[IP] Privacy villain of the week: Sen. Richard Lugar [priv]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Date: July 27, 2004 12:41:47 AM EDT
To: politech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Politech] Privacy villain of the week: Sen. Richard Lugar
[priv]
Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2004/06/28/cybercrime-treaty/
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Privacy Villain: Sen. Lugar's cybercrimes
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:52:39 -0400
From: J Plummer <jplummer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Privacy Villain of the Week:
Sen. Richard Lugar
by James Plummer
As perhaps the Senate's leading internationalist, Senate Foreign
Relations
Chairman Richard Lugar has been keeping busy this summer by holding
hearings on a number of treaties he apparently wishes the Senate to
ratify.
One of those is a horrible assault on the privacy of US citizens and
consumers called the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.
<http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/185.htm>
Senator Lugar claimed last month, in his opening statement at a hearing
on
this Cybercrime Convention, that "Prompt ratification. . . will help
advance the security of Americans." That is not necessarily the case
when
one considers that the treaty could allow European agents to spy on
innocent Americans.
<>http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2004/LugarStatement040617.pdf
As the ACLU explains, the treaty "would expand police powers and require
American authorities to conduct surveillance on individuals whose
actions
violate the laws of foreign countries but not US law... the Council on
Europe's International Cybercrime Treaty was ostensibly created to help
protect against cybercrime, but is drafted so broadly that it will
affect
far more than a few hackers."
<http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14489>
But despite these concerns, Lugar put on a hearing for the treaty that
Free
Congress Foundation characterized as a "cheerleading session." One of
the
parties not invited to testify, the Electronic Privacy Information
Center
(EPIC), sent a letter to Lugar and ranking Democrat Sen. Biden,
outlining
their concerns.
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/intl/senateletter-061704.pdf>
EPIC's first concern is the treaty's lack of privacy protections: "A
significant number of provisions grant sweeping investigative powers of
computer search and seizure and government surveillance of voice,
e-mail,
and data communications in the interests of law enforcement agencies,
but
are not counterbalanced by accompanying protections of individual
rights or
limits on governments' use of these powers."
Article 14 of the Treaty requires that "Each Party shall adopt such
legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish the
powers
and procedures provided for in this section for the purpose of specific
criminal investigations or proceedings... [including] collection of
evidence in electronic form."
Thus, in their letter to Lugar, EPIC points out that language in the
treaty
can be read as requiring countries to "enact legislation compelling
individuals to disclose their decryption keys in order to allow for law
enforcement access to computer data."
EPIC also points out in the letter that Article 25 of the Treaty lacks a
"dual-criminality" provision under which activity must be considered
criminal in both countries before one country can demand the citizens of
the other be spied upon. Why didn't Lugar invite someone from EPIC to
highlight this issue at his hearing?
Maybe because that kind of controversy at the hearing may have made it
easier for Lugar's Republican base to draw the kind of conclusions and
pose
the kind of obvious, troubling questions asked by Free Congress
Foundation:
This Treaty should be of great concern to pro-family organizations,
particularly given the interest that Europeans have in prosecuting
so-called "hate" crimes and the fact that virtually all political
organizations use the Internet. … Is it possible that a government such
as
Sudan might try to use a friendly signatory country to obtain
information
based on e-mail communications about refugees actively opposed to the
government's persecution of Christian minorities?
<http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_9447.shtml>
And of course, Americans of all political stripes who seek to help
refugees
or dissidents could find themselves targeted by foreign governments at
some
future date, since other countries will be able to sign on to this
agreement after the initial round of European ratification.
Americans should not LOSE constitutional Protections and become subject
to
extraConstitutional foreign laws just because they purchase and use
Internet connection services. For ignoring these pressing issues of
great
concern to American Internet users and working to push through this
dangerous treaty, internationalist cheerleader Sen. Richard Lugar is the
Privacy Villain this week.
The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are
projects
of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. Privacy Villain
audio
features now available from <http://www.fcfnews.com/>FCF News on Demand.
For more information on the NCC Privacy Group, see www.nccprivacy.org or
contact James Plummer at 202-467-5809 or
<mailto:jplummer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>via email. This essay is available
online with more hyperlinks at
<http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/040723villain.htm>
_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/