~Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 12:50:49 +1 ~Subject: persbericht db.nl (over Duitsland/xs4all en ASEAN) ~Reply-to: heinwvm@xs4all.nl *** DB.NL *****l Digitale Burgerbeweging Nederland *beschermheer: Prof. Ir. Baron van Till (vantill@stratix.nl)* persbericht DB.NL EN GLOBAL ALERT PROTESTERen BIJ DUITSLAND EN ASEAN TEGEN MUILKORVING VAN HET NET Amterdam, 29 september 1996 De wereldwijd opererende organisatie Global Alert heeft de afgelopen week twee felle protesten laten horen tegen muilkorving van het net. Het eerste protest betrof de totale blokkade van de Nederlandse internetprovider xs4all door hun Duitse collega's. Het tweede protest betrof het besluit van de Aziatische staten verenigd in de ASEAN conferentie in Djakarta om het Internet te ontdoen van kritische en/of regime onvriendelijke berichtgeving. Global Alert is een mondiaal samenwerkingsverband van organisaties die de rechten en vrijheden van burgers op het net verdedigt. Ook DB.NL is aangesloten bij Global Alert. DB.NL zal in samenwerking met haar zusterorganisaties overal ter wereld systematisch en principieel blijven opkomen voor het recht van vrije meningsuiting op het net, voor de vrije uitwisseling van (internet)diensten in de Europese Unie en voor het recht van de digitale burger op informationele zelfbeschikking. Voor meer informatie kunt u terecht bij de woordvoerder: Hein Westerouen van Meeteren(heinwvm@xs4all.nl), telefoon 020 6201778, fax 020 6240573 Of voor specifieke Gobal Alert informatie bij Arie Dirkzwager, bestuurslid DB.NL , aried@xs4all.nl ( 035-6933258) ******************************************************* Bijlagen: de Verklaringen van Global Alert: *** GLOBAL ALERT *** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SEPT. 18, 1996 - Please redistribute this document widely with this banner intact - Redistribute only in appropriate places & only until 15 October 1996 GERMAN GOVERNMENT PUSHES BLOCKAGE OF NETHERLANDS WEB SITES. At the behest of, and in response to legal threats from, the German government, internet providers in Germany have blocked the Dutch Web site Access For All (www.xs4all.nl), removing German users' access to the entire xs4all system. The German government demanded this action because xs4all hosts a Web "home page" with so-called left-wing political content that, though fully legal in the Netherlands, is allegedly illegal in Germany. (see: http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm). As a result of this action, *all* xs4all web sites, including several thousand that have nothing to do with the offending home page, are unavailable to readers in Germany. Please send a letter of protest to the German ambassador in your country, ask your foreign minister to protest officially to the German government, and distribute this alert as widely as possible online and to the press. Referring to article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights, which Germany ratified in 1973, we, the undersigned organizations, consider this censorship an illegal act. Additionally, the value of attempting to ban content the German government finds offensive is highly questionable. The proper response to offensive expression is more and better expression, and prosecution of offending criminals, not censorship. As a result of the overly broad censorship measure which targets an entire Internet access provider instead of a specific user, all 3000 and more Web site hosted by xs4all are virtually inaccessible in Germany. The loss of clients who market in Germany has resulted in economic damage to xs4all. The immeasurable harm of censoring thousands of other users for the speech of one is even greater. Access for All, though it has expressed willingness to assist the Dutch police in identifying online criminals abusing the xs4all system, has a policy against censoring its clients. Mirroring this position, at least one German Net provider has responded to the government demands with skepticism, pointing out that their compliance with the censorship request may cause them to violate contracts with their own German users, and that the government's liability threats are tantamount to holding a phone company liable for what users say on the telephone. Instead of the futile act of censorship that has simply drawn increased attention to the offending material and resulted in its widespread availability on other sites throughout the world, the German government should have acted through legal channels and asked the authorities in the Netherlands to cooperate in determining what legal action, if any, was appropriate. We are concerned that German internet providers have cooperated so easily with government censorship efforts. Some level of cooperation was probably assured by underhanded and rather questionable police threats of system operator liability for user content, but we must urge more resistance on that part of Net access providers to such online censorship schemes. As with libraries, there are many who would censor, but there is a responsibility on the part of providers of access to information, to work to protect that access, else libraries, and Internet service providers, lose the reason for their existence. We ask that the German government refrain from further restrictive measures and intimidation of internet providers and recognize the free, democratic, world wide communications represented by the Internet. All governments should recognize that the Internet is not a local, or even national, medium, but a global medium in which regional laws have little useful effect. "Top-down" censorship efforts not only fail to prevent the distribution of material to users in the local jurisdiction (material attacked in this manner can simply be relocated to any other country), but constitutes a direct assault on the rights and other interests of Internet users and service providers in other jurisdictions, not subject to the censorship law in question. For press contacts, and