Nizkor Int. Human Rights Team
Derechos Human Rights
Serpaj Europe
Information
[Part I: ii) messages]
16ct01
i) THE AMENDMENTS INCLUDED IN THE DRAFT LAW ON "DAILY SAFETY" (FRANCE)
RATIFY THE FEARS EXPRESSED BY CIVIL LIBERTIES AND HUMAN RIGHTS
DEFENDERS.
1. On October 3rd, Prime minister Lionel Jospin told the National
Assembly that the government will set up measures "to fight terrorism".
The announced measures are :
- More security control in publicly accessible places, specially ports
and airports
- Easier perquisitions and body searches, including during preliminary
investigation (before any infraction has been commited, and without
control by a judge)
- More control of electronic communications
2. On October 9th, the government has translated this annoucement into
13 amendments to a law being currently examined (the process being
nearly completed). Among them, 3 are concerning the Internet. They are
extracted in extenso from the draft law on Information society (PLSI).
Amendment #9 is the collection of articles 14, 15 et 16 of the PLSI. it
is related to technical data retention (up to one year, type of data and
actual retention time being defined by an administrative body, the
Conseil d'Etat, Council to the government). Contents of emails and
contents of consulted web sites are explicitely excluded, but this
measure is enough to control who writes to whom and who accesses which
web site, not to mention log data.
Amendment #10 is article 47 of the PLSI. It is related to encrypted
data. Encrypted data could be decrypted upon request from the judicial
authority, including during a preliminary investigation (see supra). In
some cases (infractions involving more than two years of prison),
national security means could be used to decrypt these data. In such
cases, there is no information, and no possibility of appeal.
Amendment #11 is article 42 of the PLSI. It is also related to encrypted
data. Providers of cryptography services would be compelled to provide
the authorities the conventions to decrypt the data or even decrypt the
data by themselves, except if they can prove they are unable to do that.
3. On October 10th, these amendments have been adopted, as submitted, by
the Commission of law of the Senate. NB. no mention of backdoor or
whatever.
4. From October 10th till now, many important French organizations
promoting Human Rights and Liberties, as well as some trade-unions
(including alawyers trade-union and a judge trade-unions, both left-wing
oriented) have reacted : press releases, articles published in most
important newspapers, press conference, etc. IRIS has published a press
release specifically on Internet issues
(http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-surenchere1201.html).
5. On October 12th, IRIS has launched a statement to be signed by
individuals and organizations. This text is quite general, not only
speaking against the measures related to the Internet. It opposes the
measures presented by the government on the basis that they involve or
they will result in:
- discriminatory controls according to the real or supposed origin or
religion (racial discrimination)
- intrusions in private life by more surveillance of Internet usage in
general and electronic communciations specially
- less control by the judge, strengthening of police prerogatives, and
breach to innocence presumption
- these measures will last, and be applied not only to organized crime,
but also to minor infractions. As a matter of fact, these amendments are
included in the draft law on "daily safety".
The statement calls the French members of Parliament not to adopt these
measures, and in any case to have the adopted measures been examined by
the Constitutional Council (NB. Some of them actually unconstitutional,
and to have the CC examine an adopted law, there must be a request made
by 60 members of Parliament, right after the final adoption. This will
be difficult, since the majority and the opposition already said that
they will not ask the CC to examine the text, since the "context is
special")
[This statement is available at:
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/loi-sec/texte-petition.html ]
6. On October 16th and 17th, the amendments will be examined by the
Senate. They will certainly be adopted. They will have to be adopted
again, in the same words by the National Assembly after that.
(...) Actions are starting at the EU level too. There are related to the
"european warrant for arrest", which involves the suppression of double
incrimination between EU countries. These actions are very, very
repressive. And, last but not least, this will make easier and quicker
the ratification of the CoE Convention on cybercrime.
[Source: Meryem Marzouki - IRIS Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire -
15oct01. http://www.iris.sgdg.org . By way of GILC Global Internet
Liberty Campaign]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ii) LATCHING ON TO ANY EXCUSE TO RESTRICT RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS ON THE
INTERNET.
Using as an excuse the fact that terrorist networks could use, among
other techniques, encryption to communicate with one another over the
Internet, the United States is adopting exceptional measures. Almost
immediately after the attacks, the US Senate granted the FBI full powers
to carry out mass intercepts of private communications passing through
servers run by Internet service providers, without the slightest need
for a court order. The free use of encryption techniques is also being
challenged, and strong pressure is being exerted to ensure that the
private keys to messages be made available to investigators. Under
these circumstances, IRIS expresses its support for its US partners in
the international Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), who are
obliged to confront these threats in particularly difficult
circumstances.
These problems are also being felt in other countries around the world.
