In the beginning of May 2008, a critical network error caused an Internet blackout for a great number of people in the Netherlands. The problem, by some said to be the biggest in internet history in Holland, caused over a hundred thousand DSL lines to be disconnected for up to four days, among them many subscribers to Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL.
After the problem had been found and fixed, XS4ALL sent its customers a letter to apologise and offered them a present to make up for all the inconvenience the problem had caused. Since freedom and privacy have been key values for XS4ALL ever since its beginning in 1993, customers could also, instead of the present, choose to have a donation made in their name to one of three organisations: EDRi, Press Now or Amnesty International. This has resulted in a donation of 15 262,50 euro to EDRi. A nice outcome of such an unpleasant incident!
EDRi would like to express its thanks to XS4ALL and its customers for this donation. The association is proud that it has been selected as beneficiary by XS4ALL and its customers, together with only two other prestigious organizations. This reveals the importance of the digital rights issues, and acknowledges the work of EDRi since its creation in June 2002.
Recent examples for issues EDRi is working on are the mandatory retention of communication traffic data, the EU-USA agreement on the access to Passenger Name Records (PNR) and the Prüm treaty on the exchange of biometric data amongst EU member states. But also technological developments like the upcoming widespread deployment of RFID applications demand attention with regard to threats for data protection, individuals privacy and security.
EDRi has observer status to the World Intellectual Property Organization and to Council of Europe Group of specialists on human rights in the information society, and is a member of the European Commission Expert Group on RFID. EDRi members have played a key role in civil society participation to the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), most notably with the organization and leadership of two civil society caucuses, on human rights in the information society and on privacy and security issues. They currently are among the main civil society actors in WSIS follow-up process, especially the United Nations Internet Governance Forum.
In a context where civil liberties are more and more threatened in the digital world, EDRi will use this generous support from XS4ALL and its customers to pursue its actions and to set up new projects and campaigns.
Individual donations are an important source of funding for EDRi that are also crucial to enable our regular activities like the publication of our bi-weekly newsletter EDRi-gram while maintaining our independent position.
If you also want to support our activities, please direct your donations to EDRi's bank account at the KBC Bank Auderghem-Centre, Chaussée de Wavre 1662, 1160 Bruxelles, Belgium
Name: European Digital Rights AISBL
Bank account nr.: 733-0215021-02
IBAN: BE32 7330 2150 2102
BIC: KREDBEBB
For more information please consult
http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring
where you also find information on how to get in contact with us.
XS4ALL announcement (only in Dutch, 07.07.2008)
http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?msect=nieuws&id=992&ta...
On 16 July 2008, disregarding the well substantiated findings and opinions of the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law, the Cambridge Study for the UK Government and the Bournemouth University statement signed by 50 leading academics in June 2008, the European Commission (EC) adopted an initiative proposing the extension of the copyright term for the recorded performances as well as records.
Actually, two initiatives were adopted by the European Commission related to copyright, proposing the extension of the copyright term for the recorded performances and phonograms and the harmonisation of the copyright term to cover co-written works as well. The EC also adopted a Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.
"The copyright measures adopted today should underline that we take a holistic approach when it comes to intellectual property. The proposal on term extension has a strong social component and the Green Paper is deeply embedded in the overall societal and knowledge context. (...) I am committed to concentrate all necessary efforts to ensure that performers have a decent income and that there will be a European-based music industry in the years to come," stated Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy.
The EC proposition is to extend the term of protection for the recorded performances and the records from 50 to 95 years. From the proposal would thus benefit not only the performers but also the record producers. The justification of the measure is that the performers should be able to benefit from their work even in the old age and that the record producers may obtain additional revenues under the conditions of a decline of the physical sales and a relatively slow growth on the online sales. The initiative has also in view to harmonise the way of calculating the term of protection to cover the collective works, proposing that the term of protection of a musical composition should expire 70 years after the death of the last surviving author, whether it refers to the lyrics author or the music composer.
