National Assembly approves law requiring ISPs to block access to list of banned websites in the name of fighting child pornography, but critics point out that purveyors of this obscene material long ago turned to encrypted P2P methods to deliver content, making filtering efforts pointless and jeopardizing free speech in the process.
A few days ago the lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, passed the first draft of a bill known as Loppsi 2 on a 312-214 vote that would require ISPs to block access to any site deemed necessary by the govt to prevent criminal activity, specifically child pornography.
Even more troubling is that the law will also allow police, under a judge’s supervision, to to install Trojan horses on suspects’ PCs to remotely monitor for illegal activity.
Critics point out that once the govt establishes a precedent for blocking one type of objectionable or illegal site that it’s easy to begin permeating into other areas, like gambling or P2P, as has been the case in Australia with its own plans for filtering the Internet slowly working its way through the govt there.
In other words, as Lucia Soullier – Marianne points out, “nothing can prevent over-blocking” and filtering proposals “may begin on child pornography and then go beyond every conceivable topic.”
Part of the problem is that consumer and distributors of child porn, the main targets in all of this, don’t want to get busted by the authorities (go figure) and are usually try to stay well ahead of any methods by which they could be detected.
A study by journalist Fabrice Epelboin on the business of child pornography notes that most already use encrypted P2P networks to distribute content. In fact, since the arrival of Microsoft Server 2008 pedophiles have been renting access to a virtual workstation containing child pornography meaning no files are transferred between client and server and therefore outside prying eyes of law enforcement.
Blocking access to sites is like telling people they can’t walk to work when they already driving there.
“We are seeing a whole series of lapses and rights limitations,” says Jean-Pierre Dubois, president of the French League of Human Rights. “The filtering and blocking of the Web has become a standard weapon in the legislative arsenal of a government which has been shameless in its handling of personal freedoms. Loppsi has brought us to a new level…(that) when it comes to restrictions, this text is preparing us for hell.”
The German govt successfully pursued similar efforts there, and in fact just recently a bill was signed into law by the country’s president. The problem is that now the govt there has realized the legislation isn’t necessary. They’re trying to revise the Access Impediment Law, as it is known, so that it would only allow the govt to delete offensive content instead.
The bill now moves forward for a second reading in the French Senate.
Stay tuned.
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- Australia Internet Filtering Trial to Begin with 6 ISPs
- Aussie Internet Filtering Plan to Include P2P Traffic
Wake up Amerika, your Govt is itching to start filtering your internet next. They’ll use some false “attack” as a reason to now take your last true freedom away. The internet. So just sit there and don’t do anything as usual and watch it go away, it’s already happening