Re: European Commission on "Illegal and harmful content on the Internet"

[azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear)]

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>A recently released European Commission Communication on "Illegal
>and harmful content on the Internet" may prefigure the nature of
>coming European Union regulatory initiatives concerning the net.
>This Communication was in response to a 27 September resolution
>by the Telecommunication Council on "preventing the dissemination
>of illegal content on the Internet, in particular child
>pornography." The document reportedly reflects what will be
>ongoing work to "present practical measures in time for the next
>Telecommunications Council on 28 November 1996."
>
>The Communication describes its aims as:
>
>firstly to describe briefly the different types of illegal and
>harmful content,
>
>secondly to examine the technical context in which action can be
>taken to deal with illegal and harmful content,
>
>and finally to suggest a number of practical measures designed to
>be rapidly implemented
>
>Among the points of interest, it states with emphasis that
>"additional international cooperation is required to avoid 'safe
>havens' for documents contrary to general rules of criminal law."
>With respect to anonymous communications it discusses proposed
>"measures to close known loopholes and improve traceability and
>that anonymous remailers record details of identity."
>
>As is typical of these agendas, the devil will be in the evolving
>details of enforcement. It looks like 1997 will be a busy year
>for proponents of greater state control over internet content
>both here and abroad. If they can conjure up enough sufficiently
>compelling bogeymen, it could be a very successful one for them
>as well.
>

It looks as if a functioning AP system can't be here any too soon.  I can't
wait to bet that these sorts of thought-crime restriction won't be seen as
reasonable.