Wikileaks: Italian Law Would Allow Government to Block or Censor any Internet Content

A Wikileaked cable out of Embassy Rome from February 2010 (cache) documents concerns among US diplomats that a bill before the Italian parliament would "give the Italian government enough leeway to block or censor any Internet content" and set a potentially dangerous international precedent that could be copied by other nations.  The proposed law, known as the Romani Bill, is widely viewed as an attack on the open internet and internet freedom.  The Herald Tribune reported this past January:

The 34-page decree mandates vetting any content harmful to minors, specifically pornography or excessive violence, and would require telecom providers to shut down any Internet site not in compliance, or face fines ranging from $210 to $210,960. . . .

The draft was written in mid-December, around the time the media empire founded by Berlusconi announced it was seeking at least $779 million in damages against YouTube and Google for allegedly misusing video it produced. The move is in response to a 2007 European Union directive to set up media rules, but only Italy has taken the directive to mean putting Internet companies in the hotseat.

The decree also inherently challenges the YouTube business model, shared by other hosting platforms, of allowing users to upload video without being controlled . . . 

Commenting on the proposed law, the leaked cable cites official denials on the part of the Berlusconi government, that the bill is intended to stifle free speech, and notes that there had been relatively little public outrage over the issue.  (One wonders what kind of coverage one could find on the issue in Berlusconi's massive and influential media empire.)  The cable goes on to note that the Italian government began to move swiftly toward censoring the internet after video of the prime minister being attacked in public resulted in the popularization of a Facebook fan page devoted to the attacker. 

Ironically, the cable states that the US government has for years pressured Italy to set up a regulatory regime for online content and "take action to protect copyrighted material on the Internet, in particular encouraging the establishment of clear notice-and-takedown procedures and cooperation among rights holders and ISPs to prevent illegal filesharing."  However, it finds the Italian government's defense of the law on those grounds suspect, given the Italian government's previous lack of interest in the matter.

Finally, the cable states that, if passed, the law would set a dangerous precedent that could be copied or cited by other nations to justify their own crackdowns on the freedom of speech.

Pirate Party: Stop the Internet Censorship Bill

From the Pirate Party of Oklahoma:

a group of Senators decided to move the United States one step closer to being able to censor the internet. The Senate Judiciary committee voted in favor of passing the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act“. Oklahoma’s own Senator Tom Coburn is a cosponsor of this bill, and also serves on the committee where he voted in favor of it.

Critics of this bill include the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Reporters without Borders. The biggest problem with this bill is that it gives the Department of Justice the ability to declare any website as infringing on copyrights and then remove that website from the internet. There are two main problems with this ability . . . 

Read the rest. 

Pirate Party: With proposed blacklists, Senate has its "foot in the door" on internet censorship

In a post yesterday at Poli-Tea on the Democratic-Republican national security police state and surveillance society, I noted that S.3804 (a bipartisan bill aimed supposedly at "combating online infringement and counterfeits") represents a threat to freedom of speech online and would conceivably provide the government with the authority to target and censor groups such the US Pirate Party.  I contacted Marcus Kessler from the Pirate Party of Oklahoma and asked him for his response to the fact that this bill could result in the censorship of the Pirate Party's website.  Via email, he writes:

I honestly would not be surprised if the websites of the Pirate Parties would be some of the first sites that get taken offline due to this bill. If we take a look at the various "Internet Black Lists" that are used by numerous countries around the world, we find that many of sites listed do not fit the stated purpose of the list. In addition these lists are often the proverbial foot in the door, and once a system is put in place more criteria for inclusion are added. For example, after the passage of Germany's Internet Blacklist targeting child pornography, multiple groups started a push to include violent video games, online gambling, and political dissent as criteria for inclusion.

Even if this bill only blocks sites based on Infringement, this definition alone could be easily used as a justification to shut down the web presence of private competitors and political opponents. A perfect example would be the current gubernatorial race in Ohio where a political ad was taken off YouTube under a DMCA notice arguing infringing use, despite the fact that the use of copyrighted material falls under fair use. If the current DMCA laws are sufficient to remove a political ad from the internet, then it is very reasonable to believe that COICA [i.e. S.3804] can and will be used to silence political opponents. We hope that our politicians follow their own criticism of countries such as China when it comes to promoting open access to information for citizens and realize that without the free flow of  information, we cannot have democracy.

Thanks for your response Marcus!  Check out the Pirate Party's website.

Bipartisan Bill that Would Censor Internet Could Result in Blacklisting of the Pirate Party's Website

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) is an Internet censorship bill which is rapidly making its way through the Senate. Although it is ostensibly focused on copyright infringement, an enormous amount of noninfringing content, including political and other speech, could disappear off the Web if it passes. . . .

If this bill passes, the list of targets could conceivably include hosting websites such as Dropbox, MediaFire and Rapidshare; MP3 blogs and mashup/remix music sites like SoundCloud, MashupTown and Hype Machine ; and sites that discuss and make the controversial political and intellectual case for piracy, like pirate-party.us, p2pnet, InfoAnarchy, Slyck and ZeroPaid . Indeed, had this bill been passed five or ten years ago, YouTube might not exist today.  [Emphasis added.]