EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 10.14, 18 July 2012

EDRi-gram edrigram at edri.org
Wed Jul 18 10:01:39 PDT 2012


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EDRi-gram

biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe

Number 10.14, 18 July 2012

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Contents
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1. Is CETA introducing ACTA through the back door?
2. Russian bill creates blacklist of websites
3. EP: Surprises in the online distribution of audiovisual works' report
4. French Supreme Court: important rulings for intermediary liability
5. German Federal Supreme Court rules in the RapidShare case
6. EC suggests changes of the music rights management system
7. Ireland: E-voting machines go to scrap after proving unreliable
8. Banking blockade on Wikileaks broken by the Icelandic court
9. EP and EDPS hit back against lawless bchild protectionb measures
10. Recommended Action
11. Recommended Reading
12. Agenda
13. About

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1. Is CETA introducing ACTA through the back door?
=======================================================================

The European Parliament rejected ACTA with a large majority on 4 July
2012, but just one week later the EU is accused of pushing back the
rejected agreement through the back door, that is, through CETA, the
EUbCanada trade agreement that includes measures similar to ACTA.

The negotiations between EU and Canada on the bilateral trade agreement
CETA started in November 2009 and will probably be ended by the end of
this year. Just like ACTA, the trade deal has been drafted in secret but
leaked documents, dated February 2012, have shown parts of ACTA being
introduced in this new agreement. CETA will also require the approval of
the European Parliament to enter into force.

bCETA must be cancelled altogether (or its repressive ACTA parts must be
scrapped), or face the same fate as ACTA in the Parliamentb, stated La
Quadrature du Net.

MEP Nigel Farage drew the attention over the similarities between ACTA
and CETA: "If the commission has a glimmer of respect for the voice of
the people it would change CETA as soon as possible and stop trying to
bring ACTA into legislative life by stealth. ACTA is like a Frankenstein
which has been bolted together and keeps on moving. It is dangerous and
must be brought to an end immediately," said Farage.

Internet activists have already warned over the possibility that ACTA
may appear in several draft agreements in order to get through somehow.

bTo put back the same provisions in a much larger trade agreement will
make it more difficult to reject. If CETA is successful, then one would
think that the European commission would come back and say 'well, you
just passed that, so you cannot object to ACTA'," said Michael Geist,
law professor at the University of Ottawa, who uncovered the leaked
documents showing that the proposals from ACTA had been included in CETA.

The chapter on intellectual property rights is almost identical to ACTA
in several instances, including rules on enforcement of intellectual
property rights, damages, injunctions, border enforcement, preserving
evidence and criminal sanctions, while Article 23 defines all commercial
scale copyright infringement as criminal.

The Trade Commissioner's spokesman, John Clancy tried to explain on
Twitter that the leaked documents were actually a previous version of
the agreement drafted before ACTA was rejected by MEPs, and that the
agreement draft has since been changed and "no single provision departs
from EU law."

Joe McNamee from EDRi warned the Commission against using CETA to get
parts of ACTA back into place, considering that such attempts would be
"hamfisted, politically incompetent and anti-democratic."

ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To
Revive ACTA (9.07.2012)
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6580/135/

ACTA is back, completed with investment protections (10.07.2012)
http://acta.ffii.org/?p=1622

EC Says ACTA ISP Provisions Dropped from CETA, Yet Most of ACTA Likely
Remains Intact (11.07.2012)
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6584/125/

EU accused of trying to introduce ACTA 'through the back door' (11.07.2012)
http://www.theparliament.com/latest-news/article/newsarticle/eu-accused-of-trying-to-introduce-acta-through-the-back-door/

Commission set for fresh collision course over ACTA copy-cat clauses
(12.07.2012)
http://euobserver.com/19/116944

EDRi-member Digitale Gesellschaft - Flyer on CETA (only in German,
17.07.2012)
http://digitalegesellschaft.de/2012/07/nach-acta-kommt-ceta/

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2. Russian bill creates blacklist of websites
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At the beginning of July 2012, Duma, the lower house of the Russian
Parliament, approved in third reading a draft law titled bOn the
Protection of Children From Information Harmful to Their Health and
Developmentb, allowing the Russian authorities to create a blacklist
with websites deemed to contain bpornography or extremist ideas, or
promoting suicide or use of drugs.b