The concerns raised by the initiatives adopted by the EC are very serious: "This Copyright Extension Directive, proposed by Commissioner McCreevy, is likely to damage seriously the reputation of the Commission. It is a spectacular kowtow to one single special interest group: the multinational recording industry (Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI) hiding behind the rhetoric of aging performing artists" says a letter sent on 18 July 2008 by the leading European centres for intellectual property research addressed to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The letter includes an impact assessment of the negative effects of the proposal. "The Commission is required to conduct an impact study for each directive it proposes. We, the leading European centres for intellectual property policy research, have collectively reviewed the empirical evidence. Our findings are unanimous. The proposed Copyright Extension Directive will damage European creative endeavour and innovation beyond repair."
In a letter sent to The Times, the group of intellectual property research centres considers the copyright extension is beneficial mostly for rights holders doing nothing for innovation and creativity. The signatories believe the proposed copyright system will alienate the younger generation even more. They believe that other measures would be more appropriate to support the aging performers as well as the young ones. The copyright term is meant to balance the interests of consumers and creators and granting further intellectual property rights without a proper basis is not beneficial to the competitiveness of the EU either. The commission should not take the record industry's word claiming that by this extension the consumer prices will not rise, that performing artists will earn more, and the record industry will invest in discovering new talents (as if a 50 year period was not enough for that).
The EU proposal will further on proceed to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
Intellectual Property: Commission adopts forward-looking package
(16.07.2008)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1156&...
EU Commission proposes copyright term extension and ignores all the evidence
(16.07.2008)
http://www.soundcopyright.eu/blog/eu-commission-proposes-copyright-ter...
Term Extension "will damage Commission's reputation", top legal advisers
tell Barroso (18.06.2008)
http://www.soundcopyright.eu/blog/term-extension-will-damage-commissio...
Letter of Group to Barroso (16.06.2008)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/sound-recordings-bar...
Creativity stifled? A Joined Academic Statement on the Proposed Copyright
Term Extension for Sound Recordings (16.06.2008)
http://www.cippm.org.uk/images/Bournemouth%20Statement.pdf
Copyright extension is the enemy of innovation - Letter to The Times
(21.07.2008)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article4374115.ece
ALCS study - Authors' earnings from copyright and non-copyright sources: A
survey of 25,000 British and German writers (13.07.2007)
http://www.cippm.org.uk/publications/alcs/ACLS%20Full%20report.pdf
EDRI-gram: ENDitorial: The battle for Sound Copyright (12.03.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.5/battle-sound-copyright
The mobilization against EDVIGE, the newly created database to be used by French intelligence services and the administrative police, has been growing. Within only two weeks, the petition was signed by more than 50 000 individuals and 500 organizations.
French Parliamentarians are also standing up against EDVIGE: not only more than 40 of them have signed the petition, but 10 have addressed written questions to the French Interior Minister, to ask for the withdrawal of this file.
Complaints against the French government have also started. Lesbian and gay associations are asking the HALDE (High Authority for the Fight against Discriminations) to give its opinion on the fact that EDVIGE will retain data on the sexual orientation and health. Other complaints are starting to be filed with the French highest administrative court for the annulment of the decree creating EDVIGE.
It also seems that the French government is trying to circumvent the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) in the future. Following an inquiry from the HALDE president, French Minister of Interior Michèle Alliot-Marie proposed that the HALDE be consulted prior to any new database creation, while this is actually the CNIL legal attribution. The HALDE indicated that it has never formulated such a request.
This is happening while the French Congress has just approved, with only a two votes majority, important changes in the Constitution. One of them is to replace many independent administrative authorities by a single "Fundamental Rights Defender", to be nominated by the French president and whose role would be to control the respect of fundamental rights by the administration, and report only to the president and to the Parliament. While the list of existing authorities to be replaced by this new institution is still to be determined by law, one may wonder whether the HALDE and the CNIL will still exist in their current form, and whether such a change would strengthen or, on the contrary, weaken their current prerogatives.
EDRi-gram: Enditorial: Massive Mobilization Against Edvige, The New French
Database (16.07.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.14/edvige-french-database
Newropeans : Edwige : Sarkozy, the current EU chairman, tries to set up a
police state in France (18.07.2008)
http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/content/view/8379/1/
Heise: Frankreich: Geheimdienst-Datenbank "Edvige" beunruhigt die
Öffentlichkeit (in German only, 23.07.2008)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Frankreich-Geheimdienst-Datenbank-Edvig...
