July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

None
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message: > From: Marc <marcaniballi(a)hotmail.com> > Date: September 12, 2005 12:24:05 PM EDT > To: dave(a)farber.net > Subject: RE: [IP] eBay to Acquire Skype > > Dave; > > Can anyone on IP project what sort of US regulatory exposure this > will place upon Skype? I have my suspicions, but I would prefer the > opinions of those more immersed in the field. Well... Based on eBay's stated "privacy" policy, this will open up pen tracing to LEOs with just a phone call at the least. At the worst, Skype users will soon be getting new software that allows LEOs to backdoor skype crypto and get free access to those phone calls (also based on eBay's stated "privacy policy"...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Indymedia interviews Noam Chomsky
by Peter Phillips 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

IMC CHOMSKY INTERVIEW | October 5, 2001 http://www.indymedia.org/ The following interview was conducted with Noam Chomsky via email on October 5, 2001. Greg Ruggerio did the interview in conjunction with Indymedia. greg(a)sevenstories.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- IMC: In order to shape an international alliance, the U.S. has suddenly shifted positions with a number of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, offering a variety of political, military and monetary packages in exchange for forms of support. How might these sudden moves be affecting the political dynamics in those regions? CHOMSKY: Washington is stepping very delicately. We have to remember what is at stake: the world's major energy reserves, primarily in Saudi Arabia but throughout the Gulf region, along with not-inconsiderable resources in Central Asia. Though a minor factor, Afghanistan has been discussed for years as a possible site for pipelines that will aid the U.S. in the complex maneuvering over control of Central Asian resources. North of Afghanistan, the states are fragile and violent. Uzbekistan is the most important. It has been condemned by Human Rights Watch for serious atrocities, and is fighting its own internal Islamic insurgency. Tajikistan is similar, and is also a major drug trafficking outlet to Europe, primarily in connection with the Northern Alliance, which controls most of the Afghan-Tajikistan border and has been the major source of drugs since the Taliban virtually eliminated poppy production. Flight of Afghans to the north could lead to all sorts of internal problems. Pakistan, which has been the main supporter of the Taliban, has a strong internal radical Islamic movement. Its reaction is unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, if Pakistan is visibly used as a base for U.S. operations in Afghanistan; and there is much well-advised concern over the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The Pakistani military, while eager to obtain military aid from the U.S. (already promised), is wary, because of stormy past relations, and is also concerned over a potentially hostile Afghanistan allied with its enemy to the East, India. They are not pleased that the Northern Alliance is led by Tajiks, Uzbeks, and other Afghan minorities hostile to Pakistan and supported by India, Iran and Russia, now the U.S. as well. In the Gulf region, even wealthy and secular elements are bitter about U.S. policies and quietly often express support for bin Laden, whom they detest, as "the conscience of Islam" (New York Times, October 5, quoting an international lawyer for multinationals, trained in the U.S.). Quietly, because these are highly repressive states; one factor in the general bitterness towards the U.S. is its support for these regimes. Internal conflict could easily spread, with consequences that could be enormous, especially if U.S. control over the huge resources of the region is threatened. Similar problems extend to North Afica and Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. Even apart from internal conflict, an increased flow of armaments to the countries of the region increases the likelihood of armed conflict and the flow of weapons to terrorist organizations and narcotraffickers. The governments are eager to join the U.S. "war against terrorism" to gain support for their own state terrorism, often on a shocking scale (Russia and Turkey, to mention only the most obvious examples, though Turkey has always benefited from crucial U.S. involvement). IMC: Pakistan and India, border countries armed with nuclear weapons, have been eye to eye in serious conflict for years. How might the sudden and intense pressure that the U.S. is exerting in the region impact their already volatile relationship? CHOMSKY: The main source of conflict is Kashmir, where India claims to be fighting Islamic terrorism, and Pakistan claims that India is refusing self-determination and has carried out large-scale terrorism itself. All the claims, unfortunately, are basically correct. There have been several wars over Kashmir, the latest one in 1999, when both states had nuclear weapons available; fortunately they were kept under control, but that can hardly be guaranteed. The threat of nuclear war is likely to increase if the U.S. persists in its militarization of space programs (euphemistically described as "missile defense"). These already include support for expansion of China's nuclear forces, in order to gain Chinese acquiescence to the programs. India will presumably try to match China's expansion, then Pakistan, then beyond, including Israel. Its nuclear capacities were described by the former head of the U.S. Strategic Command as "dangerous in the extreme," and one of the prime threats in the region. "Volatile" is right, maybe worse. IMC: Prior to 9-11, the Bush administration was being fiercely critiqued, ally nations included, for its political "unilateralism"- refusal to sign on to the Kyoto protocol for greenhouse emissions, intention to violate the ABM treaty in order to militarize space with a "missile defense" program, walkout of the racism conference in Durban, South Africa, to name only a few recent examples. Might the sudden U.S. alliance-building effort spawn a new "multi-lateralism" in which unexpected positive developments-like progress for Palestinians-might advance? CHOMSKY: It's worth recalling that Bush's "unilateralism" was an extension of standard practice. In 1993, Clinton informed the UN that the U.S. will-before-act "multilaterally when possible but unilaterally when necessary," and proceeded to do so. The position was reiterated by UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright and in 1999 by Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who declared that the U.S. is committed to "unilateral use of military power" to defend vital interests, which include "ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources," and indeed anything that Washington might determine to be within its "domestic jurisdiction." The last phrase is important: it refers to the exception the U.S. granted itself from World Court decisions, employed when it rejected the Court's order to terminate its terrorist attack against Nicaragua. But it is true that Bush went beyond, causing considerable anxiety among allies. The current need to form a coalition may attenuate the rhetoric, but is unlikely to change the policies. Members of the coalition are expected to be silent and obedient supporters, not participants. The U.S. explicitly reserves to itself the right to act as it chooses, and is carefully avoiding any meaningful recourse to international institutions, as required by law. The Palestinians are unlikely to gain anything. On the contrary, the terrorist attack of September 11 was a crushing blow to them, as they and Israel recognized immediately. IMC: Since 9-11, Secretary of State Colin Powell has been signalling that the U.S. may adopt a new stance toward the plight of Palestinians. What is your reading? CHOMSKY: My reading is exactly that of the officials and other sources quoted towards the end of the front-page story of the New York Times. As they made clear, Bush-Powell do not even go as far as Clinton's Camp David proposals, lauded in the mainstream here but completely unacceptable, for reasons discussed accurately in Israel and elsewhere, and as anyone could see by looking at a map-one reason, I suppose, why maps were so hard to find here, though not elsewhere, including Israel. One can find more detail about this in articles at the time of Camp David, including my own, and essays in the collection edited by Roane Carey The New Intifada. IMC: The free flow of information is one of the first casualties of any war. Is the present situation in any way an exception? Examples? CHOMSKY: Impediments to free flow of information in countries like the U.S. are rarely traceable to government; rather, to self-censorship of the familiar kind. The current situation is not exceptional-considerably better than the norm, in my opinion. There are, however, some startling examples of U.S. government efforts to restrict free flow of information abroad. The Arab world has had one free and open news source, the satellite TV news channel Al-Jazeera in Qatar, modelled on BBC, with an enormous audience throughout the Arab-speaking world. It is the sole uncensored source, carrying a great deal of important news and also live debates and a wide range of opinion-broad enough to include Colin Powell a week ago and Israeli Prime Minister Barak (me too, just to declare an interest). Al-Jazeera is also "the only international news organization to maintain reporters in the Taliban-controlled part of Afghanistan" (Wall Street Journal). Among other examples, it was responsible for the exclusive filming of the destruction of Buddhist statues that rightly infuriated the world. It has also provided lengthy interviews with bin Laden that I'm sure are perused closely by Western intelligence agencies and are invaluable to others who wants to understand what he is thinking. These are translated and rebroadcast by BBC, several of them since 9-11. Al-Jazeera is, naturally, despised and feared by the dictatorships of the region, particularly because of its frank exposures of their human rights records. The U.S. has joined their ranks. BBC reports that "The U.S. is not the first to feel aggrieved by al-Jazeera coverage, which has in the past provoked anger from Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt for giving airtime to political dissidents." The Emir of Qatar confirmed that "Washington has asked Qatar to rein in the influential and editorially independent Arabic al-Jazeera television station," BBC reported. The Emir, who also chairs the Organization of Islamic Conference that includes 56 countries, informed the press in Washington that Secretary of State Powell had pressured him to rein in Al-Jazeera: to "persuade Al-Jazeera to tone down its coverage," Al-Jazeera reports. Asked about the reports of censorship, the Emir said: "This is true. We heard from the U.S. administration, and also from the previous U.S. administration" (BBC, October 4, 2001, citing Reuters). The only serious report I noticed of this highly important news is in the Wall Street Journal (October 5), which also describes the reaction of intellectuals and scholars throughout the Arab world ("truly appalling," etc.). The report adds, as the Journal has done before, that "many Arab analysts argued that it is, after all, Washington's perceived disregard for human rights in officially pro-American countries such as Saudi Arabia that fuels the rampant anti-Americanism." There has also been remarkably little use of the bin Laden interviews and other material from Afghanistan available from Al-Jazeera. So yes, there are barriers to free flow of information, but they cannot be blamed on government censorship or pressure, a very marginal factor in the United States. ### ----- End forwarded message -----

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The Git conversion is done.
