Posted on 6-3-2003
Europe
Hacker Laws Could Make Protest a Crime
By PAUL MELLER, NYT 5 March03
The justice ministers of the European Union have agreed on laws
intended to
deter computer hacking and the spreading of computer viruses.
But legal
experts say the new measures could pose problems because the
language could
also outlaw people who organize protests online, as happened
recently, en
masse, with protests against a war in Iraq.
The agreement, reached last week, obliges all 15 member states
to adopt a
new criminal offense: illegal access to, and illegal interference
with an
information system. It calls on national courts to impose jail
terms of at
least two years in serious cases.
Critics from the legal profession say the agreement makes no
legal
distinction between an online protester and terrorists, hackers
and
spreaders of computer viruses that the new laws are intended
to trap.
Last Wednesday, protesters against a possible war against Iraq
barraged the
White House and Senate offices with tens of thousands of messages
by phone,
fax and e-mail, as part of what was billed as the first-ever
"virtual
protest march."
Under the new agreement, if European Union citizens undertook
a similar
electronic bombardment of the e-mail, fax and phone lines of
the British
prime minister, Tony Blair, they might be liable for prosecution,
said Leon
de Costa, chief executive of Judicium, a legal consultancy based
in London.
The new code "criminalizes behavior which, until now, has been
seen as
lawful civil disobedience," Mr. de Costa said.
Ulrich Sieber, a professor of law at Munich University, urged
lawmakers to
amend the code to add a specific reference to the right to free
expression
as outlined in the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Human
Rights.
Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy, said
he failed to
persuade the ministers to insert wording that differentiates
between the
online equivalent of trespassing and someone breaking and entering.
The
role of the European Parliament is consultative, so it cannot
force changes
to the law.
A European Union diplomat involved in the drafting of the measures
agreed
that protection mechanisms in the code are soft and said that
amendments
could still be made.
|