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Subject: <nettime> interview with armin medosch From: Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl> Date: 11 Jul 1997 19:01:18 +0200 * * * * * Sender: owner-nettime-l@Desk.nl Precedence: bulk From: "Armin Medosch" <armin@mail.easynet.co.uk> Interview with Armin Medosch (Telepolis) the following text I wrote in response to questions of the danish journalist erik kjaer larsen. I thought it might be interesting for nettimers too. It is about internet laws in germany. Hallo Erik, find here some URL´s and some commentaries to your questions: > I gather from Telepolis informations that the laws > are generally very unpopular in Germany, at least with > the opposition. That's not precisely true. The law is unpopular amongst economists, researchers, users. But concerning political parties in parliament the split goes right through the parties themselves. The only party with a clear position are the Greens, they are against the law. Within the SPD there is a small group which is net-wize and against the law. But the majority of the SPD Parliament members doesn´t understand anything and just wants to secure their influence on the regional level (many regions are spd-governed). And also the leading christ-democrats are split. There is a hardline law and order enforcement group around Minister Kanther, which tryed to bring in these sharp paragraphes about liability of isp`s. There is the economy-friendly liberal group around Rexrodt, which would rather have liked to have another law. Ruettgers, the one who conceived the law, is somewhere in the middle. he doesn´t seem to have a real opinion of his own. You can find out about diverse positions in a funny photo story about the parliamentary discussion with cites of original statements. Fotostory http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1230/fhome.htm Bundestag beschließt Multimediagesetz http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1220/fhome.htm Kommentar Multimediagesetz http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1201/fhome.htm Rechtsunsicherheit als Programm http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1117/fhome.htm > If you can find the time, I would also ask you to >specify the most obvious threats to freedom of speech, >coming from the new laws. Are they in reality similar >to CDA... No, I would not say that. The CDA is a completely other cup of tea. "Free speech" was not in the centre of the german discussion. It was rather that the government wanted to hold ISP´s liable for illegal and harmful content on the net. The idea was/is, that if an ISP has got notice of illegal content which he is providing access to (he is not giving the information, just acces to it through the internet) then he should block access (block a certain newsgroup, a website). There is strong incidence that the Kanther-Hardliners purposefully created a test-case with the leftwing newspaper "radikal". This magazine is forbidden in germany since it was found guilty in several trials of supporting terrorist action in the eighties. For ten years they could not produce an issue in germany any more. So their latest issue was put on the server xs4all in holland. Last September the german state prosecuter wrote a letter to all ISP´s that they should block acces to xs4all. Unfortunately for the state prosecutor it is not possible to ban a single website, instead the whole server has to be blocked. But xs4all is very popular and soon there was a huge wave of protests. The accused webSite of radikal was mirrored on 60 -70 servers around the world. So just a few ISP´s followed the wish of the prosecutor and tryed to ban, but many didn´t. It is yet an open question if those who didn´t block will be accused by the state prosecutor. Then in January 97 the government did the next unwize strike on the net. They accused Angela Marquardt, former vize-director of the post-socialist party from east germany (follow up party of SED) that she supported terrorism by displaying a link on here homepage to the "radikal"- page. Actually the prosecutor sayed that she was "providing access to terrorist material" through this link. This lawsuit raised the question if users can be hold liable for links they supply on their private homepages. In June Marquardt was spoken free, but the argumentation of the judge was very formalistic and didn´t touch that basic question about users liability for links. So you see, in germany the discussion is rather not about indecent speech, you can say "fuck" if you want, but about political radicalism of the extreme left and the extreme right. As often the government choses the left as open target because the right is much more dangerous and federal police is said to be in serious investigations about right wing activities but does not want anything to go out in public in a too early state because that might warn the neonazis about police inquiries. Marquardt case see here http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1236/fhome.htm This special concern about radicalism is a heritage of germans special history - the third reich and the RAF (Read Army Fraction) terrorism in the seventies and early eighties. Because of fascism in the german bill of rights the right of