[ANSOL-geral] Análise [Re: Fwd: [ffii] European Parliament rushes towards Soviet Internet]

[J M Cerqueira Esteves]

De http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/AnalyseCompromisVersionDiteFinale

Summary

The "compromise" amendments open the door to contractual agreements 
between technical operators and content producers for massive emailing 
campaigns requiring the users to install surveillance and content 
filtering systems. Those systems will be listed by administrative 
authorities, acting under control of the European Commission, out of 
effective control from the Parliament or judicial authorities.

Their further impose filters and spyware to internet users, under threat 
of being sued for copyright infringement, and without any proof other 
than a computer log. It's a hard version of the three-strike approach 
known in France as "riposte graduée" ("graduated response").

[...]

Detailed analysis

Recital 12c (compromise amendment 4) describes the so-called 
"preventive" phase of the "graduated response".

The recital states that the "relevant" administrative authorities can 
issues orders to technical intermediaires imposing them to send warning 
messages in case of "specific problems".

The length of this recital is exceptional for a European directive. It 
contains provisions that are substantive and should never be included in 
a recital (actually its contents does not belong anywhere in a 
telecommunication regulation directive). It refers to the new drafting 
of article 33 of the framework directive (compromise amendment 7).

This article 33 installs the principle that administrative authorities 
in charge of regulating Internet usage encourage intermediaries to 
co-operate with the sectors having interest in "the protection and 
promotion of lawful contents". It precises that this co-operation will 
in particular follow the rules defined in article 21(4a) (compromise 
amendment 3).

This notion of "personal security" echoes directly amendment 69 from 
Syed Kamal adopted in the LIBE committee, which authorizes any legal or 
moral person to process personal data when it is done for security 
purposes. This amendment aims at the authorization to process connection 
data without permission from the user and to enable the technical 
measures described in amendment 76 from Syed Kamal, also adopted in the 
LIBE committee. The aim is to make possible for compulsory standardised 
technical systems to intercept, detect and prevent infringements to IPR, 
circumventing the judicial authorities role in authorizing or completing 
these functions.

Article 22(3) (compromise amendment 5) plans for the standards of 
surveillance and filtering to be defined by National regulatory 
authorities under control from the European Commission. The procedure 
defined in this article does not meet standards of democratic control.

This article 22(3) shoud be read together with recital 14b (compromise 
amendment 4) that organizes a direct threat to Internet neutrality. 
Technical operators would be authorized to take restrictions "for 
example to enable new services". As shown by article 20b (compromise 
amendment 2) and article 21(4a) (compromise amendment 3), this means to 
"impose any restictions on users' ability to access, use or distribute 
lawful content or run lawful applications and services of their choice". 
This wording opens the door to protocols filtering and to prohibition of 
some softwares which are, however, perfectly legal.