'Non à EDVIGE': Petition website, with actions, press releases and press
articles (only in French, since 10.07.2008)
http://nonaedvige.ras.eu.org/
(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS- France)
On 18 July 2008, the Dutch Court in Nijmegen dismissed the initial claim in its preliminary ruling in the case of Chip maker NXP against the publication by the University of Nijmegen of the security problems regarding Mifare Classic Chip, dismissing the initial claim.
NXP had asked the judge to order the University of Nijmegen to stop the publication of its research results on the way to crack the security of cards using the NXP chip, arguing that the publication would allow law infringers to easily break into security systems and to fraudulently use the public transportation. In NXP's opinion, the publication would cause considerable damage and security risks for NXP and users all over the world.
The Rechtbank Arnhem court decided that prohibiting the publication of the University article would violate the researcher's freedom of expression covered by article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Restrictions in such matters are applicable only in order to protect a pressing social need which has to be convincingly demonstrated.
The judge's opinion was that Radboud University Nijmegen had acted with due care and that the publication of the results of scientific research and the information of the public about the serious deficits of the chip serves great interests and helps in taking measures against the risks of the security leak of the respective chip. The potential damage that NXP claims is not a result of the publication of the research results but of the production of a chip that has shown deficiencies, which is the responsibility of NXP itself.
"I don't think anyone truly believes you can prevent reverse engineering techniques from being published," said Karsten Nohl who worked at breaking the algorithm of the chip last year at the Last HOPE hacker conference on 18 July. "I'm very happy that the court upheld the right to open research and freedom of publication. (...) I'm also happy that the court understood that publishing vulnerabilities is a crucial part of the evolution of security and a different court outcome would have slowed down that evolution of smart card security and left too many systems vulnerable" he said to CNET News.
NXP was disappointed at the ruling saying that the changing of the system will not be easy for all users of the system; for some the amendment will take months but for others it is going to take years.
Henri Ardevol, general manager of automatic fare collection for NXP, stated: "Migration to a different format is one option. (...) We introduced Mifare Plus earlier this year, and it is designed to help migrate from Mifare Classic to a higher level of security...We will be developing plans for how to guide these migrations." He also said it was too early to say whether NXP would appeal the ruling.
The article will be published at the beginning of October 2008 during a scientific conference in Malaga, Spain.
Dutch Scientists Can't Be Blamed for Deficient Mifare Chip (18.07.2008)
http://www.jorisvanhoboken.nl/?p=183
Dutch court allows publication of Mifare security hole research (18.07.2008)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-9994120-83.html
Oyster hack will be published, rules Dutch court (22.07.2008)
http://www.out-law.com/page-9279
Radboud University Nijmegen Press release - Security Flaw in Mifare Classic
(18.07.2008)
http://www.ru.nl/english/general/radboud_university/vm/press_release_j...
EDRIgram - Dutch University sued to stop publishing research on chip
technology (16.07.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.14/dutch-university-chip
Christine Albanel, the French Minister of Culture and Communication, has gathered her European homologues for an informal meeting in Versailles on 21 and 22 July 2008 in an attempt to push the French Hadopi law model to be embraced by Europe.
Some of the main issues approached during the meeting were piracy, telecommunications reform, the European Heritage Label project and the illegal trafficking of culturally significant objects. Much of the discussions at the meeting turned around copyright and illegal file sharing over the Internet. Without being discouraged by the very large opposition to the Creation and Internet draft law (so called Hadopi law), the French Minister took again the opportunity to offer Europe the French system as its contribution to the EU Telecommunication Package.
Albanel expressed her concern on the lack of consistency and harmonization of the methods to fight illegal file sharing at the European level: "The fight against pirating music, audiovisual and cinema works has imposed itself in our debates as stakes of prime importance. (...) It is indubitably a complex and delicate issue the solution of which will not reside on a single category of player but, on the contrary, on an increased cooperation between various involved parties."