free speech is not given to neonazis. Any holocaust denials or activism of neonazis is strictly forbidden and not considered free speech. Because of the RAF this was extended also to the radical-left. Another area of specific concern is organized crime in general and child pornography in particular. Thats why Minister for Inner Security affairs Kanther wanted to forbid strong cryptography and wants to hold ISP´s liable for content. Law enformcement agencies of the state should have access, to his opinion, to all communication channels which people might use. Thats why allready in 1996, when the telecommunications law (not to be mistaken as the new multimedia law) was passed, a paragraph was included, that the state should have secret acces through special phone lines to all customer databanks of telecommunications providers (phone companies, so to say). Without the provider or the customer even taking notice of it they can get their connection data. This is not the same as wiretapping. They are not listening automatically to phone conversations (this needs still a verdict of a judge). But they can easily find out, who talked to whom at which time. They can find out who uses phone sex or other special services. Especially journalists are very suspicious about this paragraph because they fear that the anonymity of informants cannot be secured any longer. Also people involved in political affairs can easily become blackmailed if they do phone sex ore other things which seem to be socially not accepptable for public persons. > Do you think the insellösung could/would be adapted by other countries? I think that Germany is not heading for an "inselloesung" any longer. They obviously lost the battle with xs4all and they lost the radical case. And maybe they even got sick about being mentioned in one sequence with Singapore and China when talk is about internet censorship. So Kanther drew back from his cryptography banning plans. Probably not because of protests of the left but because of industry protests. Quite a significant effort is done in germany in research about cryptography with major companies like Siemens and Daimler Benz involved. Cryptography is free now in germany, at least for the next two years (try-out phase). Also it seems that they don´t see the ISP´s liability for content so narrow minded any more. Instead of state action they seem to favour now rating systems like PICS. The Bonn conference and the Ministers declaration about the internet published on 8th of July marks a turning point in the position of the german government. Instead of an "inselloesung" they try now to find concensus about how and to which extend the internet should be regulated on a European level. They probably found out that one country alone has not even the technical possibility of gaining controll over the net. What should they do, build a huge firewall around the german net? The tendency goes, as in economy, towards the building of huge power blocks - Europe, North America, the ASEAN states. The Bonn declaration is an attempt to formulate a European position: Not the internet as a "free trade zone" as Clinton has proposed recently, but as a mixture of regulation, self-organisation and economical liberalism. Bonn Declaration http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1244/fhome.htm > Was Rexrodt one of the laws protagonists? > I may sound a bit paranoid, but it could look like the > Bonn declaration of last weekend is just a fancy > facade atop a hidden EU-internet-agenda? So I wouldn´t say that this is paranoid. But also it is not so "hidden". It is, as I said above, about forming a European position within the triad of economical superpowers. There is a number of issues involved with this and the driving force to act is economical growth and the creation of new jobs. So the Europeans disagree with the USA in a number of issues. For example the domain name question. The EU opposed the IHAC proposal for new top level domain names. The Europeans are also no longer pleased with the fact that all top-level-domain name root servers are located in the US. The Bonn Declaration reads like a sundays sermon to me. To gain the foremost goal of economical growth and staying at least in touch with the technological development they have, to my surprise, included a number of social issues. They say that the net should not cause new exclusions, the gap between information rich and information poor should not become bigger. They even talk about public access terminals in libraries and that europes chance is content on the net. Governments should improve possibilities for citizens to get informed and to participate in democartic processes. They even declare "good will" to support development countries to get connected. So has the wind changed? The turning down of the CDA by the Supreme Court might be further incident. Maybe it also influenced the Bonn declaration. But I think we should be careful with any prognosis at this state. Just some examples: The EU is also in favour of extending copyright to databanks "sui generis", that means that any statistical data displayed on the net is copyright protected. The WIPO conference in Geneva in December 96 turned this proposal down which could have a very negative effect on educationel