The draft law that is meant to amend the present Law of Information
raises concerns of filtering and censorship. The owner of a website
included directly on the blacklist, without any referring to a court,
has to be notified by the hosting provider in 24h and has to delete the
data considered offending. Failing to comply, the site must be shut down
or deleted by the hosting provider who, in case of non-compliance, may,
himself, face cutting off entirely. Those included on the list may
appeal to the court in a three-month period.

bWe suspect that the implementation of this blacklist will open the way
to abusive filtering and blocking of online content, with the aim of
censoring the Russian opposition and government critics,b stated
Reporters Without Borders.

The bill originates from the bLeague for a Safe Internetb, an
initiative meant to limit the registry to URLs (excluding DNS filtering
and IP blocking), and give a non-governmental organization the authority
to manage the list, in order to avoid bexcessive state controlb as was
explained by the League's director, Denis Davydov. The Duma decided
however to expand the registry's reach and the newly created federal
body Roskomnadzor (the Federal Supervision Agency for Information
Technologies and Communications) will probably be in charge of the matter.

The new draft law, compared with Chinabs bGreat Firewallb, raises
concerns also due to the vagueness of its text especially regarding the
Roskomnadzor that would select the targeted sites. The draft also fails
to give a precise definition of bharmfulb content and does not clearly
articulate precise reasons for a site to be added to the blacklist,
which may obviously lead to over-blocking and abuses.

The bill specifies what kind of content can lead to introducing a
website on the blacklist without court decision: bb&child pornography,
as well as information containing propaganda about the use of narcotics,
psychotropic drugs, and their precursors, and information compelling
children to commit acts that threaten their lives and/or health,
including self-harm and suicideb&b Journalist Andrei Babitskii argues
that binformation compelling children to commit acts that threaten their
livesb is an intentionally vague expression that may lead to the
inclusion on the list of websites related to any dangerous recreational
activities, such as extreme sports.

The bill also specifies, in a very vague and imprecise manner, what
content needs a court oversight: bOther information not legally
disseminated in the Russian Federation on the basis of a court decision
recognizing the illegality of the disseminated information.b

The Presidential Council on Human Rights made a statement on 3 July
giving five precise reasons to reject the bill: the fact that the
inclusion of whole domains on the registry (and not only URLs to the
deemed illegal materials) may include law-abiding websites, that the
bill imposes what is effectively bcollective punishmentb against
web-operators and providers, that the filtering will slow down the
entire RuNet and damage e-commerce and online innovation; that the
expanded monitoring will affect individual privacy and that very high
costs will be triggered for the acquisition of the blocking and
filtration equipment necessary to enforce the law's requirements.

In response to the Presidential Council on Human Rights concerns,
Davydov offered a hypocritical explanation: bb&if every parent is
independently entitled to set limits on Internet access for their own
children to protect them from harmful content, then the government, out
of concern for its citizens, is entitled and indeed must restrict
(access to) illegal contentb&b

A coalition of independent Russian journalists has launched an online
petition for the withdrawal of this bill. Also, in protest against the
draft law, Wikipediabs Russian-language site (ru.wikipedia.org)
suspended its operations on 10 July. A bar appeared across Wikipedia
logo on the home page and the words: bImagine a world without free
knowledge.b

The bill is now to pass through the upper house and ratified by
President Vladimir Putin before coming into effect.

If anything, current discussions being led by the European Commission
are even less transparent. In the absence of a legal basis - in the
absence of the European Commission even having an agreed policy on the
subject - a "self-regulation" dialogue to "make the Internet a safer
Internet for kids" is being run by the Commission including proposals
for upload filters, download filters and little or no attempt to explain
how these restrictions are considered to be in line with the European
Charter and European Convention on Human Rights. Given this approach
from the EU, it is unsurprising that Russia has chosen child protection
as a tool for the introduction of Internet repression.

