november 2004

INTERNET "2"
OR "kISS yOUR INTERNET GOODBYE"

It must also be noted that major universities, laboratories, and research institutions are currently in rapid transition to something called "Internet II." The stated purpose of this project is to "facilitate the research and education missions of universities" and their affiliated institutions. That sounds benevolent enough, but as Servado Gonzalez writes in his article "Kiss Your Internet Goodbye": "Internet 2 will be fully controlled by the state. In order to access it, or to have e-mail access, you must be a member of, or be affiliated to, any of the government-authorized organizations and have a sort of security clearance. Internet 2 will be out of the reach of the general public..." (Source: http://www.rense.com/general36/inter.htm).
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FBI tear down indymedia servers and rackspace uk follow suite
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"Rackspace may be a US company but Rackspace in London is subject to UK law
not US law. If they took down and handed over Indymedia's servers simply on
the basis of a US subpoena communicated to them this would not be lawful in
the UK.

However it seems more likely that the US subpoena was the subject of a
request for mutual legal assistance from the US Attorney General to the UK
Home Secretary under the MLA Treaty. It would for the Metropolitan Police,
probably accompanied by the FBI, to enforce the request and take possession
of the servers.

This begs the questions: Why did the Home Office agree? What grounds did
the USA give for the seizure of the servers? Where these grounds of a
"political" nature? Has the Home Office requested that the servers be
returned? What does this action say about freedom of expression and freedom
of the press?

A trail that started in Switzerland and Italy has now ended fairly and
squarely in the lap of the UK Home Secretary to justify."

Germany Imposes Draconian
Internet Tax On Citizens
Compulsory Mass Registration Of Cell Phones Next
By Michael James in Frankfurt, Germany
10-12-4

Germany has become the first country in the world to tax private personal computers that are deemed to be "Internet-capable".

The plan, long in the offing, was agreed in Berlin by the Conference of Prime Ministers of the Federal States of Germany on October 8. It is being billed as part of the expansion of the television and radio public services fee, which is administered by Germany's Radio and Television Licensing Authority and enforced by the universally despised Gebühreneinzugszentrale (GEZ), which often resorts to controversial and illegal Gestapo-like methods of gathering information on private citizens.

The new tax was originally planned to come into effect on January 1, 2007. That date still holds for businesses and large corporations, but private households will be forced to register their PCs before the deadline of March 31, 2005. Owners must then pay 17.03 euros a month for their PC unless they are already complying with the full GEZ tax for a registered television and radio.

The decision has provoked howls of protest from the nation's estimated one million Internet users who have eschewed the trashy sensationalism and state propaganda associated with the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, both of which argue that their websites constitute a public service that Internet users are accessing free of charge. Technically speaking, they say in addition, anyone with an Internet-capable PC (whether actually connected to the Internet or not) can theoretically watch their broadcasts.

"With the same argument, the public broadcast services can demand from me a fee for the existence of my briefcase, because in principle it may contain an ARD television magazine that provides free viewing tips," says Arndt Groth, President of the Federal Association of Digital Businesses (BVDW). Groth's comments, among others, have had lawyers frantically scanning the German Constitution for loopholes (notwithstanding the fact that the constitution, along with the Federal Republic of Germany itself, technically ceased to exist as a legal document on July 17, 1990).

Undaunted by the criticism that Germany is effectively nationalising private telecommunications in much the same way as Hitler did during his long reign of terror and in a style reminiscent of the taxes imposed on typewriters by the Communist Party in the former totalitarian German Democratic Republic, the Federal Minister for Culture, Christiane Weiss, has also signalled her intention of subjecting Internet-capable mobile phones to the new tax.

"Cultural sovereignty is not to be interfered with," she warned owners of PCs and mobile phones who may consider taking the matter to the European Courts. In a lengthy communications directive issued at the end of September, she defended the massive state subsidies to public broadcasters against advocates of a more free-market approach to the German media, implicitly threatening the EU's monopoly regulator with non-cooperation should a hearing be convened.

Tax-weary citizens who fail to pay the GEZ imposition or register a television or radio are liable to pay crippling fines amounting to thousands of euros and even face lengthy prison sentences. By law, individuals and businesses resident in Germany must register every television, video-recorder, DVD-player, radio, car radio and radio alarm-clock that they own, regardless as to their state of repair.

That list will surely grow longer once hectored members of the public have been goose-stepped into registering their personal computers and mobile phones for fear of the GEZ knock on the door.

_____

Michael James is a British freelance journalist and translator, resident in Germany for over 12 years. Permission to republish his work without alteration is freely granted to fellow libertarians.