Sec Council Res. Re: [Privsec] update on paras 49-51, new terroristparagraph introduced

[Alberto Escudero-Pascual]

Hi Gus and others,

Sorry to step on this, I must confess that I have been a silence watcher
lately. You are doing a good job. Similar logic applies in Spain with
ETA and with some legal cases that we have been involved as ISP... I
fully agree on your remarks about the "definition", no clear definition
- no crime or all is crime. And by the way, in Spain we called it, Aznar
language.


Alberto

> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: Daniel Boos boos at trash.net
> Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:05:52 +0200
> To: privsec at wsis-cs.org
> Subject: Sec Council Res. Re: [Privsec] update on paras 49-51, new
> "terrorist"paragraph introduced
> 
> 
> Ralf Bendrath wrote:
> > >
> > > 2. At the last minute, Israel suggested a new paragraph. They will
> > > discuss it this evening, I think. The paragraph reads:
> > >
> > > “New 50bis. We underline the importance of countering the
> > > manifestations of terrorism at all its forms in the Internet. In
> > > particular, we condemn the use of the internet for purposes of
> > > financing of terrorist acts, radicalization towards terrorist acts,
> > > recruitment for terrorist acts, and glorification of terrorist acts
> > > that may incite further terrorist acts.”
> > >
> 
> Ok, so the way I see this is that someone is having some fun with you. 
> They are trying to insert the most recent language as proposed by Tony
> Blair on incitement because these are the laws that they're trying to pass
> in the UK at the moment.  It really won't go far because of free expression
> issues and then you have the billion dollar question:  what acts of terror
> can you not glorify?  The debate in the UK resolved (at the moment) to
> saying that you can't say anything about anything that happened in the last
> twenty years.  Well a lot of shit has happened in the last twenty years,
> but that means you can't glorify 9/11 until 2021.  But you can glorify the
> holocaust I guess, blah blah.  It is all very silly in legislative language
> and they all know this.
> 
> THat aside...
> - there are no 'manifestations' of terrorism on the internet
> - there are no financing of terrorist acts on teh internet
> - radicalisation and recruitment and glorification and incitement all verge
> on hitting free expression rules that would be protected under both the
> ECHR and the first amendment.
> 
> So Karen was right on teh definition issue.  Nail them on definition:  what
> terrorist acts can't you glorify?  Does that mean you can't have a website
> speaking about the Tamil Tigers and glorifying their struggle?  How about
> Burma?  IS there an internationally agreed list of unglorifiable acts of
> terror that we all agree to, and then we can condemn anybody who speaks out
> in anger on these?  It's not just wrong, it's silly.
> 
> Now if they talk about cyber-terror that's another thing (attacking
> websites, DDOS, etc.).  BUt that's not what their getting at... this is
> just a mean inclusion.
> 
> I"m not sure what they mean by financing terror on the internet; unless
> they mean a website that accepts funds, but really that already falls under
> international rules on funding terror (FATF rules, and other banking rules,
> etc. etc.) which fall well away from internet policy issues.
> 
> So essentially this is all fluff.  It's designed to piss people off.  IF
> the americans or the british proposed it then I would be afraid.  THe fact
> that it is israel is that it is almost too caricuratish of them to do so; I
> imagine that they're far smarter than this.
> 
> So you want language?
> 
> New 50bis. We underline the importance of education as the ideal means of
> countering terrorism at all its forms in the Internet.  We call on
> Governments to promote the free flow of information in order to promote
> greater understanding across cultures.  Any initiatives to combat the
> incitement to terror and the glorification of terrorist acts must be
> consistent with international norms and rules on freedom of expression and
> freedom of assembly.
> 
> It ain't great, but that's teh best I can come up with at the moment.  But
> yes, Karen, focus on the problem of definition:  that's the killer.  NOt
> just 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' but there's the
> great challenge of agreeing what constitutes incitement and when it is hate
> vs. anger, what constitutes a terrorist group, what constitutes terrorist
> activity (just unlawful activity vs. really bad activity vs. suicide
> bombings?), and so on.
> 
> If I had more time I could do better.  Sorry.
> 
> 
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