Freedom of information threatened by website blacklisting and
recriminalization of defamation (13.07.2012)
http://en.rsf.org/russia-freedom-of-information-threatened-13-07-2012,43019.html

Russia: A Great Firewall to Censor the RuNet? (10.07.2012)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/07/10/russia-a-great-firewall-to-censor-the-runet/

EDRi-gram: The rise of the European upload filter (20.06.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-upload-filter

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3. EP: Surprises in the online distribution of audiovisual works' report
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On 10 July 2012, the Culture and Education (CULT) Committee in the
European Parliament (EP) voted on the own initiative report of
Jean-Marie Cavada (EPP, France) on the online distribution of
audiovisual content. The own initiative report follows the Green Paper
from the European Commission dated 13 July 2011 and the public
consultation that closed in November 2011 (for which the result is not
yet available).

Mr Cavadabs draft report contained a paragraph calling for consideration
of bhow to block access to pay platforms offering unauthorised
services.b This provision was removed by Mr Cavada as a result of
widespread opposition.  This removal is welcome as the Committee has
consistently rejected blocking a way of combating the dissemination of
platforms offering unauthorised services.

As good news never comes without bad news (or at least not as often as
we would wish for...), the report contained a very surprising paragraph
on the liability of network operators. The additional paragraph
(amendment 147) that was voted, was proposed by the Mr. Cavada. It
bcalls on the Commission to consider ways (...) reverse the current
trend of removing responsibility from these operators regarding consumer
protection, implementation of intellectual property and ensuring
Internet privacyb.  The adoption of this text is surprising for at least
three reasons.

Firstly, it is factually not true that there is a trend that diminishes
the responsibility of network operators. The rules concerning the
responsibility and liability of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are
provided by the e-Commerce Directive in Articles 12 to 15 and have been
in place since 2001. The only discernible trend has been in the opposite
direction, as courts in some EU Member States have been making rulings
that have narrowly interpreted ISP liability provisions

Secondly, the risk is really high that this provision could be
understood as promoting privatised censorship in exactly the way that
was suggested by ACTA., As liability increases, it is logical that ISPs
will be willing to avoid legal problems by bvoluntarilyb enforcing
copyright legislation outside the rule of law. This will lead to
privatised enforcement at the detriment of fundamental rights such as
freedom of expression, the right to privacy but also the freedom to
conduct business.

Finally, the role of the whole initiative was to encourage the
development of new legal offers and to improve the access to content for
users b it is a symptom of a broader problem that, even when the policy
is so positive, the reflex is to fall back on repressive measures as the
only solution.

During the discussions of this dossier in Parliament, the online
distribution of audiovisual worksb report has raised lots of attention
and the number of amendments proposed for an own-initiative report shows
that the subject creates a huge amount of controversy. The attention
brought on the report need to be looked at in the larger debate on
copyright.

The final version of the Report is not available yet.

Amendment 147 in the Report
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/commissions/cult/amendments/2012/487679/CULT_AM(2012)487679_EN.pdf

Directive on electronic commerce 2000/31/EC
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0031:EN:HTML

(Contribution by Marie Humeau - EDRi)

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4. French Supreme Court: Important rulings for intermediary liability
=======================================================================

On 12 July 2012 the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) issued four
important and somewhat contradictory rulings regarding the role of
online service providers in policing online copyright infringements.

In the first case, SNEP vs. Google France, the Court's decision could
lead the search engine to censor its autocomplete feature which
automatically suggests commonly-used terms associated with the queries
submitted by users. The French phonographic industry lobby (SNEP) had
sued Google for providing the suggestions bTorrentb, bMegaupload" and
bRapidshareb when users typed the names of artists or music bands in the
Google search bar.

Both the Court of First Instance and the Appellate Court had rejected
SNEP's demands that Google stop suggesting the names of these online
services. They insisted that the latter were not illegal in
themselves, even though they could be used to infringe copyright. As a
consequence, they claimed that SNEP's rights were not affected by
Google's service, and that the company could not be held liable for such
bpotentially infringing usesb, nor be forced to censor its automatic
suggestions.

But the Supreme Court overturned these rulings, rejecting the lower
courts' legal reasoning. The judges held that Google's autocomplete
feature actually bprovided the means to infringe copyright and related
rightsb, and that the measures required by SNEP, while not being totally
effective, could in fact bprevent or terminate such infringementsb. The
case is now referred back to a lower court to be judged once again.

