Save up to $300/year on phone bills
August 4, 2006 11:25 AM PDT
Senate ratifies controversial cybercrime treaty
- Related Stories
-
Interpol: Give us tools to fight cybercrime
March 21, 2006 -
Fuzzy logic behind Bush's cybercrime treaty
November 28, 2005 -
First 'cybercrime' treaty advances in Senate
July 26, 2005 -
Tech firms call for approval of cybercrime treaty
June 29, 2005 -
Senate debates cybercrime treaty
June 18, 2004 -
Bush pushes for cybercrime treaty
November 18, 2003 -
Europe hopes to outlaw hate speech online
November 12, 2001 -
International cybercrime treaty finalized
June 22, 2001 -
Global treaty could transform Web
June 22, 2001
The
The treaty is intended to harmonize computer crime laws, especially those in smaller or less developed nations that may not have updated their legal framework to reflect the complexities of the Internet. It requires participating countries to target a broad swath of activities, including unauthorized intrusions into networks, fraud, the release of worms and viruses, child pornography and copyright infringement.
"This treaty provides important tools in the battles against terrorism, attacks on computer networks and the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet, by strengthening U.S. cooperation with foreign countries in obtaining electronic evidence," U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in a statement Friday.
Because U.S. law already includes much of what the treaty requires, the Senate's consent is in part symbolic.
"Dual criminality" conflict
But one portion, which
What's controversial about those requirements is that they don't require "dual criminality"--in other words, Russian security services investigating democracy activists could ask for the FBI's help in uncovering the contents of their Yahoo Mail or Hotmail accounts, or even conducting live wiretaps.
"Our primary concern is that there's no dual criminality within the mutual assistance provisions," said Danny O'Brien, activism coordinator with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "The U.S. is now obliged to investigate and monitor French Internet crimes, say, and France is obliged to obey America's requests to spy on its citizens, for instance--even if those citizens are under no suspicion for crimes on the statute books of their own country."
The Council of Europe consists of 45 member states, including all of the European Union, and five nonvoting members, of which the United States is one.
Negotiations on the treaty began in 1997, and so far,
The Bush administration began
Longtime technology industry advocates of the treaty hailed the Senate's action, which occurred on its final day in session before a monthlong summer recess. The Business Software Alliance, a lobbying group whose members include Microsoft, Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, IBM and Intel said the treaty "will serve as an important tool in the global fight against cybercriminals and encourage greater cooperation among nations."
The software industry, which has been lobbying for years for action on the
treaty, has found it contains much to cheer about, including a requirement that nations enact criminal penalties for
The ratification marks "an important milestone in the fight against international cybercrime," said Paul Kurtz, executive director of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, which counts Juniper Networks, McAfee, RSA Security and Symantec among its member companies.
A First Amendment issue
The Senate did not consider an optional
The U.S. Department of Justice
"The convention is in full accord with all U.S. constitutional protections, such as free speech and other civil liberties, and will require no change to U.S. laws," Attorney General Gonzales said Friday.
Civil liberties groups have begged to differ, mounting resistance against the international document ever since its inception.
In a letter to senators last summer
See more CNET content tagged:
treaty,
cooperation,
nation,
terrorism,
France
I swear, all politians went completely brain-dead overnight.
This can also happen weither the persecuting
country's laws violate target country's laws or constitution or not especially on levels of persecution and tolerance. This can be a tricky situation when the two countries in question have conflicting terms and definitions of such crimes. Some to the point of them cancelling each other out
This is fine for the things that everyone hates (such as hacking, theft and some levels of copyright infringment) but items of free speech and hate material or levels of objectionable material (such as adult sites)
What happens when one party says that something is illegal and another says its not. is this going to make everything that makes for such good discussion on the net objectionable to someone?
because apparently every other nation has to cooperate with another because of internatonal law?
Does it reduce all content on the net to zero before its illegal (lowest common multiple?) because anything that would incite any discussion would be illegal somewhere even if its not in your country. What if that meant persecution in said country would violate target country's constitution (such as countries that have abolished the death penalty an turning persons over to places with such punishment and/or who have known human rights issues in prisons and such things)
on top of that you wouldnt have any recourse against said country and would face such persecution as if you were in that country (even though you posted/used material outside of that country and any servers therein. Even though you broke no laws of your country.
this my law is your law philosophy is going to prove very very interesting because it makes all participating countries laws invalid. is this an item of bigger things to come?
I myself don't give a d**m abought the law's of another country's law's, or what they think I should,or shouldn't do or say.
The goverment has been trying to rewrite the contistution for years, & haven't been able to do so, but with these new law's are bending it enought to suit there needs.
george and george bush suck rat weenie