Net Censorship au style.

[Matthew X]

Indymedia is under repression,its happened twice before.The first shut down 
Seattle and the Ohio server is no longer with us.See the main board at 
FBI/legal updates.lower left.
On sept 11 the police are charging a mentally disabled man with threats to 
kill them.One was a comment to a post made here on May 8 and another on 
june 1 of 01.
The Ohio legal situation arose after some local LEO's decided to set up 
grand juries and issue subpoena's before actually writing to the address 
provided on the offending post.
Vic.Police followed precedent by not seeking to write the address 
provided.They did use a ph no on one of the posts to 'sting' the MD man by 
pretending to be from his ISP and offering a 'special deal.'
The 'deal' turned into an ordeal for Matt Taylor of Kyneton.
He was rousted for two hours,had things stolen and was later threatened at 
the police station.Taylor was charged with some petty public order 
offence's committed at M1 last year.The good behavior bond issued for those 
expire in Oct.
Apart from that there is no criminal history.The police kept a computer 
seized from Taylor and finally examined it.
The computer policeman who examined it,(actually a 'ghost' copy of the hard 
drive.)said he found 21 items of interest on the computer.
Two have been put forward as supposed evedence of the crime of 'threats to 
kill.'1 is a copy of an e-mail sent sometime after the May 8 post.It's 
datestamped and it differs from the posts timestamp.
The second item is a copy of a post that went up on June 1.
It is not timestamped apart from the time on the Indy site that it was made.
The Police are seriously putting forth the proposition that a few Kbs of 
data out of Gigabytes that someone stored and/or sent from the laptop 
prove >beyond reasonable doubt < that Taylor is their man.
That no one else had the means motive and opportunity?
Give us a fucking break.
When Ashley Gardiner of the Hun wrote to Declan Mc Cullogh he wrote,"we got 
your man!" Note the 'we'. The Hun provided the police with a small mountain 
of their surveillance tapes and photo's of M1.
25,000$ reward was offered for Taylor's arrest in mid May by the La Raza 
Nazi organization.Many Threats were directed at Taylor by various different 
sounding anonymous cowards.The nom de Guerre allegedly used by Taylor 
appears to have been used by other(s) and in a way as to discredit him.
250$ was regularly offered to punch Taylor in the face hard enough to knock 
him down.All this on IMC's
If you search yourself you will find many posts under the name 'proffr' and 
'profrv.'Do they all appear to be from the same man? We have all put up 
with the long standing Hatfield-McCoy fued of Mayne and Hoser.Thats not the 
only disputed ID war on Indymedia.
The police themselves say in court,"this(indy)site is one where anyone can 
download."
Therefore ANYONE online at the time those "threats," were made could have 
made them by the Police's own admission.
So why delay a trial,bring frivolous charges and harass the defendant and 
even try and nobble him?
FOI has already exposed much about this,no doubt much more will come out.
Like who was the mysterious 'observer' at Taylors arrest?
Who was in charge,State or Feds? or the (ASIO?) 'Observer.'?
Why was a US SS agent overseeing the arrest?
Does the US want to extradite Taylor as has been alleged by Taylors case 
worker,Julian Jamieson of Kyneton?
What will happen to Indymedia when someone alleged to be a regular 
contributor is found guilty of offences carrying a 20 year penalty? If 
anyone can be found guilty of such an 'offence' in this way then is anyone 
contributing here  safe?
Is the ultimate aim of this prosecution to chill Indy comment? Where else 
is this occurring?
This is from EFA.and FBI/legal link...
http://www.sjgames.com/SS/
August 31. -- Closure of the outspoken Internet forum Baiyun Huanghe after 
students posted messages about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. DFN and 
other NGOs reported about the closure on September 6. The Baiyun Huanghe 
bulletin board service (BBS - formerly hosted at http://bbs.whnet.edu.cn) 
belonged to the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Wuhan, Hubei 
province).

