The World's Worst Internet Laws Sneaking Through the Senate

[Guest guest]

" Magginkat " <magginkat

Mon, 7 Aug 2006 11:58:23 -0500

[GranniesAgainstGeorge] The World's Worst Internet Laws

Sneaking Through the Senate

 

 

 

 

 

In short this means that we will have to enforce China's ancient laws,

intended to keep that iron fist in place. Has this entire Congress

gone insane?

 

 

 

The World's Worst Internet Laws Sneaking Through the Senate

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004864.php

 

 

August 03, 2006

 

[update: The Cybercrime Treaty was ratified by the Senatelate last

night. The U.S. will now have to comply to requests for assistance

from fifteen countries, and growing.]

 

The Convention on Cybercrime is a sweeping treaty that has been

waiting in the wings of the Senate for nearly three years. Now the

administration is putting pressure on the Senate to ratify it in the

next two days. If it does, it would mean the U.S. would enforce not

just our own, but the rest of the world's bad Net laws. Call your

Senator now, and ask them to hold its ratification.

 

The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other

countries' " cybercrime " laws - even if the act being prosecuted is not

illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws

limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the

identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications

on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to

obey other jurisdiction's requests to log their users' behavior

without due process, or compensation.

 

The treaty came into force last year on the international front, but

not in the US, where it needs to be ratified by Congress first. So

far, ratification has been blocked thanks to a " hold " placed by

conservative lawmakers. But Republican senators this week are now

being heavily pressured by the administration to drop their

objections, and let it fly.

 

Ratifying the Cybercrime treaty would introduce not just one bad

Internet law into America's lawbooks, but invite the enforcement of

all the world's worst Internet laws. Call your senators now, and tell

them to hold this invasive treaty at bay.