From declan@well.comWed Aug 7 11:48:41 1996
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 12:27:21 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: G7 Threat Alert from international Net-coalition (8/7/96)

[Redistribute widely. Add'l info at http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ --Declan]

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?
Organisations

______________________________________________________________________

• 
  SUMMARY
  
  On July 30th 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 organisations, 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, capitalising 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
  organisations that support online privacy, freedom of speech and human
  rights. The organisations 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 organisation. See the end of this
  release for contact information for several such organisations.
  
  3. If there isn't an online civil liberties organisation in your
  country, why not start one? Some suggestions on how to start an
  online civil liberties organisation 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/
  http://www.eff.org/~declan/fight-censorship/
  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/

________________________________________________________________________
ORGANISATIONS

The following organisations 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 * http://www.hotwired.com/
    Human Rights Watch * http://www.hrw.org
    Reporters sans frontieres * http://www.calvacom.fr/rsf/
    
    Press Contacts:
    
    Please choose an organisation above and visit their web site for contact
    information.

 Back to..