for more information about the Internet, see the homepages for the signatories to this message: DB-NL (Digital Citizens Foundation in the Netherlands) * http://www.xs4all.nl/~db.nl ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei CITADEL-E F France *http://www.imaginet.fr/~mose/citadel CommUnity (UK) * http://www.community.org.uk Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/ Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA) * http://www.eff.org Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au/ EFF-Austin (Texas, USA) * http://www.eff-austin.org Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier Norway) * http://www.sn.no/~efn Human Rights Watch * http://www.hrw.org FrEE (Fronteras Electronicas Espan~a) http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin Other signatures: NLIP, Dutch Foundation for Internet Providers * http://www.nlip.nl Internet Providers Rotterdam * http://www.ipr.nl Digitaal Werknet Nederland * http://www.dwn.nl Foebud e.V, foundation to promote free datatraffic, * http://www.zerberus.de National Writers Union (UAW LOCAL 1981 AFL-CIO) * http://www.nwu.org/nwu/ Nizkor Project * http://www.nizkor.org/ Internet Access Foundation (NL) * http://www.iaf.nl/ Digitale Stad Venlo * http://www.dsvenlo.nl WAT BETREFT DE ASEAN CONFERENTIE: On September 4, the ASEAN member nations (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) stated an agreement to collaborate on devising restrictions on Internet communication. On September 16, a number of human rights, free expression and electronic privacy organizations wrote the following letter to the ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia to convey their concerns about this development. Similar letters sent by the same organizations were also sent to the ASEAN members. We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to express our deep concern about the decision announced on September 4 by ASEAN member nations to collectively regulate communication on the Internet. The agreement was announced in Singapore, at the close of a meeting of officials from ASEAN member nations that was organized by the Singapore Broadcasting Authority. We would like to respectfully remind the ASEAN nations that content-based restrictions on online communication violate internationally guaranteed rights of free expression. As stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media nd regardless of frontiers. The agreement did not include the adoption of a common regulatory framework by ASEAN member nations. However, we are concerned that a number of delegates to the meeting reportedly expressed support for Singapore's recently established Internet Code of Practice. Human Rights Watch/Asia has written to the Singaporean government to oppose these new regulations, which impose sweeping controls on content, including political discussion. The regulations have already resulted in arbitrary censorship of at least one newsgroup message. They will surely induce a chill on on-line speech in Singapore, and, as evidenced by the ASEAN decision, they will affect online speech throughout the region. It has been reported that one of the reasons for the ASEAN agreement was a concern for preserving cultural values. While we recognize the importance of representation for all cultures on the Internet, we oppose censorship as a means of ensuring respect for cultural norms. We believe that the most effective means of responding to offensive content is by disseminating more content. Censoring offensive material will not remove it from the Internet; it will > simply cause it to be reproduced on additional Internet sites. We believe that the lack of agreement on a common regulatory strategy by ASEAN member nations demonstrates the futility of attempts by nations or groups of nations to introduce online content regulation schemes. Within the ASEAN group itself, the cultural values of Vietnam, for example, differ significantly from cultural values of the Philippines It is unlikely that the diverse group of ASEAN nations will reach an agreement on the specifics of what should be censored, and how that censorship should be accomplished. Moreover, because the Internet is a global medium, moves to restrict online content will initiate battles for competing cultural values on an > international scale. In closing, we would like to add that the attempt to restrict Internet communication will detract from the many benefits that electronic communication is bringing to the region. We hope that the ASEAN nations will reconsider their unfortunate decision and instead focus on the new opportunities that the Internet can provide to the citizens of the region. >Human Rights Watch/Asia (http://www.hrw.org) >CITADEL-Electronic Frontier France (http://www.imaginet.fr/~mose/citadel) >Les Chroniques de Cyberie, Canada (http://www.cyberie.qc.ca/chronik/) >Electronic Privacy Information Center, USA (http://www.epic.org) >American Civil Liberties Union, USA (http://www.aclu.org) >cyberPOLIS, USA (http://www.cyberpolis.org/cyberPOLIS/) >Electronic Frontiers Foundation, USA (http://www.eff.org) >ALCEI-Electronic Frontiers Italy (http://www.nexus.it/alcei) >Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet (AUI), France (http://www.aui.fr) >Fronteras Electronicas Espana (FrEE)--Electronic Frontiers Spain > (http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/) >Electronic Frontiers Austin, Texas USA (http://www.eff.-austin.org), >Digital Citizens Foundation Netherlands--DBNL (http://www.xs4all.nl/~db.nl) >Article 19, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, UK >PEN American Center, 568 Broadway, NY, USA >CommUnity, UK Vriendelijke groeten, Hein van Meeteren (Word participant van de stichting DB.NL. Het kost je vijf en twintig piek, maar daarvoor ben je dan meteen deel van een teledemocratische pioniersorganisatie. Giro: 6992583, tnv DB.NL. Vermeld: `Ik Word Participant!" Zie url: http://www.xs4all.nl/~db.nl)