EDRI-member IRIS and the French Human Rights League (LDH) have sent a brief to the French Constitutional council regarding the unconstitutionality of the French transposition of the E-commerce Directive (Loi pour la confiance dans l'economie numerique or LEN). On 18 May 2004 the French socialist MPs submitted the finalised law to the Constitutional Council, following the public advice from the two organisations.

The parliamentary opposition uses three of the four provisions pointed out by IRIS and LDH: status of email (not defined as private correspondence), privatisation of justice (through notice and take down procedure) and the introduction of different periods of limitation for on-line and off-line content. In the proposed law there is no time bar for offences identified in the press law (defamation, racist speech, holocaust denial, etc.) if they result from an on-line publication, while the statute of limitations is three months if previously published in any other medium.

The EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights published their 2003 report. The network has been set up by the European Commission, upon request of the European Parliament. Since 2002, it monitors the situation of fundamental rights in the Member States and in the Union, on the basis of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The report covers a wide range of fundamental rights and raises for example concern about the use of biometric identifiers and the transmission of Passenger Names Records. It also criticises control over state media in Italy and Poland. The section on freedom of expression however, lacks reference to the internet and notice-and-takedown procedures.

Report on the situation of fundamental rights in the European Union in 2003 (01.2004)
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/cfr_cdf/doc/report_eu_2003_...

The rapporteur of the EU Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, Janelly Fourtou (UDF, Conservative, France), has earned millions from business related to Intellectual Property Rights, even while she was shepherding the report through the European Parliament. As several newspapers have investigated, Mrs. Fourtou runs a private fund together with her husband, Jean-René Fourtou, who is the CEO of Vivendi Universal, the media giant that is worldwide the biggest holder of intellectual property rights. In November 2002, this fund acquired transferable bonds worth 14,5 million Euro, which shall be transferred into Vivendi Universal shares at preference conditions in 2005. The Fourtou children have, according to the Financial Times, acquired bonds for an additional 5 million Euro. The Fourtou couple has until now made a computational surplus of 10 million Euro; their children 3,4 million Euro.

Romania has implemented the Cybercrime Convention with law nr. 64 from 24 March 2004. The law was published in the Official Monitor nr. 343, on 20 April 2004.

The main provisions of the Cybercrime Convention were already incorporated in Title III of the Anti-corruption law nr. 161/2003, published in the Official Monitor nr. 279 from 21 April 2003.

The Cybercrime Convention defines nine offences: illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, system interference, misuse of devices, computer-related forgery, computer-related fraud, offences related to child pornography and, notably, offences related to copyright and neighbouring rights. Signatory states have to establish a common minimum standard of relevant offences under their domestic law.

Under Romanian law, the first 2 offences are very broadly defined and will be punished severely: "The illegal access to a computer system is a crime and is punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years. If access is gained by infringing security measures, the punishment is imprisonment from 3 to 12 years..

On 30 April 2004, the European Commission finally released the public policy for the new .EU top-level domain. The policy seems to have been written with 2 thoughts in mind: prevent endless disputes with governments about geographical and institutional names and make sure all trademark-related rights are served first.

Registration will take place in two phases, first giving governments and holders of registered national and Community trademarks the chance to claim their desired names. In the second phase, all 'holders of prior rights' get to register their names of choice. These 'prior rights' are defined as 'inter alia, registered national and community trademarks, geographical indications or designations of origin, and, in as far as they are protected under national law in the Member-State where they are held: unregistered trademarks, trade names, business identifiers, company names, family names, and distinctive titles of protected literary and artistic works..

The proposed e-voting system in Ireland is under scrutiny due to concerns about fraud. An independent committee of 5 experts is commissioned to look into the alleged flaws of the system. The report is due out on 1 May.

The Irish government plans to introduce electronic voting machines from the Dutch company Nedap for the next European and regional elections in June. The system contains software by the Dutch firm Groenendaal and voting hardware made by Nedap. The same system has been used in the Netherlands for many years.

Civil liberty groups and the Labour Party have severely criticised the lack of an audit trail for the voter. After voting, the voter can not check if his or her vote is recorded correctly. The system does not provide a paper trail for possible recounts.

The debate about e-voting in Ireland gained intensity in March 2003, when a negative security assessment was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The assessment was carried out by the security company Zerflow at the request of the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The Irish government tried to keep the report secret, with adverse effects.

On 26 and 27 March 2004 a conference was held on safe internet in Warsaw, Poland. The conference was organised by the Council of Europe in collaboration with Safeborders, a consortium funded by the European Commission. Focussed on children, the event was meant to 'step up efforts to create a pan-European safer Internet network.' Some 150 participants met in workshops, with many delegates from East Europe and republics of the former Soviet Union.

In his keynote speech, Hanno Hartig from the Council of Europe stressed the need to make a difference between illegal and harmful content and respect the cultural and legal differences between countries. He underlined the difficulty of anonymity online, both as a danger and an essential tool to protect the privacy of children. He also warned that encouraging self-regulation should not force ISPs to curb the freedom of expression. Unfortunately, these nuances were sometimes lost during the workshops and plenary sessions, with speakers denying any difference between for example child pornography and websites about drug use.

If you send an e-mail to a Member of the Romanian Parliament (MP), you have less than 10 percent chance to get a reply. That is, if the MP you are trying to reach has a public e-mail address to start with. Only a quarter of the representatives offers an electronic contact address. The conclusion from an e-mail response study by the e-democracy forum gives government a transparency-rating of only 0.29 (on a scale from 0 to 5).

The results are based on an complex analysis performed over the Internet, between 1 October and 30 November 2003. Two rounds of e-mails were sent to MP's to analyse their responsiveness. The e-mails contained questions about hot topics of the moment: the referendum for the New Constitution and the conclusions of the European Commission Country Report for Romania.