly protected
     by international law."

     EPIC organized the Internet petition against the
     Clipper encryption scheme.

     Cynthia Brown, program director of Human Rights Watch,
     said, "Free speech on the Internet is already under
     attack from states like Saudi Arabia, China and
     Singapore, and with this agreement, the G7 countries
     are only reinforcing that negative trend.

     Human Rights Watch has produced a report on threats to
     Liberty on the Internet.

     The GILC was formed at the annual meeting of the
     Internet Society in Montreal. Members of the coalition
     include the American Civil Liberties Union, the
     Electronic Privacy Information Center, Human Rights
     Watch, the Internet Society, Privacy International, the
     Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet and other civil
     liberties and human rights organizations.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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