Interestingly, this ruling comes six months after Google decided to
voluntarily remove "Rapidshare", "uTorrent" and "MegaUpload" from its
Google Suggest service. However, according to the SNEP's executive
director, David El Sayegh, Google must do more in the fight against
file-sharing. bThis ruling demonstrates that search engines must
participate in the regulation of the Internetb, said El Sayegh. As a
result of this decision, Google will be under increased pressure to come
to a settlement with rights-holders organisations.

In three other separate but similar rulings, the Supreme Court upheld
the rights of Internet users and service providers against the
right-holders' claims. The Court's decisions in these cases mark the end
of bnotice and staydownb injunctions in France, which were becoming
increasingly popular in Court rooms. In all three cases, the appeal
court had ruled that Google did not adopt adequate measures to prevent
the re-indexation of videos or images that rights-holders had previously
notified as infringing and which Google had then promptly removed. Such
rulings would have eventually forced Google to monitor its users'
activities and filter-out uploaded content, so as to prevent any of its
users from publishing content that has already been notified and
taken-down (hence the term bnotice and staydownb, as opposed to the
traditional bnotice and takedownb regime).

Through its decision, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that online
service providers are under the obligation to prevent any future
infringements. According to the Court, the three appellate rulings
violated EU and French law by imposing ba general obligation to monitorb
the content that Google stores, as well as to actively bseek illicit
uploadsb. These decisions would have led Google to implement a bblocking
mechanism with no limitation in timeb, which would be bdisproportionate
to the pursued aimb, the Court said. Whereas the EU Court of Justice
recently rejected blocking measures based on five cumulative criteria in
the Netlog vs. SABAM case, the French Court deems that the bno
limitation is timeb criterion is enough to qualify blocking measures as
disproportionate.

These rulings against bnotice-and-staydownb will bring clarity to the
ongoing debate on the future of the EU e-commerce directive and the
dangers of blocking measures. However, when considered together with the
decision on Google's autocomplete feature, this mounting case law will
unfortunately encourage rights-holders to keep on pushing for closer
bcooperationb of online service providers in copyright enforcement,
thereby leading to privatised censorship schemes.

French Supreme Court decision - SNEP vs. Google France
(only in French, 12.07.2012)
http://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/832_12_23884.html

French Supreme Court decisions - Bac Films vs. Google France and Inc (1
& 2) (only in French, 12.07.2012)
http://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/document/civ-1re-12-juill-2012-fs-pbi-n-11-13666
http://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/831_12_23883.html

French Supreme Court - AndrC) Rau vs. Google & AuFeminin.com (only in
French, 12.07.2012)
http://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/document/civ-1re-12-juill-2012-fs-pbi-n-11-15165

France: Google may have to censor for piracy after all (16.07.2012)
http://gigaom.com/europe/france-google-may-have-to-censor-for-piracy-after-all/

Music: Google's suggestions (once again) in front of the judges (only
in French, 13.07.2012)
http://www.ecrans.fr/Google-et-l-industrie-musicale-de,15038.html

The Supreme Court opposes content blocking by hosting companies
(in French only, 18.07.2012)
http://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/essentiel/cour-de-cassation-fait-obstruction-au-blocage-de-contenus-par-hebergeurs

(contribution by FC)lix TrC)guer - EDRi-observer La Quadrature du Net)

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5. German Federal Supreme Court rules in the RapidShare case
=======================================================================

A file-hosting site could be partially liable for the content uploaded
by others in Germany. In a case brought to court by video games company
Atari which accused file-sharing site RapidShare of unlawfully providing
access to one of its games, the German Federal Supreme Court decided on
12 July 2012 in favour of the plaintiff.

Despite the fact that, when notified, RapidShare deleted the files in
question, Atari was not satisfied and required the inclusion of a filter
and other measures to prevent illegal uploading of copyrighted material.
The first ruling of the District Court was also in favour of the
plaintiff but the Higher Regional Court of DC<sseldorf dismissed the
action at the appeal, considering that RapidShare had already taken
enough measures against copyright infringement and accepting the
argument that it was impossible to check all files loaded on the site.

But Atari went further on and appealed to the German Federal Supreme
Court (Bundesgerichtshof - BGH), which has now ruled that file-hosting
services can be held liable for secondary copyright infringements under
certain conditions. BGH said that file-hosters did not generally have to
monitor uploads from their users, but that they might have to take
measures once they have been notified of a specific infringement issue.