The Minister continued to underline the importance of the ISPs in the fight against illegal file sharing: "the Internet access providers and the telecom operators have to play an active role - as some of them do individually or within the framework of inter-professional agreements -, in making their subscribers aware and systematically supplying them with information" referring here to the gradual response system proposed by the French law which will oblige the operators and ISPs to send warning messages issued by the High Authority for work dissemination and protection of copyright (HADOPI). The text of the draft law is still facing opposition from EPs, ISPs and consumer associations.
Ministers at the meeting agreed on the "need to inform" society of the consequences of Internet piracy and underlined the need to maintain the balance between economic constraints and public-interest objectives. Commissioner Viviane Reding proposed that ISPs be obliged to inform clients on the legislation related to copyright and the "consequences of piracy" when signing a contract.
Some "anti-piracy" measures might appear in the Telecom Package that will be debated by the European Parliament on 22 September 2008. Also this Autumn, the French Senate will make the first reading for the Hadopi law.
In the meantime, the UK Government has issued for public consultation a document on the legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing. (see the Recommended Action section in this EDRi-gram).
Main results of the informal meeting of Ministers for Culture and
Audiovisual Affairs - Versailles, 21-22 July 2008
http://www.eu2008.fr/PFUE/cache/offonce/lang/en/accueil/PFUE-07_2008/P...
Internet Piracy: the providers must inform their clients (only in French,
23.07.2008)
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jzoG9VuGSqhNaeYfGrbjbwqzZNfg
Piracy: Bruxelles wants to inform, Paris wants an active role of ISPs
(only in French, 24.07.2008)
http://www.silicon.fr/fr/news/2008/07/24/piratage___bruxelles_veut_inf...
Hadopi law: the ISPs show their mistrust (only in French, 25.06.2008)
http://www.silicon.fr/fr/news/2008/06/25/loi_hadopi_les_fai_affichent_...
Hadopi: is it for ISPs to educate Internet users? (only in French,
24.07.2008)
http://www.neteco.com/152896-hadopi-fai-eduquer-internaute.html
Piracy: Christine Albanel gives a lecture to her European colleagues
(only in French, 23.07.2008)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39382432,00.htm
EDRIgram - France promotes the three-strike scheme in Europe (2.07.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.13/france-europe-3-strikes
Against the high pressure from rights managers, the European Commission decided to ban certain copyright handling practices, mainly the obligation of an author not to move from a collective society to another.
On 16 July 2007, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes asked 24 European collecting societies managing copyright on behalf of music authors to eliminate the clause from their contracts preventing authors from moving to another collecting society.
The Commission had opened an investigation following complaints from broadcasting group RTL and the UK online music provider Music Choice. In February 2007, the Commission sent a formal statement of objections to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) regarding the restrictiveness of certain business practices. In March 2007, CISAC proposed a set of draft commitments that the EU executive decided to market-test on 14 June 2007. On 10 July 2007, a large coalition of broadcasting corporations and telecoms providers sent a letter to Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, protesting against CISAC commitments and urging the EU executive not to accept settlement proposals.
The Commission believes the present proposed measure is meant to support the authors, who will be free to choose what collecting society they want. The Commission also asks for the elimination of the territorial restrictions preventing a collecting society from offering licences to commercial users outside their domestic territory. The EC considers that the territorial restrictions introduced by 17 collecting societies in their contracts lead to a strict segmentation of the market on a national basis. The result is that a commercial user such as RTL wanting to provide pan-european services will have to negotiate separately with each national collecting society.
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "This decision will benefit cultural diversity by encouraging collecting societies to offer composers and lyricists a better deal in terms of collecting the money to which they are entitled. It will also facilitate the development of satellite, cable and internet broadcasting, giving listeners more choice and giving authors more potential revenue. However, the Commission has been careful to ensure that the benefits of the collective rights management system are not put into question in terms of levels of royalties for authors and available music repertoire."
CISAC argues that "the principle that creators are free to join whatever society they choose is already well established and widely applied by societies throughout the EEA. As for the issue of exclusivity, the EEA societies have accepted for decades that contracts between them should be based on non-exclusive arrangements." In CISAC's opinion, the decision will "inevitably lead to a catastrophic fragmentation of repertoire and therefore to legal uncertainty for music users".