purposes because financially week educational organizations will not have the money to pay for acces to data banks. Also the rating systems issue will become big in the EU in the next months. Nobody knows yet where the legitimation for rating authorities should come from. Companies and Organizations rate on a very arbitraily basis. Also the EU seems to believe that the further building of the technical infrastructure for the net should be done merely by market forces. So it is hard to believe that an information superhighway, which is entirely created and owned by companies will not lead to new exclusions or would out of humanitarian reasons give free acces tothe poor, the unemployed, the homeless people and the people of the (non-geographically understood) third world. CDA http://www.heise.de/tp/te/1235/fhome.htm > Could you help me to specify the role of > Rexrodt/Bangemann in all this - I heard they stood > behind the Bonn conference, and apparently Bangemann > is also the architect of the INFO2000 scheme.> There is not much to say about them. They are blunt neo-liberalists. Rexrodt, as his liberal-democrat collegue in the Kohl-cabinet, Schmidt-Jortzig, Minister of Justice, have not got much to say in the government. They might do some typical liberal statements in public but the decisions are made elsewhere. Bangemann probably wants to be seen as the grounding-father of the european information-highway. But as a technocrat he lacks any vision of cultural dimensions. Germany is very federalistic. So lots of the real power is in the hands of regional leaders like Stoiber, minister president of Bavaria, Schroeder, minister president of Lower Saxony and Rau/Clement, leaders of Northern Westfalia. These are the richest and most poulated states in Germany. There is the car industry, the defense industry and the media power. These regional "barons" often unite against their own party leaders and the federal government. Especially Stoiber (CSU, very right wing) and Schroeder (SPD, probable "Blair-like" candidate for the next federal elections) are acting joined forces when it comes to a strong DMark, a delay of EMU and a pro-industrialist position. So, and this is a remark going back to the Multimedia law, this law would be maybe even not so bad, if there was not a second law. This second law, a kind of contract between the federal states of germany, gives regional leaders control of the internet to some extend. The two laws try to create an artificial separation between internet services adressed to closed circles and other services adressed to "the public". The public part should be treated in a similar way as radio and televison with all laws counting for press, radio and tv being extended to the internet. But where is the separation? Can a real audio server be compared to a radio station? Is a mailinglist adressed to the broader public, if anybody can subscribe? So both laws went through parliaments now and both come into force on 1st of August. But in the parliamentary discussion it became obvious, that even the lawmakers are not very pleased with the results. The split between regionalists and internationalists goes right through the parties, the government as well as the opposition. Those MP´s who have got some idea of the working of the net know that the split between closed and public services is artificial and will cause many unnecessary lawsuits. Companies are threatening that they will operate german internet business from abroad (IBM, CompuServe) and will only come back, when the "legal dust has settled" (Hermann Neuss, IBM). So when passing the laws an addendum was creqated that the law maybe should/could be soon revised. > I went to a INFO2000 congress in Denmark recently. > It was disastrous - EU talks about content, but no > money is apparently given to those who actually > develop content. Only for as far as it is commercial. Thats right, thats one of the problems. It is easy to write down a sermon of twelfe pages and call it "Ministers declaration". At the moment the EU not even has a department for something as digital culture or media culture. There is the arts funding programme "Kaleidoscope" with a very limited budget and there are all these programs of DG XIII. There is a lot of money at DG XIII, but small cultural content providers will find it hard to get it. The big consortiums of research departments of multinationals like Siemens or Philips, together with Universities are in the race there. So how can three small registered societies from, lets say Hungary, Danmark and Netherlands can compete with these giants in teh race for funds. Telepolis also tryed to get in touch for information about the multilingual program. We would really love to have the possibility that articles that we write in german can be translated into english. We are only able to translate into the other direction ourselves. But we didn´t even get a letter back from the EU. So I would be in favour of a europeanwide campaign to support small content providers throughout Europe (deep Europe, as syndicalists would say) and to support the free publication of publicly interesting material through EU money. I hope all this could be of any help for you. yours armin > --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de