by Nick Mathewson 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Tor is now in Git. The repository is at git://git.freehaven.net/git/tor.git There is also a historical-interest repository at git://git.freehaven.net/git/tor-history.git It has all the obsolete branches that we would never have put into svn in the first place if we had been working with a DVCS. [*] I've revised our internal Git Howto document a bit, with help from Marcus Griep. It might be a good starting point if you're new to Git: http://git.torproject.org/checkout/githax/master/doc/Howto.txt Happy hacking, -- Nick ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Lucrative update
by Patrick 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Lucrative release 4 is out. I know many people are used to seeing releases numbered like "0.000001", "0.000002", "2.0.3.0.14.657" etc. but release numbering systems are essentially arbitrary in nature so don't get excited as Lucrative goes toward version 50+. This release is a fairly minor one, but included some changes such as the client name that I wanted to get out as soon as possible. There is also a new development weblog at http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/weblog/. I went through an install with someone over IRC last night and made a blog entry summarizing the install notes. I recommend reading the notes before attempting an install. I am glad to help with an install, drop me a note at patrick(a)lfcgate.com if you have trouble. Some documentation on the various entities in the Lucrative system is now available on the website, http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/documentation.php but more is needed and coming. If Lucrative is interesting to you, please consider helping in any way you can: Feedback Installation reports Suggestions Comments Criticism Feature requests Source code patches Donations Are all very much welcomed. And criticism is more useful to me than praise. My sincere thanks to everyone who has participated so far by installing, testing, providing feedback, spreading the word, and donating. And finally I just received word from SourceForge that the project registration for Lucrative has been approved. Regards, Patrick -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> mQGiBD5ECKcRBADUvjXHwLtxIyS4AyjBs/dFtN6rdeP18Fhzh1hD5fJwkFevqY9Z I1ASROTh6eXYF7pU5sEvbcPshHyTB41ZtTqZvQvpwWN0fUzOuutuI0mtC5UPp9Rz j47SdWLdEXNHjwnHDCYSyqtqZu8GujGRQybR0eP3NIh/NwbSDUKdgz7IjwCg//Jo UtjP3zUFobm/0UYA+CJ5krED/091x9Js0gwNwvjbzM8DqO+r8qNz0kXI13FkrPRk QNd37lxt6m2m8HZD1WYM2wKwtMzHSwJcWzaDZ/tNc+ppYjzpw0EQCh9FqjGs8Vau guF6PA1M8lJTCcLKaL4e7ynic+PAw5Xa/tdOYgFCG+eLMU5RLvzRCYoOLIjgMJLJ yG98BACAMlDmFVYgC/UKvzZmHfZ5CtCKd8sPfCXrYLu5NeFRE0LR6D6zjzmhi1xX okfreR5o3T/y78VBM98js+m2/+7Z0AElqydeW/RnV1zqwDGjDr9z2MgARf3yLAbs n3BU8Fz61RwvHy6cRkT+2dR2f69QQUSpkupvLwZIGX/iwm4uKLQdUGF0cmljayA8 cGF0cmlja0BsZmNnYXRlLmNvbT6JAE4EEBECAA4FAj5ECKcECwMCAQIZAQAKCRBb mvb9yuOVfaA2AKDAu5tDj9F2KI8cJMrKKkQRAcUyxACg6/bei7lUJH+E5igJqGRx SjKrRA65BA0EPkQIpxAQAPkYoH5aBmF6Q5CV3AVsh4bsYezNRR8O2OCjecbJ3HoL rOQ/40aUtjBKU9d8AhZIgLUV5SmZqZ8HdNP/46HFliBOmGW42A3uEF2rthccUdhQ yiJXQym+lehWKzh4XAvb+ExN1eOqRsz7zhfoKp0UYeOEqU/Rg4Soebbvj6dDRgjG zB13VyQ4SuLE8OiOE2eXTpITYfbb6yUOF/32mPfIfHmwch04dfv2wXPEgxEmK0Ng w+Po1gr9oSgmC66prrNlD6IAUwGgfNaroxIe+g8qzh90hE/K8xfzpEDp19J3tkIt AjbBJstoXp18mAkKjX4t7eRdefXUkk+bGI78KqdLfDL2Qle3CH8IF3KiutapQvMF 6PlTETlPtvFuuUs4INoBp1ajFOmPQFXz0AfGy0OplK33TGSGSfgMg71l6RfUodNQ +PVZX9x2Uk89PY3bzpnhV5JZzf24rnRPxfx2vIPFRzBhznzJZv8V+bv9kV7HAarT W56NoKVyOtQa8L9GAFgr5fSI/VhOSdvNILSd5JEHNmszbDgNRR0PfIizHHxbLY72 88kjwEPwpVsYjY67VYy4XTjTNP18F1dDox0YbN4zISy1Kv884bEpQBgRjXyEpwpy 1obEAxnIByl6ypUM2Zafq9AKUJsCRtMIPWakXUGfnHy9iUsiGSa6q6Jew1XrPdYX AAICD/wKwtF7Y4NKBe8PQ6jDbjWziiTv9Ac/EnRTJDQEoqgLa2LyE+6Ahw/VPGvp mfxkD2MKxC9E7kYVmasn6sHnSpvAv3e7O1Bqbo/qLzzCcJQ5VCurZ+elRM1GZ4Oc fM19FPKutb0/JFEv0nrqS4BGkF7WFBbu5dKYl/GIO7Co1mAerFIb719dOwMPVEIz OT08u8uB9jyR8gEElf+CVuNfOUkrUGg4HS4SbmTTrCSz3/8n5PkquSuAyjCB/dwM ZsZwA0/TTR8sDYlmlf9xPj5PGpGnV9OUwfig6eE0eWtRFeasmz0uiX+yp45ABtNh 6EXP/PFaBgXi9omXXjeeFYfpDvmfA6izvTIQfXTV6V9ZWrBfXarM+GQ+6guXWVbd 9fXvmCr982LkzuKQrK1OpRXBMUapXL+tOy/LYzz91InqKKhgPNGa12fvotZ4LzlM iqoM+Hpz5L9B5We1Ph0lD6RBVXDCqd+P8extnY/7AaDy7tC0UghaAaUuEZXJQPIc oQ3QGbpjM0nGe/VZN5EZhljau0NNENFaU56cOpvOhcO04gLGNNc2NS+rIpTMsaHh o1CG90c5zZZJuUbyx0mIHriNQXDgEwunSZPQorKK9KSppyyjeuOyi5F/mBBPXeyT weLhLqLvAr9se/+Z3aQvMADJi8zUZtGggLTw+N9R5XSwtSh2R4kARgQYEQIABgUC PkQIpwAKCRBbmvb9yuOVfWayAKC+mBhHdn1XZ5uH0RocAyJ32hx2kgCePyhB+IqM TjWLDLarQxcPYhbkFi4= =nx1M -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.18, 23 September 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.18, 23 September 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. "Freedom not Fear" 2009 - Protests Against the Surveillance Mania 2. Three strikes law version 2 - one step closer to adoption in France 3. MEPs ask for a new agreement on SWIFT bank data transfers to USA 4. Ambitious study published by Swedish EU Presidency 5. UK music industry shows divided opinions on cutting off p2p users 6. Macedonia: Activities for citizen education about their privacy rights 7. A human rights commissioner in the European Commission ? 8. EESC opinion on the impact of social networking sites on citizens 9. Secret IPR measures in EU - South Korea trade agreement 10. Civil society coalition discuss global privacy standards 11. Recommended Action 12. Recommended Reading 13. Agenda 14. About ============================================================ 1. "Freedom not Fear" 2009 - Protests Against the Surveillance Mania ============================================================ On Saturday, 12 September 2009, civil liberties activists in many countries again took it to the streets under the motto "Freedom not Fear - Stop the Surveillance Mania". It was the second time these activities took place after the first international action day on 11 October 2008. The biggest event was held in Berlin, where more than 25 000 people marched through the streets and applauded the speeches and the bands. Frank Bsirske, chairman of the world's largest trade union ver.di, called for a comprehensive law for employee and workplace privacy protection. Patrick Breyer from the working Group against Data Retention (AK Vorrat), which again had initiated the protests, reminded participants of the democratic rallies and events of 1847 and 1989 and called for continuous resistance against the surveillance state. Other speakers included Franziska Heine from the Working Group against Censorship (AK Zensur), who had organized the most successful online petition ever to the German parliament against a recent German law that permits blocking of web sites by the federal police. The event sent a strong signal to the political parties and was widely reported in the context of the upcoming German federal election. At the end of the demonstration, activists from EDRi member Chaos Computer Club were able to film a police assault on a peaceful participant. Public pressure as a result of this has now led to an announcement of the Berlin police that all officers will get mandatory name badges in early 2010. Other activities took place in Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. Activists had organized a plethora of events, including a full week of activities in Prague; demonstrations in Amsterdam, Stockholm and Sofia; public teach-inns in Skopje (co-organized by EDRi member Metamorphosis), Milano, and Helsinki (co-organized by EDRi member EFFi); privacy parties and film screenings, and much more. Activists in Vienna (from EDRi member Vibe.at) reported such big interest from the population that they had to print 1000 more leaflets on the same day. Outside of Europe, privacy activists in Guatemala joined the action day this year with a reading event from a new volume of fiction stories about surveillance, titled "stop the surveillance mania". Overview of Freedom not Fear activities http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2009 Press center for the Berlin demonstration http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Press_center Report from activities in Skopje - EDRi-gram: Macedonia: Activities for citizen education about their privacy rights (23.09.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.18/macedonia-freedom-not-fear-2009 Report from activities in Vienna (only in German, 12.09.2009) http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/S-Bericht-FSA-Wien/forum-165693/msg-17… International Action Day "Freedom not Fear" (11.10.2008) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number6.20/freedom-not-fear-international-day (contribution by Ralf Bendrath, EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien) ============================================================ 2. Three strikes law version 2 - one step closer to adoption in France ============================================================ On 15 September 2009, the French deputies adopted the amended version of the three strikes law (also known as Hadopi 2) by only 55% votes. A day after, the mixed paritary commission made of seven senators and seven deputies validated in its turn the version voted by the deputies. Minister of Culture Fridiric Mitterrand announced after the adoption of the text that both Hadopi 1 and Hadopi 2 will be applied starting with the end of this year when he would also make his propositions for a third text, Hadopi 3. Socialist deputy Patrick Bloche has reaffirmed the opposition's intention to appeal to the Constitutional Council to stop the text as it happened in June with the first version of the law, Hadopi 1. "We vigorously contest the creation of a sanction for negligence which flagrantly violates the principle according to which someone can be judged only for his (her) acts" said the deputy. "The HADOPI is a disturbing step towards the control of information circulating on the Internet by economic and political actors. All seem to agree now to stifle this great space of expression and freedom that we, as citizens, must protect," stated Jeremie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net. In La Quadrature du Net's opinion, "this legal text severely put into question the Republican values which are the presumption of innocence and the right to an equitable procedure." "HADOPI is a worrying stage towards the control of information on the Net by economic and political actors." commented Jirimie Zimmermann. Already the law is considered by many as obsolete having in view the permanent technological progress which allows for several methods to go round the restrictions of the law. Right after the adoption of the text, searches of "going around Hadopi" would result in almost 60 000 responses on the Internet. The Senate gave its final vote on the draft law on 21 September and it is no suprise that the lower Chamber of the French Parliament also gave its positive final vote the next day. The only step that could now stop the law remains the appeal to the Constitutional Council. Hadopi 2 law adopted in the Assembly by 55 % of deputies (only in French, 15.09.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13926-la-loi-hadopi-2-adoptee-a-l-assemble… La Quadrature du Net is waiting for the Constitutional Council's advice (only in French, 15.09.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13927-la-quadrature-du-net-attend-l-avis-d… Hadopi law validated, but already obsolete (only in French, 16.09.2009) http://www.lesechos.fr/info/hightec/300376175-la-loi-hadopi-validee-mais-de… France passes three-strikes bill (15.09.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/15/france_hadopi_passes_lower_house/ EDRI-gram: Hadopi 2's final vote is postponed till 15 September (29.07.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.15/hadopi-2-postponed-15-september ============================================================ 3. MEPs ask for a new agreement on SWIFT bank data transfers to USA ============================================================ The European Parliament issued on 17 September 2009 a resolution reaffirming the need that for the Council and EU ministers to renegotiate the agreement to transfer bank data to the United States Treasury Department. MEPs have previously expressed their concern for not having been involved in the negotiation of the EU-US interim agreement on banking data transfers as EU ministers had decided unanimously to give the European Commission a negotiating mandate without involving the Parliament. MEPs consider this goes against the opinion of Council's legal service, which recommanded to include the European Parliament in this process. The EP resolution sets up guidelines for the new agreement in order to ensure data protection and privacy, underlining once more that the data should be transferred to the US authorities only for the purpose of fighting terrorism and that the transferred data should be used or stored proportionately to this objective. The resolution reaffirms the "determination to fight terrorism" but also expresses the "need to strike the right balance between security measures and the protection of civil liberties and fundamental rights, while ensuring the utmost respect for privacy and data protection." The EP believes that the transfer requests should be "based on specific, targeted cases, limited in time and subject to judicial authorisation, and that any subsequent processing is limited to data which disclose a link with persons or organisations under examination in the US" and that "EU citizens and enterprises are granted the same defence rights and procedural guarantees and the same right of access to justice as exist in the EU and that the legality and proportionality of the transfer requests are open to judicial review in the US". In order to prevent any abuse, the transferred data should be "subject to the same judicial redress mechanisms as would apply to data held within the EU, including compensation in the event of unlawful processing of personal data." The resolution also asks for a reciprocity mechanism that would oblige the US authorities to equally transfer relevant financial data to the competent EU authorities, upon request. The EP resolution did not reach consensus amoung different parliamentary groups. The adopted resolution was rejected by the Greens (who had their own resolution) and the left groups. The opposition to this resolution considered the present text is not strong enough after the compromises between different political groups. It also highlighted the fact that the current format does not call for a stop of the current negociations. Beatrice Ask, the Swedish Justice Minister, also stated that the new text under negotiation with the United States will be in force for no more than 12 months. "If we don't get real assurances concerning the protection of (personal) data there won't be a deal," said EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot who also stated that "an immediate renegotiation will take place under the Treaty of Lisbon", thus giving EP the final word on the text. SWIFT: new EU-US agreement will be renegotiated next year (17.09.