In this case, RapidShare had to take all btechnically and economically
reasonable precautionsb to prevent the uploading of Ataribs game.
RapidShare will also have to browse its entire file collection to detect
and delete pirated content, and to monitor a bmanageable numberb of
third-party sites that offer link collections of content available on
RapidShare to check out whether they are not indexing a copy of Atari
game and if so, to delete it from its servers. Failing to carry out
these provisions, the service provider would be liable for damages.

The BGH however included a clause that anti-piracy measures had to be
within reasonable limits. The case is now back to the Higher Regional
Court in DC<sseldorf which has to decide what constitutes "reasonable
limits".

RapidShare stated it had already bdeveloped a crawling technology that
is constantly watching Internet forums, message boards and warez blogs
for information about copyright infringement taking place on our system.b

RapidShare attorney Daniel Raimer said for TorrentFreak: bWebre doing
more than any provider in the industry to police our site and
third-party sites to ensure that legitimate intellectual property rights
are protected and that wrongdoers are denied access to our services.
Yesterdaybs decision was a temporary setback. We remain confident that
the Higher Regional Court DC<sseldorf will ultimately rule in our favour
as it has in the past.b

Press release of the court (only in German, 12.07.2012)
http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=pm&Datum=2012&Sort=3&nr=60931&pos=0&anz=113

Supreme Court: RapidShare Liable For Copyright Infringement b Sometimes
(14.07.2012)
http://torrentfreak.com/supreme-court-rapidshare-liable-for-copyright-infringement-sometimes-120714/

File-hosting firms 'responsible for pirated content', German court rules
(16.07.2012)
http://www.zdnet.com/file-hosting-firms-responsible-for-pirated-content-german-court-rules-7000000950/

German Federal Supreme Court on file hoster responsibility for third
party content b bRapidshareb (13.07.2012)
http://germanitlaw.com/?p=683

EDRi-gram: RapidShare wins another alleged copyright infringement case
(12.01.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.1/rapidshare-infringement-germany-case

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6. EC suggests changes of the music rights management system
=======================================================================

The European Commission (EC) published a draft EU Directive on 11 July
2012 showing the intention to introduce a system of collective rights
management to be used for the distribution of music online in the
single market.

In the ECbs opinion, the collecting societies can issue a licence for
the Internet use of a songwriter or composer's work, but some only do so
for one country. Further more the collective societies have not adapted
to the present shift to the digital age while bmusic pirates seize the
opportunities that the online world offersb.

bI propose establishing an effective online single market for music by
establishing new, common rules for two interlinked areas b management
and online licensing across borders (.....) Firstly, I want to establish
rules of efficiency and transparency in collecting societies, so that
artists and producers will have more say, and an improved stream of
revenue,b said Single market commissioner Michael Barnier.

Another proposal in the draft Directive is to make online licensing
across borders easier for collecting societies that manage the rights of
songwriters and composers. Collecting societies have also to ensure they
are "diligent in the collection and the management of rights revenue"
and that they carry out "distribution and payments accurately, ensuring
equal treatment of all categories of rights holders."

The draft Directive says that societies have to publish yearly accounts,
pass on royalties to the copyright owners in 12 month time at the most.
They also have to give artists a role in management decisions and the
right to choose which agency represents them in a certain country.

The directive is now to be discussed by government ministers and the
European Parliament's Legal Affairs committee.

Moving the single market for online music (11.07.2012)
http://euobserver.com/7/116931

EU targets b,6-bn-a-year artists' royalties business
(11.07.2012)
http://euobserver.com/19/116940

Radiohead join attack on new EU copyright rules (12.07.2012)
http://euobserver.com/871/116961

EU aims to bring music collecting societies into line (12.07.2012)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php/copyright-business/782-eu-aims-to-bring-music-collecting-societies-into-line

EU proposes greater transparency and stricter governance for collecting
societies (11.07.2012)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/july/eu-proposes-greater-transparency-and-stricter-governance-for-collecting-societies/

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7. Ireland: E-voting machines go to scrap after proving unreliable
=======================================================================

The e-voting machines that were bought by the Irish Government in 2002
and which were supposed to be used for all elections are now being sold
for almost nothing as scrap.

