Posted on 7-11-2002

Websites Fear Censor
From digitalopportunity.org

Angered by a new Spanish law that gives the state new powers to monitor and
ban websites, website operators are going offline in protest and are
marshalling a campaign to challenge the new law in the country's Supreme
Court. Index on Censorship reports. Spain's Law of Information Society
Services and Electronic Commerce (LSSI), passed in June, became effective
on October 12 - after more than two years of public opposition, online line
and in parliament. But the protest is not over.

The law requires website operators to register their website with the
government if their sites could have commercial prospects - no matter how
small. It also forces internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor sites
for content that may be illegal. This material must be reported to the
authorities, and the ISP must hold traffic information - technical details
of how the web operators use their services - for a year so police may
investigate it later if they consider it necessary. Failure to comply with
the law will result in heavy fines of up to 600,000 euro, while the
websites themselves can now be shut down by judicial order.

One of the protesting websites, Kriptopolis, compared the new law to a
decree promulgated by Queen Isabella in 1502 that required printers to
obtain licences for everything they published. The government argues that
the principal objective of the law is to ensure that publications on the
web are subject to the same tax and commerce laws as print publications.
Anna Birules, Spain's Minister of Science and Technology, says the law
addresses reality. "If, in the real world, a judge is able to close real
media down, in the virtual world the same is going to happen," she has said.

But free speech campaigners maintain that the powers over information
extended to the state by the new law could be used to silence websites for
other reasons and the opposition socialist PSOE party has already vowed to
annul the law if it returns to power. The law itself, reported the daily El
Pais, was based on a draft by the Spanish ministry of science was returned
15 times by the country's legislature, and drew more than 65,000 public
comments. Over two years the campaign forced dozens of line amendments that
have reduced some - but not all - of the powers that concern free speech
activists online.

Kriptopolis, a cryptography website that is part of the Global Internet
Liberty Campaign, cites 90 sites that have taken part in the protest since
the law came into force. Site editor Jose Manuel Gomez says, "clearly this
law has been passed for controlling web contents and to force editors to
self-censure." His site, which used to claim about 500,000 visitors a
month, has joined the strike. He told the online IT news site The Register,
that "many web sites have 'spontaneously' decided to go off-line to support
the closedown, to protest against the law or simply because of fears of the
way that inquisitorial new law will be applied in Spain from now on".

Carlos Sánchez Almeida, a Barcelona lawyer who specializes in Internet law,
told Wired magazine before the law was passed that the act that Spain's
"freedom of expression in the Internet will be as limited as it is in
countries like China, Vietnam or Saudi Arabia," under the new law. Pedro de
Alzaga, editor of the online edition of Spain's major daily, El Pais,
further told Wired that he was worried by the use of a law designed to
regulate commerce online but which had implications for free expression.
"Curious paradox: In Spain, only a judge can ban a magazine edition in the
newsstands, but under LSSI, an official could 'provisionally' ban the
online edition of the same magazine if it 'outrages or could outrage' the
values protected by the law," de Algaza said.