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-60698-257-09-3… European Parliament resolution of 17 September 2009 on the envisaged international agreement to make available to the United States Treasury Department financial payment messaging data to prevent and combat terrorism and terrorist financing (updated 21.09.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2009-… Motion on a resolution on the envisaged international agreement to make available to the United States Treasury Department financial payment messaging data to prevent and combat terrorism and terrorist financing - Ra|l Romeva i Rueda, Jan Philipp Albrecht on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group (14.09.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+MOTION+B7-… EU poses conditions on US access to bank account info (17.09.2009) http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hmZQkLlqCKitST820Wq-q6tM… EDRI-gram: A new SWIFT agreement under negotiation between EU and USA (9.09.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.17/swift-european-parliament ============================================================ 4. Ambitious study published by Swedish EU Presidency ============================================================ The Swedish Presidency of the EU has produced a study entitled "A Green Knowledge Society" that was made public in September 2009. The study aims to set the scene for the "tipping point in the transition to the knowledge economy" and to help prepare policy making for the "enormous consequences" that this will have for society and interaction between governments and citizens. The report also looks at the ways in which ICT can be used for environmental protection. Key issues for the digital civil rights domain include creativity and infrastructure. As regards creativity the report underlines the changes in today's situation: "Some interviewees pointed to the need for Europe to move away from a 'permission to innovate' culture. For instance, one of the few examples of European innovation is the file sharing service Pirate Bay, which challenges current intellectual property rules. Rather than attempt to stymie this innovation, we need a more thoughtful response and to rethink rules around protection of intellectual property rights so that they are fit for a digital economy. Member State governments currently retain orthodox views about protection of intellectual property but we may need to embrace radical solutions if innovation and creativity is being held back (Boldrin and Levine, 2008)." Policy goals for infrastructure development are "a new regulatory regime based on more effective ex ante regulation across all ICT layers", open source software and open standards for ICT infrastructure and public procurement, strong Internet governance participation and ensuring that next generation infrastructure can be built in a competitive market. Policy actions include common enforceable regulation with service legal agreements for ISPs and portal providers, harmonised spectrum policy and "vigorously" deploying competition law with accelerated processes. Full report - A Green Knowledge Society - An ICT policy agenda to 2015 for Europe's future knowledge society - A study for the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications, -Government Offices of Sweden (09.2009) http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.14425!menu/standard/file/A%20green%20kno… Executive summary http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.12580!menu/standard/file/Revision03_exec… (Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 5. UK music industry shows divided opinions on cutting off p2p users ============================================================ UK Secretary of State Lord Mandelson's proposal to use technical measures to cut off connections of illegal file-sharers met different reactions within UK music industry. A coalition including the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and the Music Producers Guild (MPG) has recently expressed its opinion that the suspension of connections of allegedly illegal file-sharers was a "grossly disproportionate" measure. Besides the fact that the costs necessary for the implementing of technical measures to cut off online connections are much too high as compared to the supposed benefits, the members of the coalition also stated they did not want to punish their fans. While believing that copyright is essential for the protection of songs writers and artists, the members of the coalition "have serious reservations about the content and scope of the proposed legislation outlined in the consultation on P2P file-sharing. Processes of monitoring, notification and sanction are not conducive to achieving a vibrant, functional, fair and competitive market for music." FAC brings as argument that, as a recent research made by MusicAlly shows, the decreasing in the CD sales should not be solely blamed on illegal online filesharing and that "it is dangerous to view the downloading of music as the direct online equivalent of CD sales". The coalition believes that what the proposals lack is a differenciation between downloading and online sharing music by fans on a non-commercial basis and those who do it for financial gains or advantages. "This second group of 'commercial' P2P users and facilitators should be pursued with the full force of the law as is the case with illegal CD plants in the offline world. Ordinary music fans and consumers should not be criminalised because of the failings of a legacy sector of business to adapt sufficiently fast to new technological challenges." FAC expressed the opinion that the music industry should adapt to the digital age and create new business models. "As creators' representatives we are willing to be partners with government in exploring and navigating the opportunities and challenges brought by digital technologies. What we will not be a party to is any system that alienates our members' existing audience and potential new audiences." Actually, on 25 August 2009, Mandelson's Department for Business said that following the responses to the consultation on Digital Britain proposals, the introducing of the threat of disconnection from the Internet should be reconsidered. "Since the issue of the consultation some stakeholders have argued strongly that none of those technical measures (short of suspension) is powerful enough to have a significant deterrent effect on infringing behaviour," it said. UK Music, the body representing a large part of the music industry made a statement on 16 September clarifying its position on file-sharing in which it was forced to drop any mention of cutting off Internet connections in order to ensure unity across the industry. Although FAC is not a member of UK Music, BASCA, which made common front with FAC, is. "UK Music would like to clarify that all our members remain committed to supporting proposals that will benefit the future growth and sustainability of our commercial music industry. We believe that Government intervention is extremely welcome and that, subject to assessment, Ofcom should be granted appropriate and proportionate powers as directed by the Secretary of State. The purpose of these powers is to encourage users of unlicensed P2P networks towards existing and future digital music services," says the statement making no mention to any specific enforcement measures. A final view of the industry will probably be submitted after the consultation process closes on 28 September. Cracks show in music industry over P2P enforcement (16.09.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/16/uk_music_statement/ UK Music statement on Government's proposed P2P file-sharing legislation (15.09.2009) http://www.ukmusic.org/policy/163-uk-music-statement-on-governments-propose… UK.gov revives net cut-off threat for illegal downloaders (25.08.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/25/p2p_disconnection/ Don't punish our fans, say UK musicians (16.09.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=408&Item… Joint Statement on P2P Legislation (10.09.1009) http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com/showscreen.php?site_id=161&screenty… Music industry ready for climbdown on internet piracy demands (16.09.2009) http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/art… EDRI-gram: UK: p2p three strikes clamp down despite civil liberties concerns (26.08.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.16/uk-3-strikes ============================================================ 6. Macedonia: Activities for citizen education about their privacy rights ============================================================ Due to the low level of public awareness on privacy issues, the activities of the international action "Freedom Not Fear" in Macedonia included efforts for educating the citizens on 12 September 2009. In order to provide opportunities for the citizens to get to know their rights and ways to solve their privacy related problems, about fifty volunteers from nine NGOs and the Directorate for Personal Data Protection organized several knowledge sharing activities. Around 3000 flyers in Macedonian and Albanian languages were disseminated throughout the capital of Macedonia. They contain info about the basic rights and links to websites which provide resources and tutorials about the legal and technical tools available to the citizens who need to protect their privacy from infringements from the state, companies and individuals. The volonteers also disseminated the printed version of the Call to Action from Berlin, translated into Macedonian. On 12 September 2009, legal experts who work on the implementation of the law on private data protection and the law on free access to public information answered to citizens questions face to face, offering practical advice and guidelines. Several NGOs contributed for the organization of this event, including the EDRi-member Metamorphosis Foundation. Macedonia: Freedom Not Fear 2009 - Activities for Citizen Education about Their Rights (12.09.2009) http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/activities/macedonia-freedom-not-fear-2009-… (Thanks to EDRi-member Metamorphosis Foundation) ============================================================ 7. A human rights commissioner in the European Commission ? ============================================================ On 16 September 2009 the European Parliament re-elected Jose Manuel Barroso for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission by a clear majority. During his campaign, Barroso presented his proposals for commissioner posts. At a meeting on 9 September with political groups in the Parliament, the commissioner promised a human rights commissioner post thus creating a separate portfolio for fundamental rights and civil liberties. The European Commission has now a justice, freedom and security commissioner, but critics have argued that the domain was too broad and issues such as data protection, immigration and the rights of migrants in the Member States should be given more attention. Barroso also committed to create a second post to focus on interior security and to a third one for a single financial supervisor. He also promised a review of the economic crisis situation in three years time. Mr Barroso intended to travel to Ireland to campaign for a Yes vote in Ireland's second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that is to take place on 2 October. After the poll, he will start forming a new Commission. However, according to Swedish Europe minister Cecilia Malmstrom, even if the Irish vote is in favour, the fate of the Lisbon Treaty will still be unclear as the Czech Republic is taking its time in ratifying the document. "If everything goes well, if there's a yes in Dublin and all the states have ratified in October, our ambitious, optimistic goal is to get the whole package for the October summit (29-30 October)," said the minister. If Ireland says no to the Lisbon Treaty, the commission will be appointed on Nice treaty which foresees a reduction in the number of commissioners without specifying a number however. A solution in this case according to the Swedish prime minister would be to give the member state that does not get a commissioner the post of EU foreign policy chief. Next commission set for human rights post (10.09.