The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) has also criticized the Commission's decision considering it "an attack on cultural diversity" because it will affect small and medium-sized businesses and individual writers. On 3 July 2008, ECSA threatened to "play havoc" with the music market in case the Commission proceeded with the decision. David Ferguson, a film and television composer, spokesman for ECSA, said the ban would concern the growing markets of online, cable and satellite retransmission of music and not the traditional forms of exploitation.
Kroes's spokesperson accused ECSA of speaking only on behalf of the large collecting societies, failing to represent the wider category of music authors.
The decision applies immediately and the collecting societies have 120 days to inform the Commission about the implementation of the requested measures.
Commission cracks down on music copyright managers (17.07.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/commission-cracks-music-copyrig...
Antitrust: Commission prohibits practices which prevent European collecting
societies offering choice to music authors and users (16.07.2008)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1165&...
ECSA: response to European Commission antitrust decision (16.07.2008)
http://www.britishacademy.com/public-news/ecsa-press-release-in-respon...
Proposed Commitments for Performing Rights under Article 9 of Regulation
no.1/2003 (7.03.2007)
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/antitrust/cases/decisions/38698/c...
CISAC regrets the European Commission's decision concerning reciprocal
representation contracts (16/07/08)
http://www.cisac.org/CisacPortal/listeArticle.do?numArticle=900&me...
Music authors 'at war' with Commission over copyrights (4.07.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/music-authors-war-commission-co...
The public procurement procedure of 25 billion HUF (approx. 100 million euro) for the supply of "Microsoft or other equivalent solutions" was published in January 2008 in the Tenders Electronic Daily, Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. After the successful closing of the procedure, three companies distributing open source software challenged the result. They argued that the tender was anti-competitive, because Microsoft products were directly favoured in the procedure.
The Hungarian Public Procurement Authority refused the request to annul the procedure. This latter decision has been challenged by the Hungarian Competition Office (HCO) before the court. HCO claims that the tender infringed the principle of equal treatment and was restrictive on competition. The first court hearing was held on 8 July 2008, but no judgement was made. The next hearing will be held this Autumn.
Neither Microsoft nor the open source software companies are directly involved in the legal dispute; however if the court decides in favour of the HCO, the judgement may change the current practice on public procurement of software in Hungary. It has been an established custom in public procurement of software that some well-known software or software manufacturers are expressly mentioned in the calling for tenders. The State's main argument is that it is merely a practical way to provide the specifications of the tender. Depending on the final outcome of the ongoing proceedings, this practice may need to be reconsidered in order to avoid possible legal disputes based on competition infringement claims.
Simultaneously with the court proceedings, the three companies (ULX Kft., Multiráció Kft. and Open SKM) requested the European Commission and personally Neelie Kroes, the Competition Commissioner, to take the appropriate steps to put an end to this unlawful situation.
Hungarian companies send complaint to the European Commission on Microsoft's
monopoly (3.06.2008)
http://www.openskm.com/doc/pressrelease_ec.pdf
Something Rotten in Hungary (21.05.2008)
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=49451
EDRi-gram: Microsoft appeals the EC fine but faces even more complaints
(21.05.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.10/microsoft-ec-fine
(contribution by László Pók - Lexical Lawyers Association - Hungary)
The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment FRA that has made the headlines last month with its law on spying on all communication, has recently announced that it has reported a blogger to the Chancellor of Justice for distributing what they consider classified material proving the Agency was spying on Swedes starting with 1996.
Henrik Alexandersson is the name of the blogger that criticized the new FRA surveillance law. He published two lists of FRA's alleged classified material on his blog. The first document is a list of 103 Swedish citizens that were under surveillance in the early 90's for having contacts with Russia. The other publication is a list of connections between Russian and Swedish corporations from 1996, which may imply that FRA was illegally listening to cable bound traffic.
According to FRA's director-general Ingvar Åkesson all surveillance material regarding personal acts are destroyed after 18 months, although these documents imply that this isn't the fact.
Alexandersson explained on his blog that he was not worried about FRA's complaint: "My comment is that it seems that FRA is trying to scare and threaten me to silence. This is something I won't accept. The documents stay on the blog."
"They want to shift focus from how they misbehaved to chopping the head off of the messenger. I don't think that they see the PR-related difficulties with going out and trying to throw a blogger in prison." he added in a declaration for Medievärlden.
