FC: More on Canada licensing Internet service providers

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04103.html

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From: "Trevor" <devnull () vianet ca>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: Canada considers licensing Internet service providers
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 15:23:48 -0500

Declan,

Just so you know, a "private members bill" means that the bill does not have
the support of the government.  The NDP is has only about a dozen seats in
the House of Commons (out of 303).  Private members bills are essentially
like snowballs in hell, no chance of survival.  It's generally a way for a
MP that no one has ever heard of to get in the local newspapers in their
riding (district).

The CRTC ruled quite definatively a few years ago that ISP do not fall under
their jurisdiction, and that they were not interested in changing that and
had no interest in imposing themselves on anything related to the Internet.

In other words, there is no one of influence considering licensing the net.

Trevor

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From: "Brian K. Yoder" <byoder () earthlink net>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Canada considers licensing Internet service providers
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 17:34:09 -0800

I was an architect at EarthLink for five years and we had to deal with these
issues all the time.  I have a couple of reactions to this bill even though
it is Canadian.  First, the reason ISPs can't do anything about kiddy porn
(at least in the US) is that if ISPs do any scrutiny of content at all then
they become liable for any harm caused by anything less than perfect
control.  I would very much have liked to remove the kiddy porn sites we
hosted and the kiddy porn USENET groups, after all they aren't so hard to
find, but if we had done that but missed just one picture somewhere then we
could have been sued by anyone claiming to have been harmed by it (and for
anything else naughty that went on under our auspices).  As I see it kiddy
porn is different from most other kinds of "naughty" content in that
producing it is rightly a crime and one that necessarily hurts people too
(unlike conventional porn etc.) and rightly deserves some censorship unlike
the rest.

Anyway. when it comes to government calls for censorship we were always 100%
consistent in refusing to go along.  You may recall that we were the first
to make a splash about refusing to install Carnivore boxes in our data
centers.  We were always quite steadfast about refusing to compromise our
customer's privacy, but the kiddy porn issue is something that could have
easily been dealt with if some laws would have been changed allowing us to
do what we would have preferred to do anyway.

Licensing ISPs should be looked at just as if they were licensing the
possession of ink and paper...the first step toward censorship.

--Brian

--- Brian Yoder
--- byoder () earthlink net
--- Cell Phone: 626-255-3338  Pager: byodermobile () earthlink net

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Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 22:36:58 -0500 (EST)
From: mskala () ansuz sooke bc ca

I've set up a new page on my Web site to track all the
material I can find on ISP licensing in Canada, including my
own thoughts and the articles written by other participants
of this mailing list:

   http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/isp-licensing.html

I've also posted in my Web log another item analysing
specific points in the Bill:

   http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lw/?id=2002102702

points discussed in that posting:

   5.(1)(b) and (c), which may be "cruel and unusual
punishment" in violation of the Charter

   5.(5), which I've finally managed to parse, and which
makes almost everybody guilty

   6.(3), which indirectly requires ISPs to destroy evidence
that could otherwise convict their users

--
Matthew Skala
mskala () ansuz sooke bc ca                    Embrace and
defend.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/

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