The e-voting system was given up two years after the machines have
failed to prove safe from tampering and had no possibility to have a
paper print for a double check of the results. In 2006, the Commission
on Electronic Voting, on a second report on the e-voting system,
recommended the use of the system provided additional work was done to
improve the system.

The recommendations included the addition of a voter verified audit
trail, the replacement of the election management software with a
version that is developed to mission critical standards, the
modification of the embedded software & the machine and the
rectification of the identified security vulnerabilities. As these
conditions have never been met, the Irish Government is now in the
position of ending up an embarrassing story that has brought a large
cost to the Irish citizens.

The machines that had cost 51 million Euro in 2002 are now sold for
70000 Euro the entire lot. The storage for several years also costed
some additional 3.2 million Euro for their storage. "I am glad to bring
this sorry episode to a conclusion on behalf of the taxpayer. From the
outset, this project was ill-conceived and poorly planned by my
predecessors and as a result it has cost the taxpayer some b,55m,b said
Environment Minister Phil Hogan.

b,54m voting machines scrapped for b,9 each (29.06.2012)
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/54m-voting-machines-scrapped-for-9-each-3153437.html

Electronic voting in Ireland
http://evoting.cs.may.ie/

EDRi-gram: Critical report on Irish e-voting system released (12.07.2006)
http://edri.org/edrigram/number4.14/evotingireland

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8. Banking blockade on Wikileaks broken by the Icelandic court
=======================================================================

An Icelandic court has made a step towards unblocking funds towards
WikiLeaks by recently ruling that Valitor, the local agent for Visa,
broke the contract when it stopped accepting donations for the website a
year ago.

The ban was the result of a blocking campaign started in December 2010
against WikiLeaks through Visa, Mastercard, Western Union, Bank of
America and PayPal following the US State Department cable leaks in
2010, revealing U.S. war crimes and statecraft. According to the
company, the blocking has led to a 95% decrease in its revenue.

bIf this financial attack stands unchallenged, a dangerous, oppressive
and undemocratic precedent will have been set, the implications of which
go far beyond WikiLeaks and its work. Any organization that falls foul
of powerful finance companies or their political allies can expect
similar extrajudicial action. Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and
other international NGOs that work to expose the wrongdoing of powerful
players risk the same fate as WikiLeaks,b is WikiLeaksb statement.

The blockade against WikiLeaks has also been criticized by the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights as well as by the UN Special Rapporteur on
the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and
Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special
Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression.

WikiLeaks has initiated legal actions against the financial entities,
using all its remaining financial resources to fight them in court.
Also, in July 2011, a preliminary investigation of the blockade was
started by the European Commission.

"Economic censorship is censorship. It is wrong. When it's done outside
of the rule of law it's doubly wrong. One by one those involved in the
attempted censorship of WikiLeaks will find themselves on the wrong side
of history," stated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

According to the decision, Valitor has 14 days to restart processing the
payments to WikiLeaks. Failing to do so will bring forth about 5 000
Euro/day in fines. Valitor will probably appeal the decision.

WikiLeaks has placed an anti-trust complaint at the European Commission
and a Commission decision on whether to pursue the financial services
companies involved in the blockade is expected before this Autumn.

WikiWin: Icelandic court orders Visa to process WikiLeaks $$$ -
Financial ban lifted in Assange victory (13.07.2012)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/13/wikileaks_visa_victory/

Wikeleaks Press Release: Victory in the first court case in the fight
against the imfamous Wikileaks banking blockade. (12.07.2012)
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/I9T68S

Wikileaks page on Banking Blockade
http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade

EDRi-gram: Rule of law in the hands of private companies.Wikileaks is
just the start (15.12.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.24/wikileaks-rule-of-law-private-companies

=======================================================================
9. ENDitorial: EP and EDPS hit back against lawless bchild protectionb
measures
=======================================================================

In the EDRi-gram 10.12, we reported on projects of the European
Commission to coerce industry into the introduction of bvoluntaryb
upload filters. Following the Scarlet/Sabam case in the European Court
of Justice, such filtering would constitute a restriction on fundamental
rights and, if proportionate, would need a legal basis in order to be in
compliance with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the
European Convention on Human Rights.