On the other hand, one of the people on the list made public by Alexandersson has reported FRA to the Chancellor of Justice claiming that he was under illegal surveillance in the 1990s for doing business with Russia.
FRA is still under pressure following its new legislation that broadens substantially its powers to intercept data in the area of Internet communications. The answer to a written question from MEP Benoît Hamon shows that the Commission has not been informed so far by Sweden regarding this normative act.
FRA: 103 intercepted Swedes (only in Swedish, 18.07.2008)
http://henrikalexandersson.blogspot.com/2008/07/fra-103-avlyssnade-sve...
Evidence that the FRA has already spy of cable? (only in Swedish,
24.07.2008)
http://henrikalexandersson.blogspot.com/2008/07/beviset-p-att-fra-lyss...
FRA reports blogger to Justice Chancellor (28.07.2008)
http://www.thelocal.se/13322/20080728/
FRA stores Swedish telephone calls and e-mails (only in Swedish, 24.06.2008)
http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?a=1175152
WRITTEN QUESTION by Benoît Hamon (PSE) to the Commission
Subject: Swedish Government plan to broaden the remit of the intelligence
agency FRA(17.06.2008)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sidesSearch/search.do?type=QP&langua...
EDRi-gram: ENDitorial: Sweden is listening to all internet and phone
conversations(2.07.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.13/sweden-fra-adoption
(contribution by Josef Andersson - Sweden)
Several leading human rights NGOs from Macedonia issued a reaction to the Parliament and the Government of Republic of Macedonia on 24 June 2008, regarding the recent changes in the Law on Criminal Procedure and the Law on Interception of Communications, allowing special investigative measures (such as surveillance).
The Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia, the Association for Criminal Justice and Criminology of Macedonia and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of the Republic of Macedonia expressed deep concern because of the fast-track adoption of changes in the legislation "without no expert discussion whatsoever." These changes can turn Macedonia from a state based on a rule of law into a "police state unconcerned with respect of basic human rights and freedoms."
As a result of expert analysis of the new legislation, the signatories stated: "Besides enlarging the possibility for implementation of special investigative procedures for crimes outside of the sphere of organized crime, these changes also allow wide preventive implementation of these measures, even in cases without reasonable doubt of hard crimes and corruption. These changes are not in line with the European and world human rights standards, nor are common as acceptable method for fighting crime and corruption."
A similar manner of adopting the new version of the Law on Interception of Communications is also expected these days. The current draft also raises serious concerns regarding abuse of privacy.
NGO representatives require that the adoption of this type of legislation should be accompanied by "widespread expert and scientific public discussion involving the institutions of the judiciary and the civil society, through a democratic process aiming to achieve reasonable balance between the efficiency in fighting crime and corruption, and the basic human rights of privacy."
The EDRi-member Metamorphosis Foundation also voices concern from the perspective of the development of the information society, especially because the changes in the legislation do not define the mechanisms to control and prevent arbitrary abuse of the new powers, and because the minimum standards for public consultation including all stakeholders have not been met during the drafting and adoption. New technologies enable easy ways that directly influence the lives of the growing number of Internet users in Macedonia, which can involve privacy abuse; therefore carrying out the legislative process in an inclusive and transparent manner is of special significance.
Popular Macedonian bloggers also voiced concern due to an unexplained drastic increase of the state security budget (from about 0.4 million euro to over 24 millione euro) and the changes in the Law on Criminal Procedure which provide extremely wide powers to implement surveillance. The links to such posts received high number of votes on the social bookmarking service Kajmak.ot.
The influential blog Vuna reacted: "they raised the secret police budget 60 times. Nobody offered an explanation. I wonder if they work 60 times more secretive, or will they survey 60 times more people. This is an introduction to a dystopian scenario."
The blogger Volan synthesised the information from the traditional media on the changes of the Law on Criminal Procedure via links and quotes in the post "'The Big Ears' - legalized. The Big Brother watches, listens and records - legally this time. "providing space for discussion used by tens of readers who posted various comments".