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28643 EU to appoint human rights commissioner (14.09.2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/6183484/EU-to-appoint-huma… Josi Manuel Barroso reelected European Commission president (16.09.2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6198292/Jos-Manuel-Barr… ============================================================ 8. EESC opinion on the impact of social networking sites on citizens ============================================================ The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) debated in a meeting organized on 17 September 2009 a new approach in regulating social networing websites, with the appointment of an EU Ombudsman to be responsible for the protection of human dignity, privacy and data protection in the audiovisual sector, that should include specific responsibility for social networking websites. The final opinion would be made public in the beginning of November 2009. But this new approach by the EESC needs to be in line with other EU developments in the field of regulating social networks. In July 2008, the European Commission held an extensive public consultation on "Online Social Networking", the data and conclusions of which form an essential study base for future developments under the Safer Internet Programme (2009-2013) and on 26 September 2008, the European Commissioner Viviane Reding, pointed out the issue during a speech in Luxembourg at the Safer Internet Forum, setting out the main guidelines for the Commission's future action in this field. The 30th international conference of data protection and privacy authorities on 17 October 2008 resulted in a detailed resolution with recommendations related to the protection of privacy in social networking services. The "Safer Social Networking principles for the EU document" was adopted on 10 February 2009 having at the basis an agreement concluded by the 17 largest operators of the main social networking sites in Europe. By this document the operators recognise their responsibility and identify the potential risks to which young people under the age of 18 using these sites are exposed. The EESC's preliminary draft opinion, prepared by rapporteur Pegada Liz and issued on 11 August 2009 recognised the positive aspects of social networks, but expressed concerns related to the risks of the illegal and abusive use of social networks drawing a special attention to the risks related "to the use of social networking sites by minors and other vulnerable members of the public, specifically people with poor digital literacy, who frequently fall victim to others who take advantage of them to engage in illegal activities that affront their personal dignity and endanger their physical and mental wellbeing and even their lives." The documents also suggests the appointment of an European Community Ombudsman similar to the Canadian Privacy Commissioner. The Canadian commissioner already performed an investigation on Facebook following which, the operator agreed to add new privacy safeguards to the website. EESC draft opinion considers that a single regulator at the level of the Community could have regulatory or co-regulatory powers on social networks, including the power to impose penalties. Other proposals of the draft opinion include a call on the European Commission to adopt a green paper on Social Network Services (SNS), the development of self-regulation and co-regulation schemes for the SNS industry, especially on the protection of minors. Launching initiatives such as Safer Internet Programme 2009-2013 is also a proposal as well as increasing efforts to raise awareness at the EU and national levels and setting up principles and rules of conduct for SNS sites at the international level. The draft opinion was discussed within a meeting on 17 September where a short questionnaire was distributed to participants including questions on freedom of speech, censorship, anonymity on SNS sites, sanctions, self- and co-regulation and the creation of a Community ombudsman. The answers will be used as input for the final opinion that will be discussed in November 2009. Preliminary Draft Opinion of the Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society on The impact of social networking sites on citizens/consumers (11.08.2009) https://toad.eesc.europa.eu/BrowseDocuments.aspx?type=1&folder=ces%5cten%5c… Questionnaire for Participants in the EESC Hearing for the own-initiative opinion TEN/390 on the impact of social networking sites on citizens/consumers (14.09.2009) https://toad.eesc.europa.eu/AgendaDocuments.aspx?pmi=zIpQ%2fkWVUpk%3d EDRI-gram: Social Networks - on the European Commission's Agenda (8.10.2008) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.19/social-networking-eu ======================================================================= 9. Secret IPR measures in EU - South Korea trade agreement ======================================================================= The European Union and South Korea plan to initiate a Free Trade Agreement in October 2009. The trade agreement includes civil, border and criminal measures for the enforcement of copyright, trademark rights, patents and other exclusive rights. The text of the agreement is secret. In the Netherlands, EDRi-member Vrijschrift.org last week asked the parliamentary Commission on Subsidiarity to investigate the EU - South Korea trade agreement. In 2006, this commission gained fame with its negative advice on the EU Criminal measures intellectual property directive proposal (IPRED2). Subsequently, both chambers of the Dutch Parliament unanimously agreed with the Commission's advice and sent a letter to then EU Commissioner Frattini, with translated copies to the other national parliaments of the EU. IPRED 2 is now permanently stuck in the EU Council. FFII analyst Ante Wessels comments: "Decisions on substantive and formal criminal law have always been deemed especially sensitive for the ability of a constitutional state to democratically shape itself. Hence the opposition against EU criminal law. It is rather shocking that criminal measures are now secretly put in trade agreements. And the secretiveness of the EU - South Korea trade agreement makes it impossible to assess its effects on access to the Internet, software and medicine, too." The EU member states have the righ to veto on criminal measures. The articles related to trade services fall within the shared competence of the Community and its member states. The agreement has to be concluded jointly by the Community and the member states. Ante Wessels adds: "The governments keep the national parliaments uninformed. To gain influence, parliaments have to first force transparency. They can do so by making parliamentary scrutiny reservations. Then the government can't go ahead before the parliament is informed and makes a decision." South Korea and the European Union (EU) will initial their bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in October (10.09.2009) http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=15882 EU Council documents http://preview.tinyurl.com/n7lzvb Vrijschrift letter (only in Dutch, 16.09.2009) http://people.vrijschrift.org/~ante/korea/Vrijschrift-Com_Subsidiariteit-09… FFII information page on EU - South Korea trade agreement with more information on vetoes http://action.ffii.org/acta/fta TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), Resolution on the enforcement of copyright, trademarks, patents and other intellectual property rights (18.06.2009) http://www.tacd-ip.org/blog/2009/06/18/tacd-issues-resolution-on-iprs-enfor… NGO Letter to USTR on transparency (22.07.2009) http://keionline.org/content/view/246/1 Secret criminal measures in EU - South Korea trade agreement (21.09.2009) http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/Secret_criminal_measures_in_EU_-_South… (Thanks to Ante Wessels - FFII - Fvrderverein f|r eine Freie Informationelle Infrastruktur) ============================================================ 10. Civil society coalition discuss global privacy standards ============================================================ The Public Voice, the largest worldwide civil society coalition where EDRi is a an active member, will discuss "Global Privacy Standards in a Global World" during its conference on 3 November 2009 in Madrid, Spain, to be held in conjunction with the 31st Annual International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. Prominent advocates and experts from the academic, consumer, digital rights and labor communities will discuss with public officials and the business sector how to raise privacy awareness in the global community and how to promote civil society participation in decision making processes towards the adoption of better privacy and data protection standards globally. The Conference will first review recent privacy and human rights developments and major privacy activism campaigns around the world. It will also include the release of the current edition of the Privacy and Human Rights report. Stavros Lambrinidis, Vice-President of the European Parliament, is invited to comment on the most recent developments. The Conference will also address current challenges raised by emerging technologies and business practices: representatives from the civil society and business sector will discuss privacy implications of issues such as cloud computing or Internet search. It will further address transborder data flows in the public and private sector, from passenger name records and financial transactions to the outsourcing of personal data. The final Conference panel will launch the "Madrid Civil Society Declaration on Global Privacy Standards" that will be discussed by invited public data protection officials from OECD, the EU Article 29 Working Party, USA and Canada. Peter Hustinx, European Data Protection Supervisor, will provide closing remarks. The Conference is sponsored by the Spanish Data Protection Agency and is free to all participants. Registration is compulsory. Detailed program, registration and practical information http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09/ ============================================================ 11. Recommended Action ============================================================ Reclaim your data from the European police authorities! http://euro-data.noblogs.org/ Net Neutrality petition http://www.euopeninternet.eu We Must Protect Net Neutrality in Europe! - Open letter to the European Parliament http://www.laquadrature.net/en/we-must-protect-net-neutrality-in-europe-ope… ============================================================ 12. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Opinion of the Advocate General in the ECJ case of Google France, Google Inc. vs Louis Vuitton Malletier http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=rechercher&num… Creative Commons study of Non-commercial http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/17721 Direct link to the (18mb) full PDF http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining-noncommercial/Defining_Noncomme… ============================================================ 13. Agenda ============================================================ 23-24 September 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark The Net will not forget European conference on ICT and Privacy http://www.ict-privacy.dk/ 29-30 September 2009, Warsaw, Poland 3rd International Conference "Keeping Children and Young People Safe Online" http://www.saferinternet.pl/konferencja_en/articles-2009/3rd_international_… 1-2 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain 6th Communia Workshop: Memory Institutions and Public Domain http://www.communia-project.eu/ws06 16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany 10th German Big Brother Awards http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey eChallenges 2009 http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp 24 October 2009, Zurich, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2009/ 25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria Austrian Big Brother Awards http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/ 26-27 October 2009, Vienna, Austria 3rd European Privacy Open Space http://www.privacyos.eu 29 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain oXcars, the biggest free culture event of all times, 2nd edition http://oxcars09.exgae.net 29 October - 1 November 2009, Barcelona, Spain Free Culture Forum: Organization and Action http://fcforum.net/ 3 November 2009, Madrid, Spain Civil Society Conference: "Global Privacy Standards in a Global World" Organized by "The Public Voice" coalition http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09 4-6 November 2009, Madrid, Spain 31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy http://www.privacyconference2009.org 13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit http://www.fscons.org/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ 27-30 December 2009, Berlin, Germany 26th Chaos Communication Congress Deadline for submissions: 9 October 2009 http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/ ============================================================ 14. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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The Git conversion is done.
