Dyrathror

Does anybody recall the novel Catch 22 from Joseph Heller? One of the main characters in the novel is the army B-25 bombardier Yossarian who tries to escape the war by playing crazy which is the reason why he is found to be perfectly healthy by the doctors and qualified to attend the war.

In one word:

Within the book, “Catch-22” is a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic that, for example, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions.

Why do I refer to this book?

In Germany the authorities are exactly playing a Catch 22 against all internet users!

With the argument to fight against child pornography german authorities forced the biggest internet providers in germany to sign a contract according to which they have to establish internet filters according to a list from the german BKA (highest police in germany) as stated in BKA filtert das Web on Spiegel Online. As everybody in this circus knows, all arguments why these measures are not leading to the desired results and are therefore only duped to establish a control mechanism can be read in the article Die Argumente für Kinderporno-Sperren laufen ins Leere.

Now the content of a draft of the bill for the fight against child pornography is published in Kinderporno-Sperren: Provider sollen Nutzerzugriffe loggen dürfen. Further thoughts about this subject are expressed in Zensursula: Gesetzentwurf am Mittwoch & Gedanken zur medialen Wahrnehmung.

The Catch 22 in this is: Not only the criminal content is targeted in this new law but also the filter lists are secret because the content of the domains on these lists is criminal and because the filter lists are secret nobody is allowed to check if the content which shall be filtered is really about child pornography because as soon as you try to check the doing of the BKA you are a criminal too!

To go further, the internet providers are allowed to store all connection data concerning the domains on these lists which means when you are stumbling on such a website, automatically you are under suspicion to be a criminal.

The german constitution stipulates the separation of executive, judicial power and legislation. This means that normally measures which effect the basic law of the people in Germany cannot be decreed by the police without the agreement of a judge. Now the basic law of information and free communication can be restricted by the police without control by the judicial powers or anybody else! This especially because only the police decides about which domain is set on its list. In my eyes this is a violation of the german constitution!

Please keep in mind:

To make this clear, I am the first one to fight against child pornography or abuse for I have children on my own! Therefore it is even more horrible for me that this argumentation is used to suppress the opposition against establishing internet control mechanisms.

Sometimes I ask myself if in the fight for a political position nowadays everything is allowed because in my eyes a major part of all this is already the fight for the next election.

In Germany a big political discussion is going on about the establishment of internet blockers to fight the spread of child pornography. Netzpolitik.org is calling for a picket against internet blocks in Berlin on friday Mahnwache am Freitag: Keine Scheuklappen fürs Netz!

As studies about the actual situation show, nearly all of the servers with denounced content could be legally taken from the internet without any collateral damage which would be caused by internet filtering. Based on a list from https://scusiblog.org/ who set the published blocking lists from Finnland, Norway and Australia into relation of the position of the servers where the content is hosted, Rochus Wessel went one step further and analysed these countries according to a study from the Internatinal Centre for missing & exploited Children about the legal possibilities to ban these contents in compliance with the local laws in these countries “Netzsperren sind Vermeidbar“.

Interesting in this context is the conclusion Rochus Wessel took:

The analysis shows that the predominant part of blocked content is hosted on servers in countries which would allow a complete deletion of the content. This lesser intervention should by all means be preferred because it causes no collateral damage and is more effective because deleted content cannot be accessed any more while filtered content is always still accessible by bypassing the filtering mechanisms.

How is it possible that in country A, which prohibits child pornography, content is still continously available while in country B these contents are already known to and blocked by the police?

1. The classification in country B as child pornography was wrong
2. Country A has less strikt laws then country B
3. The public authorities in country B did not inform country A
4. The public authorities in country A did not act in spite of their knowledge

Supposed that country A would be the USA these contents would be deleted within 1-3 days so that case (4) can be ignored. As well case (2) can be ignored because in this case the USA has perhaps the most restrictive laws in the world. Remains case (3) which would show a drastic lack of international cooperation which should be eliminated at once or case (1) which would state that all raised fears of opponents of internet filters were legitimate.

I can only add that this kind of blind political actionism which is produced by germans minister Ursula von der Leyen is only good to distinguish herself but in the matter completely contra productive. To exploit the rule of law possibilities and strengthen the international cooperation might be politically less sexy but would be in my eyes a much more effective way if the real goal is a fight against abuse of the internet.

Otherwise, you can call me paranoid, the reason for these campaigns might be simply to establish internet filtering as legal instrument to control the internet and therefore us all.