more on Internet censorship

[CMUNSON]

>>From Edupage, 8 June 1997:
     
  >GERMAN COURT TO TRY WOMAN FOR GUERRILLA HYPERLINKS
  >A court in Berlin will hear the case of a woman accused of 
  >providing a hyperlink on her Web site to provide visitors access to 
  >the banned left-wing publication Radikal, a publication which 
  >offers instructions on how to sabotage railway lines.  (New York 
  >Times
   >6 Jun 97 & 7 Jun 97)
     
>To be in compliance with German law, it would seem important that any 
>librarian or scholarly researcher compiling lists of Internet resources 
>relevant to terrorism avoid (self-censor) such links.
     
>Note that I have *not* posted this to filt4lib, since although it involves 
>censorship as it may impact libraries, it does not directly involve 
>filtering.
     
     I have appended an AP story to this message, which I posted to one of 
     my web sites. Germany is taking a "get tough" approach on Internet 
     content, one that is pretty scary. Just because the government labels 
     a group terrorist doesn't necessarily make them so. To decide for 
     yourself I have listed here a link to a Radikal mirror site.
     
     Because of Germany's onerous censorship, people around the world have 
     set up Radikal mirror sites, not because they agreed with Radikal or 
     its writers, but because they see this censorship as something to be 
     resisted. The German government attempted to fight back by asking 
     German ISPs to block access to ANY site with Radikal on it, anywhere 
     in the world. Thus XS4ALL, a Dutch site that provides cheap Internet 
     access for community groups and activists, was blocked from almost 
     anybody surfing in from Germany. I think the German government has 
     eased up, but I don't have the specifics in front of me.
     
     I'm sure CyberPatrol would have blocked Radikal in a case like this, 
     because of the alleged "terrorism." Now, say you were a library patron 
     who had heard about this magazine in the Ny Times and decided to go to 
     the library to look it up on the Net to see for yourself. Wouldn't it 
     be pretty frustrating to find it blocked, if the library had installed 
     censorware?
     
     Chuck
     
     ATS's Radikal Mirror Site:
     http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/RADIKAL/index.htm 


-------------------------------------

German Leftist Goes On Trial For A Radical
Link On Her Home Page

Associated Press, 06/06/97 

BERLIN (AP) - A leftist politician went on trial today for maintaining an 
Internet home page with a cyberspace link to a banned magazine that 
allegedly encourages violence. 

The case against Angela Marquardt is part of a broader and controversial 
effort by German authorities to keep material banned in Germany from 
flowing into its cyberspace. 

Marquardt, the 25-year-old deputy leader of the Party of Democratic 
Socialism that succeeded the East German communist party, is accused of 
being an accessory to giving instructions on how to commit crimes. 

Prosecutors say a link from her home page leads to a banned leftist 
magazine "Radikal" where instructions had been posted on how to build bombs 
and derail trains. 

Marquardt said at the start of the trial in Berlin state court that she did 
not post the material personally and had committed no crime. "What the 
prosecutor's office is attempting here is a war against the Internet," she 
said. 

She alleged that the only reason prosecutors have gone after her is because 
of her membership in the Party of Democratic Socialism, whose members are 
treated like pariahs by mainstream politicians but have a sizable following 
among ordinary east Germans. 

German authorities have gone to great lengths to hold Internet services 
accountable for the access they provide to material that violates German 
law, much of which is produced outside of German jurisdiction.