by Nick Mathewson 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Tor is now in Git. The repository is at git://git.freehaven.net/git/tor.git There is also a historical-interest repository at git://git.freehaven.net/git/tor-history.git It has all the obsolete branches that we would never have put into svn in the first place if we had been working with a DVCS. [*] I've revised our internal Git Howto document a bit, with help from Marcus Griep. It might be a good starting point if you're new to Git: http://git.torproject.org/checkout/githax/master/doc/Howto.txt Happy hacking, -- Nick ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.18, 23 September 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.18, 23 September 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. "Freedom not Fear" 2009 - Protests Against the Surveillance Mania 2. Three strikes law version 2 - one step closer to adoption in France 3. MEPs ask for a new agreement on SWIFT bank data transfers to USA 4. Ambitious study published by Swedish EU Presidency 5. UK music industry shows divided opinions on cutting off p2p users 6. Macedonia: Activities for citizen education about their privacy rights 7. A human rights commissioner in the European Commission ? 8. EESC opinion on the impact of social networking sites on citizens 9. Secret IPR measures in EU - South Korea trade agreement 10. Civil society coalition discuss global privacy standards 11. Recommended Action 12. Recommended Reading 13. Agenda 14. About ============================================================ 1. "Freedom not Fear" 2009 - Protests Against the Surveillance Mania ============================================================ On Saturday, 12 September 2009, civil liberties activists in many countries again took it to the streets under the motto "Freedom not Fear - Stop the Surveillance Mania". It was the second time these activities took place after the first international action day on 11 October 2008. The biggest event was held in Berlin, where more than 25 000 people marched through the streets and applauded the speeches and the bands. Frank Bsirske, chairman of the world's largest trade union ver.di, called for a comprehensive law for employee and workplace privacy protection. Patrick Breyer from the working Group against Data Retention (AK Vorrat), which again had initiated the protests, reminded participants of the democratic rallies and events of 1847 and 1989 and called for continuous resistance against the surveillance state. Other speakers included Franziska Heine from the Working Group against Censorship (AK Zensur), who had organized the most successful online petition ever to the German parliament against a recent German law that permits blocking of web sites by the federal police. The event sent a strong signal to the political parties and was widely reported in the context of the upcoming German federal election. At the end of the demonstration, activists from EDRi member Chaos Computer Club were able to film a police assault on a peaceful participant. Public pressure as a result of this has now led to an announcement of the Berlin police that all officers will get mandatory name badges in early 2010. Other activities took place in Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. Activists had organized a plethora of events, including a full week of activities in Prague; demonstrations in Amsterdam, Stockholm and Sofia; public teach-inns in Skopje (co-organized by EDRi member Metamorphosis), Milano, and Helsinki (co-organized by EDRi member EFFi); privacy parties and film screenings, and much more. Activists in Vienna (from EDRi member Vibe.at) reported such big interest from the population that they had to print 1000 more leaflets on the same day. Outside of Europe, privacy activists in Guatemala joined the action day this year with a reading event from a new volume of fiction stories about surveillance, titled "stop the surveillance mania". Overview of Freedom not Fear activities http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2009 Press center for the Berlin demonstration http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Press_center Report from activities in Skopje - EDRi-gram: Macedonia: Activities for citizen education about their privacy rights (23.09.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.18/macedonia-freedom-not-fear-2009 Report from activities in Vienna (only in German, 12.09.2009) http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/S-Bericht-FSA-Wien/forum-165693/msg-17… International Action Day "Freedom not Fear" (11.10.2008) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number6.20/freedom-not-fear-international-day (contribution by Ralf Bendrath, EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien) ============================================================ 2. Three strikes law version 2 - one step closer to adoption in France ============================================================ On 15 September 2009, the French deputies adopted the amended version of the three strikes law (also known as Hadopi 2) by only 55% votes. A day after, the mixed paritary commission made of seven senators and seven deputies validated in its turn the version voted by the deputies. Minister of Culture Fridiric Mitterrand announced after the adoption of the text that both Hadopi 1 and Hadopi 2 will be applied starting with the end of this year when he would also make his propositions for a third text, Hadopi 3. Socialist deputy Patrick Bloche has reaffirmed the opposition's intention to appeal to the Constitutional Council to stop the text as it happened in June with the first version of the law, Hadopi 1. "We vigorously contest the creation of a sanction for negligence which flagrantly violates the principle according to which someone can be judged only for his (her) acts" said the deputy. "The HADOPI is a disturbing step towards the control of information circulating on the Internet by economic and political actors. All seem to agree now to stifle this great space of expression and freedom that we, as citizens, must protect," stated Jeremie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net. In La Quadrature du Net's opinion, "this legal text severely put into question the Republican values which are the presumption of innocence and the right to an equitable procedure." "HADOPI is a worrying stage towards the control of information on the Net by economic and political actors." commented Jirimie Zimmermann. Already the law is considered by many as obsolete having in view the permanent technological progress which allows for several methods to go round the restrictions of the law. Right after the adoption of the text, searches of "going around Hadopi" would result in almost 60 000 responses on the Internet. The Senate gave its final vote on the draft law on 21 September and it is no suprise that the lower Chamber of the French Parliament also gave its positive final vote the next day. The only step that could now stop the law remains the appeal to the Constitutional Council. Hadopi 2 law adopted in the Assembly by 55 % of deputies (only in French, 15.09.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13926-la-loi-hadopi-2-adoptee-a-l-assemble… La Quadrature du Net is waiting for the Constitutional Council's advice (only in French, 15.09.2009) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/13927-la-quadrature-du-net-attend-l-avis-d… Hadopi law validated, but already obsolete (only in French, 16.09.2009) http://www.lesechos.fr/info/hightec/300376175-la-loi-hadopi-validee-mais-de… France passes three-strikes bill (15.09.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/15/france_hadopi_passes_lower_house/ EDRI-gram: Hadopi 2's final vote is postponed till 15 September (29.07.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.15/hadopi-2-postponed-15-september ============================================================ 3. MEPs ask for a new agreement on SWIFT bank data transfers to USA ============================================================ The European Parliament issued on 17 September 2009 a resolution reaffirming the need that for the Council and EU ministers to renegotiate the agreement to transfer bank data to the United States Treasury Department. MEPs have previously expressed their concern for not having been involved in the negotiation of the EU-US interim agreement on banking data transfers as EU ministers had decided unanimously to give the European Commission a negotiating mandate without involving the Parliament. MEPs consider this goes against the opinion of Council's legal service, which recommanded to include the European Parliament in this process. The EP resolution sets up guidelines for the new agreement in order to ensure data protection and privacy, underlining once more that the data should be transferred to the US authorities only for the purpose of fighting terrorism and that the transferred data should be used or stored proportionately to this objective. The resolution reaffirms the "determination to fight terrorism" but also expresses the "need to strike the right balance between security measures and the protection of civil liberties and fundamental rights, while ensuring the utmost respect for privacy and data protection." The EP believes that the transfer requests should be "based on specific, targeted cases, limited in time and subject to judicial authorisation, and that any subsequent processing is limited to data which disclose a link with persons or organisations under examination in the US" and that "EU citizens and enterprises are granted the same defence rights and procedural guarantees and the same right of access to justice as exist in the EU and that the legality and proportionality of the transfer requests are open to judicial review in the US". In order to prevent any abuse, the transferred data should be "subject to the same judicial redress mechanisms as would apply to data held within the EU, including compensation in the event of unlawful processing of personal data." The resolution also asks for a reciprocity mechanism that would oblige the US authorities to equally transfer relevant financial data to the competent EU authorities, upon request. The EP resolution did not reach consensus amoung different parliamentary groups. The adopted resolution was rejected by the Greens (who had their own resolution) and the left groups. The opposition to this resolution considered the present text is not strong enough after the compromises between different political groups. It also highlighted the fact that the current format does not call for a stop of the current negociations. Beatrice Ask, the Swedish Justice Minister, also stated that the new text under negotiation with the United States will be in force for no more than 12 months. "If we don't get real assurances concerning the protection of (personal) data there won't be a deal," said EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot who also stated that "an immediate renegotiation will take place under the Treaty of Lisbon", thus giving EP the final word on the text. SWIFT: new EU-US agreement will be renegotiated next year (17.09.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-60698-257-09-3… European Parliament resolution of 17 September 2009 on the envisaged international agreement to make available to the United States Treasury Department financial payment messaging data to prevent and combat terrorism and terrorist financing (updated 21.09.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2009-… Motion on a resolution on the envisaged international agreement to make available to the United States Treasury Department financial payment messaging data to prevent and combat terrorism and terrorist financing - Ra|l Romeva i Rueda, Jan Philipp Albrecht on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group (14.09.2009) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+MOTION+B7-… EU poses conditions on US access to bank account info (17.09.2009) http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hmZQkLlqCKitST820Wq-q6tM… EDRI-gram: A new SWIFT agreement under negotiation between EU and USA (9.09.