Now, thankfully, the European Commission's apparent willingness to
simply ignore legal safeguards appears to be running up against
increasing opposition. The Civil Liberties Committee of the European
Parliament last week adopted its Opinion on bProtecting Children in the
Digital World.b Within the context of that Opinion, a compromise text
was adopted with the support of all political groups. Referring to
actions by industry, parliamentarians stressed that bany such measures
should fully respect the rule of law and legal certainty, take into
account the rights of end users and comply with existing legal and
judicial procedures and the European Convention for the Protection of
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Charter of Fundamental
Rights of the European Union.b

The European Data Protection Supervisor has also this week issued an
opinion on the same initiative. Taking a similar line to the Civil
Liberties Committee, the EDPS stresses the need to adequately implement
the general and the telecommunications-specific data protection
Directives as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union. Interestingly, the EDPS pointedly does not only refer to measures
implemented by the European Commission but also that stresses that ball
measures to be deployed further to the Communication should be
consistent with this framework.b This statement is clearly meant to
cover bvoluntaryb measures which the Commission manages to persuade
industry to implement.

The position of the European Commission on measures adopted as a result
of projects that it either runs or finances is far from clear.
Frequently, it facilitates and directs discussions that lead to
quasi-regulatory or policing measures being introduced by industry,
without taking any political or legal ownership of them. It seems
legally, morally and practically questionable for the European
Commission to push industry to bvoluntarilyb implement legally dubious
policies, particularly when these do not reflect official Commission policy.

On 3 May 2010, the current College of Commissioners was the first one to
adopt individual and personal oaths to uphold the European Charter of
Fundamental Rights.

Commission Communication on a bBetter Internet for Childrenb (2.05.2012)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0196:FIN:EN:PDF

EP Civil Liberties Committee Opinion
Not yet online

EDPS Opinion on the Communication from the Commission - "European
Strategy for a Better Internet for Children" (17.07.2012)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consultation/Opinions/2012/12-07-17_Better_Iternet_Children_EN.pdf

Digital Agenda: Coalition of top tech & media companies to make internet
better place for our kids (1.12.2011)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1485&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

EDRi-gram: The rise of the European upload filter (20.06.2012)
http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-upload-filter

(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)

=======================================================================
10. Recommended Action
=======================================================================

Pledge for supporting EDRi (only in German)
Deadline: 30 September 2012
http://www.pledgebank.com/support-edri

=======================================================================
11. Recommended Reading
=======================================================================

Article 29 Working Party opinion on cloud computing (1.07.2012)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files/2012/wp196_en.pdf

Bee stings killed as many in UK as terrorists, says watchdog (28.06.2012)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9359763/Bee-stings-killed-as-many-in-UK-as-terrorists-says-watchdog.html

=======================================================================
12. Agenda
=======================================================================

25-26 August 2012, Bonn, Germany
Free and Open Source software conference (FrOSCon)
http://www.froscon.de/en/program/call-for-papers/

6-7 September 2012, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
CONSENT policy conference:
Perceptions, Privacy and Permissions: the role of consent in on-line
services
http://conference.ubbcluj.ro/consent/

8-9 September 2012, Vienna, Austria
Daten, Netz & Politik 2012
Call for Contributions Deadline: 22 July 2012
https://dnp12.unwatched.org/

12-14 September 2012, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Building Institutions for Sustainable Scientific, Cultural and Genetic
Resources Commons.
http://biogov.uclouvain.be/iasc/index.php

14-17 September 2012, Brussels, Belgium
Freedom not Fear 2012
http://www.freedomnotfear.org/
http://www.freedom-not-fear.eu

7-10 October 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2012 Amsterdam Privacy Conference
http://www.apc2012.org/

25-28 October 2012, Barcelona, Spain
Free Culture Forum 2012
http://fcforum.net/

6-9 November 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan
Seventh Annual IGF Meeting: "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human,
Economic and Social Development"
http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/

9-11 November 2012, Fulda, Germany
Digitalisierte Gesellschaft - Wege und Irrwege
FIfF Annual Conference in cooperation with Fuldaer Informatik Kollquium
http://www.fiff.de/2012

============================================================
13. About
============================================================

EDRi-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRi has 32 members based or with offices in 20 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 are
visible 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 at edri.org>

Information about EDRI and its members:
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