[pp.int.general] CENSILIA!

[Julia Schramm]

  Dear Pirate Parties!

Considering the upcoming approaches on blocking the internet by the 
EU-Commission the German Pirate Party started to gather resources and 
informations. Furthermore it is absolutely necessary to write letters to 
the members of Parliament in order to brief them about the necessity to 
find other ways in the combat of child abuse and exploitation and the 
distribution of documented crimes.

The German debate from last year against "Zensursular" was very 
productive, but as I reckon this is not the same in the other parts of 
the European Union! Now, I am the German coordinator for our fight 
against internet blocking and it is now absolutely necessary that we 
fight against it together!

Now my questions: Which material is already existent in your country? 
What kind of debate do you have? How can we help you?

The first hearing is on September 28th and 29th and it is very important 
that as much letters as possible are sent to the members of the 
accordant committees (LIBE, CULT, FEMM)

The German team wrote a letter and translated it to english. I'll send 
you this letter attached. Please translate it into your own language and 
send the letter to your member of the European parliament. The Members 
of the committes and the hearing invitation will be in the links below! 
PLEASE give me some feedback if you did so in order to evaluate which 
members of Parliament did get the letter!!

It would be nice if all of you could tell me a name to which i can keep 
contact.

I will write soon about an international CENSILIA-day, when we all can 
do a collective action in order to generate as much public as possible!

Please, if you have any ideas: Write me an e-mail!

THE FIGHT MUST START NOW ;-)

Cheers,
Julia Schramm
@laprintemps on Twitter
Pirate Party Germany

Attachment:
Hearingplan: 
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+COMPARL+LIBE-OJ-20100928-1+01+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=DE

Members of the committes:
LIBE (Civil Rights, Justice, Home affairs): 
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/membersCom.do?language=EN&body=LIBE
CULT (Culture and Education): 
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/membersCom.do?language=EN&body=CULT
FEMM (Women's Rights and Gender equality)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/membersCom.do?language=EN&body=FEMM

Letter to the Member of Parliament:
Dear Mr./Ms.,

As a member of the committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home 
Affairs, we imagine that you will be attending the hearing on the 
Directive on "Combatting sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children 
and child pornography", which will be held on September 28th and 29th. 
Part of this directive will be to oblige Member States to implement 
internet blocking on a national level.

The primary goal, fighting sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of 
children and the distribution of documented abuse, is clearly supported 
by everyone. However, blocking the net is  the wrong measure to combat 
these crimes and does fail to respect the principle of proportionality, 
in particular because blocking has not alone never been proven to work 
effectively. Furthermore, there is a grave danger that it could 
undermine child protection. Blocking means introducing censorship and 
constraining the rights of free speech and freedom of information.

There are numerous reasons to fear that this measure could be 
counter-productive for child protection. Firstly, it is so ineffective 
and easy to circumvent that this approach risks distracting the EU from 
real measures (such as investigation and prosecution and cooperation 
with third countries) that would be more victim-oriented:

1. The OSCE adopted a report which said that blocking was so ineffective 
as to be probably illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights. 
(http://www.osce.org/documents/rfm/2010/01/42294_en.pdf)
2. Commissioner Füle (Parliamentary question E-4620/2010) downplayed the 
significance of blocking in Turkey, saying that  "many people" have 
circumvented the ban.
3. The blocking of "Pirate Bay" in Denmark actually lead to an increase 
in the traffic from Turkey to that site.

None of these considerations were considered in the European 
Commission's impact assessment - either from the perspective of the 
grave doubts that that they raise that blocking is a distraction from 
taking real action nor from the perspective that blocking is so 
ineffective that it is quite obviously disproportionate.

Furthermore, enabling a broad censorship technology is already leading 
to abuse - as seen by the spread of blocking to gambling websites and 
websites accused of infringing intellectual property. The responsibility 
for deciding what is blocked and what is not varies from Member State to 
Member state. In some it is the police, in some it is judicial 
authorities and in some it is completely private entities.  .

Blocking-mechanisms are ineffective in the fight against sexual child 
abuse and the deletion of its documentation. The deletion of this 
undesirable content and the prosecution of those responsible for the 
production and distribution of the material should be the main agenda.

It is already possible to delete so called Phishing Sites in a matter of 
hours. Why is this possible in the financial sector, but not for the 
sake of children? Technically, the deletion of all such content is not a 
great problem. The problem rests with the lack of political will to 
fight against the abuse of children and the distribution of evidence of 
such crimes.

As a consequence, we ask you to address the following points:
That the European Commission finally provide statistics that show the 
necessity of  internet blocking.
That the European Commission provide an evaluation of internet blocking 
in each country where it has been used and the concrete, demonstrable 
results.
Insist on the deletion of any provisions within the directive which 
seeks impose a blocking-infrastructure. Such an infrastructure will 
serve (and in some Member States already is serving) to impose 
restrictions for other interests and does nothing to help identify 
criminals or rescue victims.
Insist that the Commission launches an initiative to launch an 
enforceable multilateral treaty to improve international cooperation 
against child abuse, exploitation and the distribution and production of 
material that documents these crimes. Mutual commitment to fight these 
crimes must have the highest priority. Blocking is a counterproductive 
distraction from this goal.

Please find attached an abstract of the issues that will not be 
eliminated by building a blocking infrastructure and an analysis of 
which measures are more effective.

We are ready to assist if you have further questions. Our main goal is 
to prevent disproportional constraints of civil rights and 
simultaneously and effectively combat the distribution of documented 
child abuse and exploitation as well as the crime itself.

Sincerely

Additonal knowledge by EDRI

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