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.17/swift-european-parliament ============================================================ 4. Ambitious study published by Swedish EU Presidency ============================================================ The Swedish Presidency of the EU has produced a study entitled "A Green Knowledge Society" that was made public in September 2009. The study aims to set the scene for the "tipping point in the transition to the knowledge economy" and to help prepare policy making for the "enormous consequences" that this will have for society and interaction between governments and citizens. The report also looks at the ways in which ICT can be used for environmental protection. Key issues for the digital civil rights domain include creativity and infrastructure. As regards creativity the report underlines the changes in today's situation: "Some interviewees pointed to the need for Europe to move away from a 'permission to innovate' culture. For instance, one of the few examples of European innovation is the file sharing service Pirate Bay, which challenges current intellectual property rules. Rather than attempt to stymie this innovation, we need a more thoughtful response and to rethink rules around protection of intellectual property rights so that they are fit for a digital economy. Member State governments currently retain orthodox views about protection of intellectual property but we may need to embrace radical solutions if innovation and creativity is being held back (Boldrin and Levine, 2008)." Policy goals for infrastructure development are "a new regulatory regime based on more effective ex ante regulation across all ICT layers", open source software and open standards for ICT infrastructure and public procurement, strong Internet governance participation and ensuring that next generation infrastructure can be built in a competitive market. Policy actions include common enforceable regulation with service legal agreements for ISPs and portal providers, harmonised spectrum policy and "vigorously" deploying competition law with accelerated processes. Full report - A Green Knowledge Society - An ICT policy agenda to 2015 for Europe's future knowledge society - A study for the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications, -Government Offices of Sweden (09.2009) http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.14425!menu/standard/file/A%20green%20kno… Executive summary http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.12580!menu/standard/file/Revision03_exec… (Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 5. UK music industry shows divided opinions on cutting off p2p users ============================================================ UK Secretary of State Lord Mandelson's proposal to use technical measures to cut off connections of illegal file-sharers met different reactions within UK music industry. A coalition including the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and the Music Producers Guild (MPG) has recently expressed its opinion that the suspension of connections of allegedly illegal file-sharers was a "grossly disproportionate" measure. Besides the fact that the costs necessary for the implementing of technical measures to cut off online connections are much too high as compared to the supposed benefits, the members of the coalition also stated they did not want to punish their fans. While believing that copyright is essential for the protection of songs writers and artists, the members of the coalition "have serious reservations about the content and scope of the proposed legislation outlined in the consultation on P2P file-sharing. Processes of monitoring, notification and sanction are not conducive to achieving a vibrant, functional, fair and competitive market for music." FAC brings as argument that, as a recent research made by MusicAlly shows, the decreasing in the CD sales should not be solely blamed on illegal online filesharing and that "it is dangerous to view the downloading of music as the direct online equivalent of CD sales". The coalition believes that what the proposals lack is a differenciation between downloading and online sharing music by fans on a non-commercial basis and those who do it for financial gains or advantages. "This second group of 'commercial' P2P users and facilitators should be pursued with the full force of the law as is the case with illegal CD plants in the offline world. Ordinary music fans and consumers should not be criminalised because of the failings of a legacy sector of business to adapt sufficiently fast to new technological challenges." FAC expressed the opinion that the music industry should adapt to the digital age and create new business models. "As creators' representatives we are willing to be partners with government in exploring and navigating the opportunities and challenges brought by digital technologies. What we will not be a party to is any system that alienates our members' existing audience and potential new audiences." Actually, on 25 August 2009, Mandelson's Department for Business said that following the responses to the consultation on Digital Britain proposals, the introducing of the threat of disconnection from the Internet should be reconsidered. "Since the issue of the consultation some stakeholders have argued strongly that none of those technical measures (short of suspension) is powerful enough to have a significant deterrent effect on infringing behaviour," it said. UK Music, the body representing a large part of the music industry made a statement on 16 September clarifying its position on file-sharing in which it was forced to drop any mention of cutting off Internet connections in order to ensure unity across the industry. Although FAC is not a member of UK Music, BASCA, which made common front with FAC, is. "UK Music would like to clarify that all our members remain committed to supporting proposals that will benefit the future growth and sustainability of our commercial music industry. We believe that Government intervention is extremely welcome and that, subject to assessment, Ofcom should be granted appropriate and proportionate powers as directed by the Secretary of State. The purpose of these powers is to encourage users of unlicensed P2P networks towards existing and future digital music services," says the statement making no mention to any specific enforcement measures. A final view of the industry will probably be submitted after the consultation process closes on 28 September. Cracks show in music industry over P2P enforcement (16.09.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/16/uk_music_statement/ UK Music statement on Government's proposed P2P file-sharing legislation (15.09.2009) http://www.ukmusic.org/policy/163-uk-music-statement-on-governments-propose… UK.gov revives net cut-off threat for illegal downloaders (25.08.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/25/p2p_disconnection/ Don't punish our fans, say UK musicians (16.09.2009) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=408&Item… Joint Statement on P2P Legislation (10.09.1009) http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com/showscreen.php?site_id=161&screenty… Music industry ready for climbdown on internet piracy demands (16.09.2009) http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/art… EDRI-gram: UK: p2p three strikes clamp down despite civil liberties concerns (26.08.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.16/uk-3-strikes ============================================================ 6. Macedonia: Activities for citizen education about their privacy rights ============================================================ Due to the low level of public awareness on privacy issues, the activities of the international action "Freedom Not Fear" in Macedonia included efforts for educating the citizens on 12 September 2009. In order to provide opportunities for the citizens to get to know their rights and ways to solve their privacy related problems, about fifty volunteers from nine NGOs and the Directorate for Personal Data Protection organized several knowledge sharing activities. Around 3000 flyers in Macedonian and Albanian languages were disseminated throughout the capital of Macedonia. They contain info about the basic rights and links to websites which provide resources and tutorials about the legal and technical tools available to the citizens who need to protect their privacy from infringements from the state, companies and individuals. The volonteers also disseminated the printed version of the Call to Action from Berlin, translated into Macedonian. On 12 September 2009, legal experts who work on the implementation of the law on private data protection and the law on free access to public information answered to citizens questions face to face, offering practical advice and guidelines. Several NGOs contributed for the organization of this event, including the EDRi-member Metamorphosis Foundation. Macedonia: Freedom Not Fear 2009 - Activities for Citizen Education about Their Rights (12.09.2009) http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/activities/macedonia-freedom-not-fear-2009-… (Thanks to EDRi-member Metamorphosis Foundation) ============================================================ 7. A human rights commissioner in the European Commission ? ============================================================ On 16 September 2009 the European Parliament re-elected Jose Manuel Barroso for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission by a clear majority. During his campaign, Barroso presented his proposals for commissioner posts. At a meeting on 9 September with political groups in the Parliament, the commissioner promised a human rights commissioner post thus creating a separate portfolio for fundamental rights and civil liberties. The European Commission has now a justice, freedom and security commissioner, but critics have argued that the domain was too broad and issues such as data protection, immigration and the rights of migrants in the Member States should be given more attention. Barroso also committed to create a second post to focus on interior security and to a third one for a single financial supervisor. He also promised a review of the economic crisis situation in three years time. Mr Barroso intended to travel to Ireland to campaign for a Yes vote in Ireland's second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that is to take place on 2 October. After the poll, he will start forming a new Commission. However, according to Swedish Europe minister Cecilia Malmstrom, even if the Irish vote is in favour, the fate of the Lisbon Treaty will still be unclear as the Czech Republic is taking its time in ratifying the document. "If everything goes well, if there's a yes in Dublin and all the states have ratified in October, our ambitious, optimistic goal is to get the whole package for the October summit (29-30 October)," said the minister. If Ireland says no to the Lisbon Treaty, the commission will be appointed on Nice treaty which foresees a reduction in the number of commissioners without specifying a number however. A solution in this case according to the Swedish prime minister would be to give the member state that does not get a commissioner the post of EU foreign policy chief. Next commission set for human rights post (10.09.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28643 EU to appoint human rights commissioner (14.09.2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/6183484/EU-to-appoint-huma… Josi Manuel Barroso reelected European Commission president (16.09.2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6198292/Jos-Manuel-Barr… ============================================================ 8. EESC opinion on the impact of social networking sites on citizens ============================================================ The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) debated in a meeting organized on 17 September 2009 a new approach in regulating social networing websites, with the appointment of an EU Ombudsman to be responsible for the protection of human dignity, privacy and data protection in the audiovisual sector, that should include specific responsibility for social networking websites. The final opinion would be made public in the beginning of November 2009. But this new approach by the EESC needs to be in line with other EU developments in the field of regulating social networks. In July 2008, the European Commission held an extensive public consultation on "Online Social Networking", the data and conclusions of which form an essential study base for future developments under the Safer Internet Programme (2009-2013) and on 26 September 2008, the European Commissioner Viviane Reding, pointed out the issue during a speech in Luxembourg at the Safer Internet Forum, setting out the main guidelines for the Commission's future action in this field. The 30th international conference of data protection and privacy authorities on 17 October 2008 resulted in a detailed resolution with recommendations related to the protection of privacy in social networking services. The "Safer Social Networking principles for the EU document" was adopted on 10 February 2009 having at the basis an agreement concluded by the 17 largest operators of the main social networking sites in Europe. By this document the operators recognise their responsibility and identify the potential risks to which young people under the age of 18 using these sites are exposed. The EESC's preliminary draft opinion, prepared by rapporteur Pegada Liz and issued on 11 August 2009 recognised the positive aspects of social networks, but expressed concerns related to the risks of the illegal and abusive use of social networks drawing a special attention to the risks related "to the use of social networking sites by minors and other vulnerable members of the public, specifically people with poor digital literacy, who frequently fall victim to others who take advantage of them to engage in illegal activities that affront their personal dignity and endanger their physical and mental wellbeing and even their lives." The documents also suggests the appointment of an European Community Ombudsman similar to the Canadian Privacy Commissioner. The Canadian commissioner already performed an investigation on Facebook following which, the operator agreed to add new privacy safeguards to the website. EESC draft opinion considers that a