PRESS RELEASE
April 23, 1997
www.gilc.org
A coalition of civil liberties organizations from a dozen countries
has written to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to express concern
about the prosecution of an official from the Compuserve
company which is making available Internet access to
German subscribers. The official has been indicted by local
prosecutors.
The letter states the prosecution of the Compuserve manager Mr. Felix
Somm is "ill-advised for both technical and regulatory reasons"
and will "have a harmful impact on Internet users around the world."
The groups said that "the charges against Compuserve will establish a
harmful precedent, and may encourage other governments to censor speech,
limit political debate, control artistic expression, and otherwise deny the
opportunity for individuals to be fully informed."
The organizations signing the letter, which was organized by the
Global Internet Liberty Campaign, include the American Civil Liberties
Union, Arge Daten, Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet, Derechos
Human Rights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch,
the Internet Society, and Privacy International.
Felipe Rodriquez, the administrator for XS4ALL, an internet provider
that was recently blocked by German authorities in a separate
matter said, "Is is not possible for a provider to censor the Internet
according to the local law, custom or tradition. The Internet is too
international and too dynamic for that to be possible. Censoring the
Internet has, in most cases, proved to be counterproductive."
Andy Oram, a member of the Computer Professionals for Social
Responsibility in the United States, said that he thought the
attempts by German to limit use of the Internet in this manner
were impractical. "Even if an Internet provider is notified that
illegal material is coming from a certain site and cuts off all
access to that site, the publisher of the material can easily find
another site from which to send it."
The groups also noted their support for efforts now underway in
the German parliament to liberalize the use of the Internet.
"We believe that the measure now under consideration to reduce
liability for Internet services will do much to ensure the protection
of personal freedoms in the future," said the organizations.
The Global Internet Liberty Campaign was established at the annual
meeting of the Internet Society in June 1996 in Montreal. It maintains
a web site at http://www.gilc.org with links to all of the member
organizations.
Last September the group organized a conference in Paris to
educate members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development about the need to develop cryptography polices
that protected privacy and fundamental human rights. Aspects
of the GILC recommendations were incorporated in the OECD
Cryptography Guidelines released earlier this year.