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@private> To: info@private 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@private>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/)
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