University officials announced that they were temporarily shutting down the 
BBS, which had 30,000 registered users, "due to technical problems." A 
school official told Reuters that the university's party committee would 
manage the BBS after the shutdown. Users would be required to register with 
their real names and identification numbers. DFN said "online discussion of 
the closure continues on other sites". "For example, an Internet forum for 
Huazhong University alumni (http://www.neurophys.wisc.edu/~cai/hust/) has 
been active since Baiyun Huanghe was shut down. The alumni forum is run by 
a nonprofit alumni organization based in the U.S."

Last March, DFN added, the Sina.com Web site "erased hundreds of messages 
from its chat rooms which expressed outrage about an explosion that 
destroyed an elementary school ... killing 38 children. Government 
officials had claimed that the explosion was the result of a mad bomber, 
but parents said cash-strapped teachers forced children to assemble 
fireworks inside the school." "And last June, authorities closed online 
forums at the Southern Weekend weekly newspaper and the Xici Hutong Web 
site's Democracy and Human Rights Forum after people expressed concern 
about recent newspaper closures and firings."

+ Main source: DFN, Sept. 6
+ An updated list of online forums closed in China (DFN)

"...This approach is taken in Australian Commonwealth law (although it has 
not been enforced in this manner to date) and also in, for example, China, 
Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. Some 
countries require Internet access providers to block material while others 
only allow restricted access to the Internet through a government 
controlled access point.

http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html

"...In contrast to Australia, governments in comparable countries including 
Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and various European countries have 
chosen to legislate to give citizens a right in domestic law to freedom of 
expression similar to that contained in the International Convention on 
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Such a right is by no means absolute 
and does not prevent governments from enacting or enforcing laws 
restricting freedom of expression. However, to the best of EFA's knowledge, 
governments in these countries have not enacted or indicated any intent to 
enact, Internet censorship legislation as restrictive of adults' freedom of 
expression, as that existing and proposed in Australia.

"..."China has issued its most intrusive Internet controls to date, 
ordering service providers to screen private e-mail for political content 
and holding them responsible for subversive postings on their Web sites. ...
Under the new rules, general portal sites must install security programs to 
screen and copy all e-mail messages sent or received by users. Those 
containing 'sensitive materials' must be turned over to authorities.

Providers are also responsible for erasing all prohibited content posted on 
their Web sites, including online chatrooms and bulletin boards.

"...In Saudi Arabia, public access to and from the Internet has been 
funnelled through a single government controlled centre since February 1999 
when Internet access was first made available. From this centre, the 
government blocks access to Internet content deemed unsuitable for the 
country's citizens..."
"...In May 1998, the Swedish Parliament enacted the "Act (1998:112) on 
Responsibility for Electronic Bulletin Boards". Electronic bulletin board 
is defined so as to include storage of data on the Internet, such as web 
pages, etc (thereby excluding personal e-mail that is only stored in 
individuals' mailboxes).

The law places an obligation on service providers who store information 
(not those who only provide connections to the Internet) to remove or make 
inaccessible content that is obviously illegal (they do not have to decide 
in doubtful cases) according to the penal code, that is:

instigation of rebellion (section 16 article 5)
racial agitation (section 16 article 8)
child pornography (section 16 article 10)
illegal description of violence (section 16 article 10)
or when it obvious that the user has infringed copyright law.
According to explanations of the law made by the government, in computer 
areas where illegal messages often occur, the service providers must check 
what is stored, but in other areas, it is enough compliance for service 
providers to check when someone complains that something illegal has been 
stored.

The above information is a very brief summary of information available (as 
at March 2002) on the web site of Jacob Palme of the Department of Computer 
and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University/KTH. For more detailed 
information see Jacob Palme's pages:

Swedish Attempts to regulate the Internet - BBS Act
http://dsv.su.se/jpalme/society/swedish-attempts.html#Heading12
Swedish BBS Act
http://dsv.su.se/jpalme/society/swedish-bbs-act.html