[ih] [IP] EFF calls for signatures from Internet Engineers against censorship

[John Curran]

Keith - 
 
  Government has certain functions that it has to perform (including law 
  enforcement), but generally those tasks are performed with respect to
  "real world entities" such as people and businesses.  It's perfectly 
  reasonable for government to be able to request and obtain the legal 
  parties that were involved in a given communication (even if the answer 
  is nothing more detailed than valid legal contact for a university or
  women's shelter network or whistleblowers non-profit....)  When parties 
  in multiple jurisdictions are communicating, it's particularly important 
  that governments are involved, since there may be very different views 
  about free speech, due process, fair use, libel, etc.)

  We've completed failed to provide a framework which allows governments
  to identify parties and hence use their existing mechanisms (e.g. courts, 
  diplomacy) when it comes to the Internet, and we should not be surprised 
  therefore at government attempts to more directly control communications.  
 
  It's a shame, since if we had provided better mechanisms, then the inability 
  for the US government to obtain cooperation to identify and shutdown a given
  foreign website streaming US-illegal content would much more clearly be seen
  as an actual failure of common values & diplomacy rather than "a problem with 
  the Internet" per se.

/John
 

On Dec 19, 2011, at 7:56 AM, Keith Moore wrote:

> I'm concerned about anything that requires ISPs to impose interception proxies (DNS or HTTP or anything else) on customer traffic.   Interception proxies cause too many problems already.  They need to be eradicated rather than enshrined in law.
> 
> I'd also be concerned about anything that would view a customer's using an alternate DNS server (or other name lookup service) as "circumvention".  The Internet community needs the ability to develop better alternatives to DNS while still retaining compatibility with the DNS name space.
> 
> Keith
> 
> On Dec 19, 2011, at 7:42 AM, John Curran wrote:
> 
>> On Dec 19, 2011, at 4:22 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
>> 
>>> has anyone seen the present state of the bill after two days of mark up?
>> 
>> Present state is here <http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/mark_12152011.html>
>> 
>> The "Manager's Amendment" is the base admendment, and there are have been four
>> voice votes and one roll vote which have passed and therefore have modified the 
>> base amendment.  Text of all motions to amend and disposition are on the website.
>> 
>> At present, the bill provides for domestic ISPs to be required by "order" to 
>> block (via DNS filtering or other means) websites or portions of websites from 
>> being accessed by their domestic customers.  It enables government to order an 
>> otherwise uninvolved party (the ISP) to interfere with the communications of
>> its customers for the presumed financial benefit of third-party content owners.
>> Depending how one reads the text, such orders either require the decision of 
>> the US Attny Gen or decision of a federal court, and attempts to clarify 
>> this point via amendment have failed repeatedly during the markup process.
>> 
>> FYI,
>> /John
>> 
>> 
>> 
>