Scary cybercrime treaty


Something else got snuck in by the back door
I've no problem with investigating certain cybercrimes, particularly those that result in fraud or harm to individuals. But somehow the definitions keep getting stretched, and it is freedom that gets shortchanged. The Senate approved a new treaty.

But one portion, which provoked the most controversy, deals with international cooperation. It says Internet providers must cooperate with electronic searches and seizures without reimbursement; the FBI must conduct electronic surveillance "in real time" on behalf of another government; that U.S. businesses can be slapped with "expedited preservation" orders preventing them from routinely deleting logs or other data.

What's controversial about those requirements is that they don't require "dual criminality"--in other words, Russian security services investigating democracy activists could ask for the FBI's help in uncovering the contents of their Yahoo Mail or Hotmail accounts, or even conducting live wiretaps.

"Our primary concern is that there's no dual criminality within the mutual assistance provisions," said Danny O'Brien, activism coordinator with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "The U.S. is now obliged to investigate and monitor French Internet crimes, say, and France is obliged to obey America's requests to spy on its citizens, for instance--even if those citizens are under no suspicion for crimes on the statute books of their own country."

Got that? Even though it may not be against the law here (or there as the case may be), signatories of the treaty are obligated to investigate. And the ISPs have to provide the information and can not be reimbursed.

Anyone else see the immediate potential for abuse here?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - August 4, 2006 at 02:46 PM  Tag


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