wired news: Germany Gets Radikal About Extremists on Web

[tank <tank@xs4all.nl>]

T O P  S T O R I E S 

       Germany Gets Radikal About Extremists on Web Tuesday - Are the
       German government's tactics for barring extremist material on
       the Internet realistic?


   Germany Gets Radikal About Extremists on Web
   by Rebecca Vesely
   
   5:03 pm PST 21 Jan 97 - The German government, never shy about
   expressing its disdain for left- and right-wing radicals inside its
   borders, has taken to combing the Internet for signs of extremist
   activity.
   
   But Germany's effort to stop the distribution of terrorist manuals and
   Nazi propaganda is like pointing a fire hose at a beehive - instead of
   quashing the bees, it only scatters them, and makes them more
   insistent.
   
   Last week, German authorities filed charges against a member of the
   communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), Angela Marquardt, for
   linking to the banned left-wing magazine Radikal from her homepage,
   causing Net activists to anticipate another incident like that last
   September, when several German ISPs temporarily blocked Radikal's
   server, XS4All. In response, the magazine was mirrored on more than 50
   Web sites around the world.
   
   "The decision to prosecute for linking to Radikal will probably bring
   yet another escalation of events, where this censored magazine will
   become all the more popular on the Net," said Felipe Rodriquez,
   managing director of XS4All, which is based in the Netherlands.
   "Censoring the Internet is usually very counterproductive, and an
   insurance that many people will mirror the information and start
   distributing it."
   
   XS4All, which describes itself as "networking for the masses," hosts
   some 4,600 homepages, and was recently in the news for posting several
   homepages for media banned in Serbia, such as Radio B92, that continue
   to offer via the Web live RealAudio feeds and frequent updates on the
   continued nationwide protests against the Serbian government.
   
   Banned in Germany 12 years ago, and published underground for the past
   decade, Radikal advocates the overthrow of the German government.
   German officials say the magazine's publishers provide terrorist
   information in their pages, including how to sabotage train lines. But
   the publishers argue that they have the right to publish material
   contrary to the German government.
   
   "We fundamentally reject the notion that the state has a monopoly on
   the legitimate use of force," the publishers wrote in an article
   titled "Who We Are" in 1995. "The existing social conditions can only
   be changed if left-radical groups and associations build up their
   abilities and structures so as to be able to counter some of these
   effects even today. This, of course, includes militant and armed
   intervention, but these would be empty gestures if there wasn't also
   some sort of linkage or means of conveying their message."
   
   While publishers continue to produce the magazine in print form
   outside of Germany, sympathizers have been posting it to a homepage on
   XS4All.
   
   "As an act of solidarity with them and with Radikal we decided to put
   it on the Internet and, of course, to frustrate this censorship
   attempt of the German authorities," the sympathizers wrote in an email
   to Wired News. They added that while they had no contact with the
   publishers of Radikal, they are currently being investigated by
   Germany's public prosecutor general and have no plans to "go on
   holiday in Germany."
   
   Although Radikal is not banned in the Netherlands, the German
   government says that linking to the magazine from inside Germany is
   "aiding a felony," spokesman Ruediger Reiff told Reuters. In December,
   Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Cabinet approved a bill banning the
   electronic distribution of forms of hate speech, terrorism, and
   indecent material. The new German law places responsibility on the
   loosely defined "suppliers," and in response, CompuServe considered
   moving its administrative operations to a neighboring country.
   
   PDS member Marquardt says her prosecution has less to do with Radikal,
   than an attempt to quiet German citizens who, like herself, are
   outspoken critics of the government.
   
   "This is hardly about bomb-building instructions or highly detailed
   descriptions of train lines and their weaknesses," Marquardt, who
   could not be reached for comment, wrote in a statement posted on her
   Web site. "The all-too-stubborn guardians of the state will quickly
   learn: The Net interprets censorship as a malfunction and circumvents
   it."
   
   In the meantime, XS4All has not received any official communication
   from the German Justice Department, nor from the Dutch Justice
   Department.
   
   "Our policy is that as a provider we are not in the position to judge
   whether this magazine is illegal in the Netherlands, therefore we do
   not interfere with the liberty of speech of our user," XS4All's
   Rodriquez said.
   
   
   
   
        Copyright =A9 1993-97 Wired Ventures, Inc. and affiliated companies=