<nettime> Privacy Groups Slam Euro Cybercrime Treaty

["nettime's roving reporter" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Privacy Groups Slam Euro Cybercrime Treaty

http://www.NewsFactor.com/perl/story/6097.html

The Council of Europe's proposed Cybercrime Treaty has run into a storm of
protests from privacy and industry groups. The U.S. Department of Justice
has endorsed the draft, however, a coalition of approximately two-dozen
civil liberties groups, on Wednesday severely criticized the latest version
of the Council of Europe's (COE) proposed Cybercrime Treaty.

In a letter addressed to the Secretary-General of the 41-nation coalition,
GILC charged that Version 24-2 of the proposed treaty has not gone far
enough to secure individual liberties.

After stating that the COE's October version of the draft was slanted
toward the interests of law enforcement, the GILC wrote: "To our dismay and
alarm, the convention continues to be a document that threatens the rights
of the individual."

Surveillance Concerns

The GILC asserts that the latest draft of the treaty, which many expect to
be the COE's final version, still favors international policing agencies
and, despite assurances to the contrary from such supporters as the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ), has loopholes that potentially compromise
privacy rights.

In its letter, the GILC elaborated on its belief that, if ratified, the
COE's treaty would put Internet service providers (ISPs) under pressure to
cooperate with law enforcement in the surveillance of individual
subscribers.

The organization further contends that the treaty offers no language
guaranteeing that only people who are suspected of serious crimes would be
monitored.

Non-Members Permitted

The GILC's concerns about wide-ranging law enforcement have been magnified
by the COE's intention to invite non-member states to sign the treaty once
it is ratified. The GILC notes that the COE has included no provisions
requiring these invited signatories to adhere to the principles laid out by
the European Convention on Human Rights.

"We would consider [these] invitation[s] to be an attack on the integrity
of the convention," GILC said. "We require at the very least to see a
sufficient requirement and evaluation to the adequacy of human rights
protection prior to allowing their accession."

Finally, the GILC questioned the need for secrecy, suggesting that
shrouding deliberations from the general public portends the COE's
intention to extend big-brother powers to governments across the globe.

High-Tech Caveats

In a separate letter, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)
expressed concern that the COE's treaty would stifle e-commerce, and
questioned whether it would restrict transnational policing solely to
Internet-based crimes.

"In substantial part, the convention is not about 'cybercrime'; it is about
surveillance authority and transborder cooperation for all types of
crimes," CDT said.

Both the GILC and CDT were adamant that a transglobal agreement should mesh
properly with the laws of individual nations. They suggest that the treaty
leads to arbitrary standards concerning what is considered illegal, and
potentially leaves individuals at the mercy of

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net