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Deutsch: Polnische Zivilgesellschaft treibt Diskussion über die Freiheit des I...

The Polish chapter in the European debate on whether Internet blocking can be conceived as a measure in fighting the dissemination of child abuse images has finally been opened. This is due to the quite successful campaign that EDRi-member Panoptykon Foundation, supported by the open source movement and Internet Society Poland, has been running over last few weeks.

It has long been unclear what position the government will take with regard to the Directive on combating sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography.

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Deutsch: Verfassungsbeschwerde gegen Internet-Sperr-Gesetz in Deutschland

On 22 February 2011 the German Working Group against Internet Blocking and Censorship (AK Zensur) submitted their complaint against the German law on Internet blocking to Germany's Constitutional Court. The law is directed against online child abuse material and had come into force on 23 February 2010, setting a one-year deadline for the complaint.

AK Zensur and many others had fiercely opposed the law and announced that a complaint would be filed when the law was enacted by Parliament in June 2009.

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Netzsperren und der Schaden für den Kinderschutz

The child protection industry has been campaigning for years for the introduction of EU-wide mandatory blocking of websites accused of being illegal by the police, by independent authorities, etc. This is as a result of a very laudable reflex - child abuse websites are even more abhorrent than one would imagine and blocking a bad thing can only logically be a good thing. Politically, it is an easy message.

Unfortunately, child protection in an international context is polluted with easy messages and unthinking reflexes.

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Deutsch: Durchgesickertes Kommissionspapier bezeichnet Netzsperren als "sc...

A leaked draft of the European Commission's (EC) Green Paper on gambling provides some valuable insights into the Commission's views on web blocking. Firstly, contrary to Commissioner Malmström's repeated promises to the contrary, the leak shows that the Commission has no objections in principle to blocking being used against content other than child abuse.

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Deutsch: Internetsperren: Diskussion im EP erreicht ihre entscheidende Phase

The European Parliament is currently at a crucial stage in the discussions on the European Commission's proposals on web blocking. The MEP in charge, Roberta Angelilli, has presented her draft report, other parliamentarians have until 20 January to propose other amendments and an "orientation vote" which will informally set Parliament policy on issues of general agreement will take place on 3 February.

Despite the fact that the original proposal was made by the Commission in March 2009, the level of debate has not developed to any great extent after almost two years of discussion.

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Deutsch: Neue Debatte über französisches Loppsi 2 Gesetz

The so-called Loppsi 2 draft law (loi d'orientation et de programmation pour la performance de la sécurité intérieure - law on guidelines and programming for the performance of internal security) is being discussed these days in the French General Assembly in second reading, after having been approved by the Senate in September 2010.

The National Assembly is continuing the long and controversial debate on the draft text which might allow the blocking, at the level of ISPs, of websites considered by the authorities as undesirable, without judiciary control and which may give the police authority to install spyware o

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Deutsch: Ratstext zu Netzsperren – Rechtsbruch für den Kampf gegen das Verbr...

The Council of Justice Ministers adopted a text on web blocking at its recent meeting in Brussels on 2-3 December 2010. The Belgian Presidency, for domestic reasons, felt obliged to adopt a text during its term of office. As a result, the outcome is a hastily cobbled together text that makes little legal sense and whose main value is to finally betray the real meaning behind the proposal.

The adopted text can be divided into two main parts:

1.

On 30 November, EDRi made a speech to the "Net freedoms, Secure Internet, IPR, Piracy & Blocking" workshop of the European Competitive Telecommunications Association 2010 Conference.

Other speakers included Cesar Alonso Iriarte from the European Commission (desk officer responsible for the Child Exploitation Directive), Olivia Regnier (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), Innocenzo Genna (European ISP Association) and Andrew Heaney (Talktalk).

Mr Iriarte and Ms Regnier joined forces to speak in favour of web blocking, while Mr Genna and Mr Heaney joined EDRi in our criticisms of this approach.

EDRi's speech is available from http://www.edri.org/files/ecta_speech_101130.pdf