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Archive | May, 2016

EU: Privatised censorship and surveillance

By on May 4, 2016 in Big Entertainment, Censorship, Copyright, EU, Intellectual Property, Internet

In relation to the real motivation behind the privatised censorship proposals (copyright), the draft talks about platforms “which make available copyright-protected content uploaded by end-users”. The wording is very deliberate. While the E-Commerce Directive gives liability protection to hosting companies that passively host content on behalf of their users, “making available” is an active use of content for which the rightsowner has a “exclusive right to authorise or prohibit any communication to the public”. As a result, any “making available” by online platforms without prior consent of the rightsholder would be a breach of copyright, for which the platform would be liable. The only option for being liable for a “making available” by your customers is to subject any uploads to prior checking, filtering and/or takedown in cases of doubt. Online platforms already delete vast amounts of perfectly legal content uploaded by users, so this new incentive would make the situation even worse.

EDRi: Leaked EU Communication – Part 1: Privatised censorship and surveillance »

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Snowden on whistleblowing

By on May 4, 2016 in Civil liberties, Democracy, Human rights, Manning, NSA & Snowden, Privacy, Rule of law, Snowden, US, Wikileaks

When you first go on duty at CIA headquarters, you raise your hand and swear an oath — not to government, not to the agency, not to secrecy. You swear an oath to the Constitution. So there’s this friction, this emerging contest between the obligations and values that the government asks you to uphold, and the actual activities that you’re asked to participate in. (…)

By preying on the modern necessity to stay connected, governments can reduce our dignity to something like that of tagged animals, the primary difference being that we paid for the tags and they’re in our pockets. It sounds like fantasist paranoia, but on the technical level it’s so trivial to implement that I cannot imagine a future in which it won’t be attempted. It will be limited to the war zones at first, in accordance with our customs, but surveillance technology has a tendency to follow us home.

Edward Snowden in The Intercept: Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance »

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Todays TTIP leak and the Internet

By on May 2, 2016 in Big Data, Civil liberties, Data Protection, EU, Human rights, Intellectual Property, Internet, TTIP, US

Today a batch of documents concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been leaked by Greenpeace.

As suspected there are worrying indications when it comes to the future of a free and open Internet.

• TTIP might result in the EU and US being able to ignore fundamental human rights (such as the right to privacy) when it comes to telecommunications. This is serious, as such issues have been central in previous legislative acts concerning the Internet.

• With the EU-US Privacy Shield still being a pretty open issue, TTIP seems to move the issue of data transfers in favour of Big Data. It is doubtful if there will be any meaningful protection of personal data being transferred from EU to the US.

• When it comes to Intellectual Property (IP), there are signs that TTIP will move to make Internet Service Providers to “voluntary” police the net. In other words, TTIP seems to make another try to re-introduce IP provisions that the European Parliament has already rejected in ACTA.

IP issues in TTIP seems to be open for negotiations and last-minute amendments. EDRi explains…

Concerning so-called “Intellectual Property” (IP), the negotiators seem to take lobbyists’ wish list very seriously. According to the leaked report, “[w]hen confronted with EU warning that bringing sensitive proposals that would require changes in EU law to the table – and doing it at a late stage of the negotiation – may have a negative impact on stakeholders” (which would apparently not include citizens) “and has very limited chances of being accepted”, the US seemed to be prepared to depart from the model of the TPP. Among the proposals the US is thinking of tabling, it includes privatised enforcement measures, that EDRi has been criticising since its inception because they bypass the rule of law and lead to arbitrary corporate decision-making without accountability (cf. “voluntary stakeholder initiatives”). As with ACTA, the US is strongly supportive of “voluntary initiatives” as US-based global giants already impose US copyright law on a global level. The EU (as shown by the recent leak of the Communication on Platforms) supports this approach.

It’s still early days. And there is no lack of warning signals.

So, I guess there will be yet another battle over a free and open Internet. (Frustratingly, in part it seems to be the same battle over IP issues being fought over and over again.)

/ HAX

• Greenpeace: TTIP Leaks »
• EDRi: TTIP leaks confirm dangers for digital rights »
• The Guardian: Leaked TTIP documents cast doubt on EU-US trade deal »
• Europan Commission: EU negotiating texts in TTIP »
• EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström: Negotiating TTIP »

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