single regulator at the level of the Community could have regulatory or co-regulatory powers on social networks, including the power to impose penalties. Other proposals of the draft opinion include a call on the European Commission to adopt a green paper on Social Network Services (SNS), the development of self-regulation and co-regulation schemes for the SNS industry, especially on the protection of minors. Launching initiatives such as Safer Internet Programme 2009-2013 is also a proposal as well as increasing efforts to raise awareness at the EU and national levels and setting up principles and rules of conduct for SNS sites at the international level. The draft opinion was discussed within a meeting on 17 September where a short questionnaire was distributed to participants including questions on freedom of speech, censorship, anonymity on SNS sites, sanctions, self- and co-regulation and the creation of a Community ombudsman. The answers will be used as input for the final opinion that will be discussed in November 2009. Preliminary Draft Opinion of the Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society on The impact of social networking sites on citizens/consumers (11.08.2009) https://toad.eesc.europa.eu/BrowseDocuments.aspx?type=1&folder=ces%5cten%5c… Questionnaire for Participants in the EESC Hearing for the own-initiative opinion TEN/390 on the impact of social networking sites on citizens/consumers (14.09.2009) https://toad.eesc.europa.eu/AgendaDocuments.aspx?pmi=zIpQ%2fkWVUpk%3d EDRI-gram: Social Networks - on the European Commission's Agenda (8.10.2008) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.19/social-networking-eu ======================================================================= 9. Secret IPR measures in EU - South Korea trade agreement ======================================================================= The European Union and South Korea plan to initiate a Free Trade Agreement in October 2009. The trade agreement includes civil, border and criminal measures for the enforcement of copyright, trademark rights, patents and other exclusive rights. The text of the agreement is secret. In the Netherlands, EDRi-member Vrijschrift.org last week asked the parliamentary Commission on Subsidiarity to investigate the EU - South Korea trade agreement. In 2006, this commission gained fame with its negative advice on the EU Criminal measures intellectual property directive proposal (IPRED2). Subsequently, both chambers of the Dutch Parliament unanimously agreed with the Commission's advice and sent a letter to then EU Commissioner Frattini, with translated copies to the other national parliaments of the EU. IPRED 2 is now permanently stuck in the EU Council. FFII analyst Ante Wessels comments: "Decisions on substantive and formal criminal law have always been deemed especially sensitive for the ability of a constitutional state to democratically shape itself. Hence the opposition against EU criminal law. It is rather shocking that criminal measures are now secretly put in trade agreements. And the secretiveness of the EU - South Korea trade agreement makes it impossible to assess its effects on access to the Internet, software and medicine, too." The EU member states have the righ to veto on criminal measures. The articles related to trade services fall within the shared competence of the Community and its member states. The agreement has to be concluded jointly by the Community and the member states. Ante Wessels adds: "The governments keep the national parliaments uninformed. To gain influence, parliaments have to first force transparency. They can do so by making parliamentary scrutiny reservations. Then the government can't go ahead before the parliament is informed and makes a decision." South Korea and the European Union (EU) will initial their bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in October (10.09.2009) http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=15882 EU Council documents http://preview.tinyurl.com/n7lzvb Vrijschrift letter (only in Dutch, 16.09.2009) http://people.vrijschrift.org/~ante/korea/Vrijschrift-Com_Subsidiariteit-09… FFII information page on EU - South Korea trade agreement with more information on vetoes http://action.ffii.org/acta/fta TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), Resolution on the enforcement of copyright, trademarks, patents and other intellectual property rights (18.06.2009) http://www.tacd-ip.org/blog/2009/06/18/tacd-issues-resolution-on-iprs-enfor… NGO Letter to USTR on transparency (22.07.2009) http://keionline.org/content/view/246/1 Secret criminal measures in EU - South Korea trade agreement (21.09.2009) http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/Secret_criminal_measures_in_EU_-_South… (Thanks to Ante Wessels - FFII - Fvrderverein f|r eine Freie Informationelle Infrastruktur) ============================================================ 10. Civil society coalition discuss global privacy standards ============================================================ The Public Voice, the largest worldwide civil society coalition where EDRi is a an active member, will discuss "Global Privacy Standards in a Global World" during its conference on 3 November 2009 in Madrid, Spain, to be held in conjunction with the 31st Annual International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. Prominent advocates and experts from the academic, consumer, digital rights and labor communities will discuss with public officials and the business sector how to raise privacy awareness in the global community and how to promote civil society participation in decision making processes towards the adoption of better privacy and data protection standards globally. The Conference will first review recent privacy and human rights developments and major privacy activism campaigns around the world. It will also include the release of the current edition of the Privacy and Human Rights report. Stavros Lambrinidis, Vice-President of the European Parliament, is invited to comment on the most recent developments. The Conference will also address current challenges raised by emerging technologies and business practices: representatives from the civil society and business sector will discuss privacy implications of issues such as cloud computing or Internet search. It will further address transborder data flows in the public and private sector, from passenger name records and financial transactions to the outsourcing of personal data. The final Conference panel will launch the "Madrid Civil Society Declaration on Global Privacy Standards" that will be discussed by invited public data protection officials from OECD, the EU Article 29 Working Party, USA and Canada. Peter Hustinx, European Data Protection Supervisor, will provide closing remarks. The Conference is sponsored by the Spanish Data Protection Agency and is free to all participants. Registration is compulsory. Detailed program, registration and practical information http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09/ ============================================================ 11. Recommended Action ============================================================ Reclaim your data from the European police authorities! http://euro-data.noblogs.org/ Net Neutrality petition http://www.euopeninternet.eu We Must Protect Net Neutrality in Europe! - Open letter to the European Parliament http://www.laquadrature.net/en/we-must-protect-net-neutrality-in-europe-ope… ============================================================ 12. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Opinion of the Advocate General in the ECJ case of Google France, Google Inc. vs Louis Vuitton Malletier http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=rechercher&num… Creative Commons study of Non-commercial http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/17721 Direct link to the (18mb) full PDF http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining-noncommercial/Defining_Noncomme… ============================================================ 13. Agenda ============================================================ 23-24 September 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark The Net will not forget European conference on ICT and Privacy http://www.ict-privacy.dk/ 29-30 September 2009, Warsaw, Poland 3rd International Conference "Keeping Children and Young People Safe Online" http://www.saferinternet.pl/konferencja_en/articles-2009/3rd_international_… 1-2 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain 6th Communia Workshop: Memory Institutions and Public Domain http://www.communia-project.eu/ws06 16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany 10th German Big Brother Awards http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey eChallenges 2009 http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp 24 October 2009, Zurich, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2009/ 25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria Austrian Big Brother Awards http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/ 26-27 October 2009, Vienna, Austria 3rd European Privacy Open Space http://www.privacyos.eu 29 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain oXcars, the biggest free culture event of all times, 2nd edition http://oxcars09.exgae.net 29 October - 1 November 2009, Barcelona, Spain Free Culture Forum: Organization and Action http://fcforum.net/ 3 November 2009, Madrid, Spain Civil Society Conference: "Global Privacy Standards in a Global World" Organized by "The Public Voice" coalition http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09 4-6 November 2009, Madrid, Spain 31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy http://www.privacyconference2009.org 13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit http://www.fscons.org/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ 27-30 December 2009, Berlin, Germany 26th Chaos Communication Congress Deadline for submissions: 9 October 2009 http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/ ============================================================ 14. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Indymedia interviews Noam Chomsky
by Peter Phillips 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

IMC CHOMSKY INTERVIEW | October 5, 2001 http://www.indymedia.org/ The following interview was conducted with Noam Chomsky via email on October 5, 2001. Greg Ruggerio did the interview in conjunction with Indymedia. greg(a)sevenstories.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- IMC: In order to shape an international alliance, the U.S. has suddenly shifted positions with a number of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, offering a variety of political, military and monetary packages in exchange for forms of support. How might these sudden moves be affecting the political dynamics in those regions? CHOMSKY: Washington is stepping very delicately. We have to remember what is at stake: the world's major energy reserves, primarily in Saudi Arabia but throughout the Gulf region, along with not-inconsiderable resources in Central Asia. Though a minor factor, Afghanistan has been discussed for years as a possible site for pipelines that will aid the U.S. in the complex maneuvering over control of Central Asian resources. North of Afghanistan, the states are fragile and violent. Uzbekistan is the most important. It has been condemned by Human Rights Watch for serious atrocities, and is fighting its own internal Islamic insurgency. Tajikistan is similar, and is also a major drug trafficking outlet to Europe, primarily in connection with the Northern Alliance, which controls most of the Afghan-Tajikistan border and has been the major source of drugs since the Taliban virtually eliminated poppy production. Flight of Afghans to the north could lead to all sorts of internal problems. Pakistan, which has been the main supporter of the Taliban, has a strong internal radical Islamic movement. Its reaction is unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, if Pakistan is visibly used as a base for U.S. operations in Afghanistan; and there is much well-advised concern over the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The Pakistani military, while eager to obtain military aid from the U.S. (already promised), is wary, because of stormy past relations, and is also concerned over a potentially hostile Afghanistan allied with its enemy to the East, India. They are not pleased that the Northern Alliance is led by Tajiks, Uzbeks, and other Afghan minorities hostile to Pakistan and supported by India, Iran and Russia, now the U.S. as well. In the Gulf region, even wealthy and secular elements are bitter about U.S. policies and quietly often express support for bin Laden, whom they detest, as "the conscience of Islam" (New York Times, October 5, quoting an international lawyer for multinationals, trained in the U.S.). Quietly, because these are highly repressive states; one factor in the general bitterness towards the U.S. is its support for these regimes. Internal conflict could easily spread, with consequences that could be enormous, especially if U.S. control over the huge resources of the region is threatened. Similar problems extend to North Afica and Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. Even