(Contribution by Filip Stojanovski, EDRI-member Metamorphosis - Macedonia)
Serbia's Republic Agency for Telecommunications (RATEL) published on 21 July 2008 a document of Instructions for Technical Requirements for Subsystems, Devices, Hardware and Installation of Internet Networks. The document explains the technical requirements for authorized monitoring of some telecom services and provides a list of obligations for the telecom operators.
According with the present text, the ISPs will have to let the police access their databases, including users' e-mail content or browsing history. This regulation seems to be the Serbian version of the data retention directive, since the scope is defined as fighting cyber crime and terrorism.
Danica Radovanovic explains on his blog at GlobalVoices what are the present requirements: "Internet Service Providers (ISP) are obligated to enable governmental bodies to access updated databases with personal data on users, contracts, maximum speed of data transfer, identification addresses as well as access to database about email users. ISPs are also obligated to provide hardware and software for passive monitoring in real time, collecting and analysing Internet activities, statistics, interception of email, attachments, web mail, IP video traffic, phone traffic, interception of IM traffic, peer-to-peer networks, service of email and forwarding the email content towards the centre of governmental bodies for supervision. Technical requirements (hardware and software) should enable reconstruction of traffic interception up to the level of application and filtering within these criteria: user name, user phone number, email address, IP address, MAC address, IM identification."
So far it is not clear what are the specific institutions that could access those data and under what circumstances, since the document made available by RATEL includes only the technical requirements. According to a declaration made for B92 by RATEL chairman Jovan Radunovic: "If they (state institutions) get a court order then they can monitor the location that one uses the internet from, and only then they can view the content. These rules are not under RATEL's jurisdiction. RATEL has, in order to provide protection from terrorism, enabled the state organs to do this. We expect they will respect all privacy rules"
Serbia: New Instructions and Law Regulations on Online Privacy (26.07.2008)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/07/26/serbia-new-instructions-and-l...
State to have access to e-mails, browsing history (28.07.2008)
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=07&am...
RATEL's new law and our privacy (25.07.2008)
http://www.jazzva.com/2008/07/25/ratels-new-law-and-our-privacy/
Document of Instructions for Technical Requirements for Subsystems, Devices,
Hardware and Installation of Internet Networks (only in Serbian, 21.07.2008)
http://www.ratel.org.rs/editor_files/File/dozvole/uputstva/Tehnicki_us...
UK consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing
http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html
Other opinions
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/24/government-to-consult-on-leg...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/25/three_strikes_dead_hurrah
The Commission (DG markt) - Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.
The Green Paper focuses on the role of copyright in fostering dissemination
of knowledge for research, science and education. The Green Paper is
intended as the starting point for a structured debate on the long-term
future of copyright policy in these fields. Copyright policy has
increasingly emerged as a transversal issue, involving not only the internal
market and cultural policies but also information society, competition and
consumer interests. The Green Paper is an attempt to organise this debate
and point to future challenges in fields that have not been a focal point up
to now, e.g. scientific and scholarly publishing, and the role of libraries,
researchers and the persons with a disability.
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/gre...
3-5 September 2008, Prague, Czech Republic
The Third International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in
IT
http://www.lspi.net/
8-10 September 2008, Geneva, Switzerland
The third annual Access to Knowledge Conference (A2K3)
http://isp.law.yale.edu/
19 September 2008, Brussels, Belgium
High Level Expert Conference: Towards a European Policy on RFID
http://www.rfid-in-action.eu/conference
22 September 2008, Istanbul, Turkey
Workshop on Applications of Private and Anonymous Communications
http://www.alpaca-workshop.org/
24-28 September 2008, Athens, Greece
World Summit on the Knowledge Society
http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/summit.htm
11 October 2008, Worldwide
Action day "Freedom not fear"
Protests, demonstrations and activities against the surveillance mania
http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2008
15-17 October 2008, Strasbourg, France
30th International Data Protection and Privacy Conference
http://www.privacyconference2008.org/
20-21 October 2008, Strasbourg, France
European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG)
http://www.eurodig.org/
3-6 December 2008, Hyderabad, India
Third Internet Governance Forum
http://www.intgovforum.org
10-11 December 2008: Tilburg, Netherlands
Tilting perspectives on regulating technologies, Tilburg Institute for Law
and Technology, and Society, Tilburg University
http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilt/conference