They also involve issues related to the protection of personal data,
which are already under serious threat from commercial interests. The
practice of creating files on people whose only crime is that they don't
have the right skin colour or ethnic characteristics, or have the wrong
type of name, can only get worse with the increasing use of video
surveillance and facial recognition techniques. Last but not least, we
are seeing in certain circles, including in France and Europe as a
whole, an alarming upsurge in a culture of private militias, leading to
an incriminatory atmosphere. This brings reminders of a particularly
sinister period in world history.
It is blindingly obvious that the billions of items of information that
are being collected, completely illegally and with no legitimacy
whatsoever, by networks such as ECHELON, among others, are completely
useless. Despite that fact, the United States is in the process of
making extremely serious violations of democratic rights and basic
freedoms - rights which are supposed to be enshrined in its own
constitution - into a durable fait accompli.
Beyond the United States, the Council of Europe's draft cybercrime
convention has just been approved by delegations from member states, and
is due to be adopted officially in November 2001. Despite a number of
slight changes, the planned convention still poses serious problems that
have been raised by IRIS and its international partners in the Global
Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC).
As the 23rd international conference of data protection and privacy
commissioners is being held, and, only a few months away from the start
of the ratification process for the Council of Europe Cybercrime
Convention, IRIS calls on citizens, their elected representatives and
all government bodies to mobilize against any and all measures that
infringe on the exercise of democratic rights and basic freedoms on the
Internet.
In particular, IRIS calls on:
- Data protection and privacy commissioners, who will have the crucial
issues on their conference agenda, to adopt a resolution that firmly
recalls basic principles regarding the legitimate finality and the
requisite proportionality that should govern the collection and storage
of personal information, and to denounce any infringements of the
corresponding principles;
- The European Parliament to reaffirm unreservedly both the spirit and
the letter of the amendments to the draft directive on privacy
protection in electronic communication that it adopted in July 2001. In
particular, IRIS wishes to stress the importance of amendment #50 to
Article 15 of the proposed Directive. This states that "Member states
may adopt legislative measures to restrict the scope of the rights and
obligations [...] when such restriction constitutes a necessary,
APPROPRIATE, PROPORTIONATE AND LIMITED IN TIME measure WITHIN A
DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY to safeguard national security, defence, public
security, the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of
criminal offences or of unauthorised use of electronic communication
system. [...] THESE MEASURES MUST BE ENTIRELY EXCEPTIONAL, BASED ON A
SPECIFIC LAW WHICH IS COMPREHENSIBLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND BE
AUTHORIZED BY THE JUDICIAL OR COMPETENT AUTHORITIES FOR INDIVIDUAL
CASES. UNDER THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND PURSUANT TO
RULINGS ISSUED BY THE COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, ALL FORM OF WIDE-SCALE
GENERAL OR EXPLORATORY ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE IS PROHIBITED" (The
capitalized passages are those that have been added by the parliament);
- Governments of Council of Europe member states, and in particular
European Union governments, to refrain from ratifying the planned
Cybercrime Convention as it currently stands;
- The president of the French Republic and the French government and
parliament to refuse to ratify the planned Convention as long as the
changes required to ensure respect for fundamental rights have not been
made to it. IRIS calls on the French parliament to undertake the widest
possible consultations to that end, so that a political viewpoint can be
brought to bear on an issue that has to date been handled purely as an
administrative one;
- The French government and parliament to commit themselves to ensuring,
before any decision, the widest possible public debate on the
information society draft law, for the time it takes to consult and
study the various analyses being put forward, notably by non-profit
groups.
[Source: Analysis from IRIS (France) dated September 23, 2001]
--------------------------------------------------------
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
IRIS contact address: Email: iris-contact@iris.sgdg.org - Web:
http://www.iris.sgdg.org.
Phone/Fax : (33) 144749239
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RELATED LINKS:
- Draft Council conclusions on the importance of considering the needs
of law enforcement authorities when working out Community legislation,
dated 30 March 2001: ENFOPOL 7277/01
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/may/enfo7277.htm
- The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) in the US has
produced a detailed analysis of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act 2001.
The text of their analysis is below or: Analysis ("pdf" format)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/sep/21epic.pdf
- EP Temporary Committee on the ECHELON interception system: Documents
available (Draft Convention on Cyber Crime included).
http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/temp/default_en.htm
- Official homepage of the UK Criminal Justice and Police bill
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/cjp/cjpmain.htm
- Global Internet Liberty Campaign - GILC
http://www.gilc.org/
- "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control". Scientific and
Technological Options Assessment - STOA. 06jan98.
http://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm
- For full background on this issue see: S.O.S.Europe (Statewatch
Observatory on surveillance in Europe)
http://www.statewatch.org/soseurope.htm
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EINDE BERICHT FIM DA MENSAGEM FINE DEL MESSAGGIO ENDE NACHRICHT
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