apart from internal conflict, an increased flow of armaments to the countries of the region increases the likelihood of armed conflict and the flow of weapons to terrorist organizations and narcotraffickers. The governments are eager to join the U.S. "war against terrorism" to gain support for their own state terrorism, often on a shocking scale (Russia and Turkey, to mention only the most obvious examples, though Turkey has always benefited from crucial U.S. involvement). IMC: Pakistan and India, border countries armed with nuclear weapons, have been eye to eye in serious conflict for years. How might the sudden and intense pressure that the U.S. is exerting in the region impact their already volatile relationship? CHOMSKY: The main source of conflict is Kashmir, where India claims to be fighting Islamic terrorism, and Pakistan claims that India is refusing self-determination and has carried out large-scale terrorism itself. All the claims, unfortunately, are basically correct. There have been several wars over Kashmir, the latest one in 1999, when both states had nuclear weapons available; fortunately they were kept under control, but that can hardly be guaranteed. The threat of nuclear war is likely to increase if the U.S. persists in its militarization of space programs (euphemistically described as "missile defense"). These already include support for expansion of China's nuclear forces, in order to gain Chinese acquiescence to the programs. India will presumably try to match China's expansion, then Pakistan, then beyond, including Israel. Its nuclear capacities were described by the former head of the U.S. Strategic Command as "dangerous in the extreme," and one of the prime threats in the region. "Volatile" is right, maybe worse. IMC: Prior to 9-11, the Bush administration was being fiercely critiqued, ally nations included, for its political "unilateralism"- refusal to sign on to the Kyoto protocol for greenhouse emissions, intention to violate the ABM treaty in order to militarize space with a "missile defense" program, walkout of the racism conference in Durban, South Africa, to name only a few recent examples. Might the sudden U.S. alliance-building effort spawn a new "multi-lateralism" in which unexpected positive developments-like progress for Palestinians-might advance? CHOMSKY: It's worth recalling that Bush's "unilateralism" was an extension of standard practice. In 1993, Clinton informed the UN that the U.S. will-before-act "multilaterally when possible but unilaterally when necessary," and proceeded to do so. The position was reiterated by UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright and in 1999 by Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who declared that the U.S. is committed to "unilateral use of military power" to defend vital interests, which include "ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources," and indeed anything that Washington might determine to be within its "domestic jurisdiction." The last phrase is important: it refers to the exception the U.S. granted itself from World Court decisions, employed when it rejected the Court's order to terminate its terrorist attack against Nicaragua. But it is true that Bush went beyond, causing considerable anxiety among allies. The current need to form a coalition may attenuate the rhetoric, but is unlikely to change the policies. Members of the coalition are expected to be silent and obedient supporters, not participants. The U.S. explicitly reserves to itself the right to act as it chooses, and is carefully avoiding any meaningful recourse to international institutions, as required by law. The Palestinians are unlikely to gain anything. On the contrary, the terrorist attack of September 11 was a crushing blow to them, as they and Israel recognized immediately. IMC: Since 9-11, Secretary of State Colin Powell has been signalling that the U.S. may adopt a new stance toward the plight of Palestinians. What is your reading? CHOMSKY: My reading is exactly that of the officials and other sources quoted towards the end of the front-page story of the New York Times. As they made clear, Bush-Powell do not even go as far as Clinton's Camp David proposals, lauded in the mainstream here but completely unacceptable, for reasons discussed accurately in Israel and elsewhere, and as anyone could see by looking at a map-one reason, I suppose, why maps were so hard to find here, though not elsewhere, including Israel. One can find more detail about this in articles at the time of Camp David, including my own, and essays in the collection edited by Roane Carey The New Intifada. IMC: The free flow of information is one of the first casualties of any war. Is the present situation in any way an exception? Examples? CHOMSKY: Impediments to free flow of information in countries like the U.S. are rarely traceable to government; rather, to self-censorship of the familiar kind. The current situation is not exceptional-considerably better than the norm, in my opinion. There are, however, some startling examples of U.S. government efforts to restrict free flow of information abroad. The Arab world has had one free and open news source, the satellite TV news channel Al-Jazeera in Qatar, modelled on BBC, with an enormous audience throughout the Arab-speaking world. It is the sole uncensored source, carrying a great deal of important news and also live debates and a wide range of opinion-broad enough to include Colin Powell a week ago and Israeli Prime Minister Barak (me too, just to declare an interest). Al-Jazeera is also "the only international news organization to maintain reporters in the Taliban-controlled part of Afghanistan" (Wall Street Journal). Among other examples, it was responsible for the exclusive filming of the destruction of Buddhist statues that rightly infuriated the world. It has also provided lengthy interviews with bin Laden that I'm sure are perused closely by Western intelligence agencies and are invaluable to others who wants to understand what he is thinking. These are translated and rebroadcast by BBC, several of them since 9-11. Al-Jazeera is, naturally, despised and feared by the dictatorships of the region, particularly because of its frank exposures of their human rights records. The U.S. has joined their ranks. BBC reports that "The U.S. is not the first to feel aggrieved by al-Jazeera coverage, which has in the past provoked anger from Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt for giving airtime to political dissidents." The Emir of Qatar confirmed that "Washington has asked Qatar to rein in the influential and editorially independent Arabic al-Jazeera television station," BBC reported. The Emir, who also chairs the Organization of Islamic Conference that includes 56 countries, informed the press in Washington that Secretary of State Powell had pressured him to rein in Al-Jazeera: to "persuade Al-Jazeera to tone down its coverage," Al-Jazeera reports. Asked about the reports of censorship, the Emir said: "This is true. We heard from the U.S. administration, and also from the previous U.S. administration" (BBC, October 4, 2001, citing Reuters). The only serious report I noticed of this highly important news is in the Wall Street Journal (October 5), which also describes the reaction of intellectuals and scholars throughout the Arab world ("truly appalling," etc.). The report adds, as the Journal has done before, that "many Arab analysts argued that it is, after all, Washington's perceived disregard for human rights in officially pro-American countries such as Saudi Arabia that fuels the rampant anti-Americanism." There has also been remarkably little use of the bin Laden interviews and other material from Afghanistan available from Al-Jazeera. So yes, there are barriers to free flow of information, but they cannot be blamed on government censorship or pressure, a very marginal factor in the United States. ### ----- End forwarded message -----

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Lucrative update
by Patrick 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Lucrative release 4 is out. I know many people are used to seeing releases numbered like "0.000001", "0.000002", "2.0.3.0.14.657" etc. but release numbering systems are essentially arbitrary in nature so don't get excited as Lucrative goes toward version 50+. This release is a fairly minor one, but included some changes such as the client name that I wanted to get out as soon as possible. There is also a new development weblog at http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/weblog/. I went through an install with someone over IRC last night and made a blog entry summarizing the install notes. I recommend reading the notes before attempting an install. I am glad to help with an install, drop me a note at patrick(a)lfcgate.com if you have trouble. Some documentation on the various entities in the Lucrative system is now available on the website, http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/documentation.php but more is needed and coming. If Lucrative is interesting to you, please consider helping in any way you can: Feedback Installation reports Suggestions Comments Criticism Feature requests Source code patches Donations Are all very much welcomed. And criticism is more useful to me than praise. My sincere thanks to everyone who has participated so far by installing, testing, providing feedback, spreading the word, and donating. And finally I just received word from SourceForge that the project registration for Lucrative has been approved. Regards, Patrick -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> mQGiBD5ECKcRBADUvjXHwLtxIyS4AyjBs/dFtN6rdeP18Fhzh1hD5fJwkFevqY9Z I1ASROTh6eXYF7pU5sEvbcPshHyTB41ZtTqZvQvpwWN0fUzOuutuI0mtC5UPp9Rz j47SdWLdEXNHjwnHDCYSyqtqZu8GujGRQybR0eP3NIh/NwbSDUKdgz7IjwCg//Jo UtjP3zUFobm/0UYA+CJ5krED/091x9Js0gwNwvjbzM8DqO+r8qNz0kXI13FkrPRk QNd37lxt6m2m8HZD1WYM2wKwtMzHSwJcWzaDZ/tNc+ppYjzpw0EQCh9FqjGs8Vau guF6PA1M8lJTCcLKaL4e7ynic+PAw5Xa/tdOYgFCG+eLMU5RLvzRCYoOLIjgMJLJ yG98BACAMlDmFVYgC/UKvzZmHfZ5CtCKd8sPfCXrYLu5NeFRE0LR6D6zjzmhi1xX okfreR5o3T/y78VBM98js+m2/+7Z0AElqydeW/RnV1zqwDGjDr9z2MgARf3yLAbs n3BU8Fz61RwvHy6cRkT+2dR2f69QQUSpkupvLwZIGX/iwm4uKLQdUGF0cmljayA8 cGF0cmlja0BsZmNnYXRlLmNvbT6JAE4EEBECAA4FAj5ECKcECwMCAQIZAQAKCRBb mvb9yuOVfaA2AKDAu5tDj9F2KI8cJMrKKkQRAcUyxACg6/bei7lUJH+E5igJqGRx SjKrRA65BA0EPkQIpxAQAPkYoH5aBmF6Q5CV3AVsh4bsYezNRR8O2OCjecbJ3HoL rOQ/40aUtjBKU9d8AhZIgLUV5SmZqZ8HdNP/46HFliBOmGW42A3uEF2rthccUdhQ yiJXQym+lehWKzh4XAvb+ExN1eOqRsz7zhfoKp0UYeOEqU/Rg4Soebbvj6dDRgjG zB13VyQ4SuLE8OiOE2eXTpITYfbb6yUOF/32mPfIfHmwch04dfv2wXPEgxEmK0Ng w+Po1gr9oSgmC66prrNlD6IAUwGgfNaroxIe+g8qzh90hE/K8xfzpEDp19J3tkIt AjbBJstoXp18mAkKjX4t7eRdefXUkk+bGI78KqdLfDL2Qle3CH8IF3KiutapQvMF 6PlTETlPtvFuuUs4INoBp1ajFOmPQFXz0AfGy0OplK33TGSGSfgMg71l6RfUodNQ +PVZX9x2Uk89PY3bzpnhV5JZzf24rnRPxfx2vIPFRzBhznzJZv8V+bv9kV7HAarT W56NoKVyOtQa8L9GAFgr5fSI/VhOSdvNILSd5JEHNmszbDgNRR0PfIizHHxbLY72 88kjwEPwpVsYjY67VYy4XTjTNP18F1dDox0YbN4zISy1Kv884bEpQBgRjXyEpwpy 1obEAxnIByl6ypUM2Zafq9AKUJsCRtMIPWakXUGfnHy9iUsiGSa6q6Jew1XrPdYX AAICD/wKwtF7Y4NKBe8PQ6jDbjWziiTv9Ac/EnRTJDQEoqgLa2LyE+6Ahw/VPGvp mfxkD2MKxC9E7kYVmasn6sHnSpvAv3e7O1Bqbo/qLzzCcJQ5VCurZ+elRM1GZ4Oc fM19FPKutb0/JFEv0nrqS4BGkF7WFBbu5dKYl/GIO7Co1mAerFIb719dOwMPVEIz OT08u8uB9jyR8gEElf+CVuNfOUkrUGg4HS4SbmTTrCSz3/8n5PkquSuAyjCB/dwM ZsZwA0/TTR8sDYlmlf9xPj5PGpGnV9OUwfig6eE0eWtRFeasmz0uiX+yp45ABtNh 6EXP/PFaBgXi9omXXjeeFYfpDvmfA6izvTIQfXTV6V9ZWrBfXarM+GQ+6guXWVbd 9fXvmCr982LkzuKQrK1OpRXBMUapXL+tOy/LYzz91InqKKhgPNGa12fvotZ4LzlM iqoM+Hpz5L9B5We1Ph0lD6RBVXDCqd+P8extnY/7AaDy7tC0UghaAaUuEZXJQPIc oQ3QGbpjM0nGe/VZN5EZhljau0NNENFaU56cOpvOhcO04gLGNNc2NS+rIpTMsaHh o1CG90c5zZZJuUbyx0mIHriNQXDgEwunSZPQorKK9KSppyyjeuOyi5F/mBBPXeyT weLhLqLvAr9se/+Z3aQvMADJi8zUZtGggLTw+N9R5XSwtSh2R4kARgQYEQIABgUC PkQIpwAKCRBbmvb9yuOVfWayAKC+mBhHdn1XZ5uH0RocAyJ32hx2kgCePyhB+IqM TjWLDLarQxcPYhbkFi4= =nx1M -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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[liberationtech] The Open Whisper Systems "Spring Break Of Code"
by Moxie Marlinspike 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

This Spring will be the first Open Whisper Systems Spring Break Of Code, a week-long expenses-paid retreat to Maui for folks who like software development, security, and the beach. Webve rented a large beachfront house on the west coast of Maui for everyone to stay in, and will pay for your airfare. While there, you can split your time between island living and working on an Open Whisper Systems related project that you propose. Spring Break Of Code will be March 23rd to March 31st, 2013. We will be taking up to eight people, and will cover your costs for: * Lodging in a large beachfront house. * Your airfare from the US. * A surfboard for the week. Spring Break Of Code is an opportunity for hackers interested in security and privacy to spend some time contributing to Open Whisper Systems related projects in a retreat-like setting with other co-conspirators. Think of it as an extended hackathon, but with your travel expenses paid, and with breaks for surfing, hiking, swimming, and just generally being in Maui. The details: http://www.whispersystems.org/blog/spring-break-of-code/ - moxie -- http://www.whispersystems.org -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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