SecurityFocus HOME News: U.S. defends cybercrime treaty via Slashdot
I'm getting depressed about all the crap that's coming down lately. It's almost like people don't want to be free.
Today's wonderful tidbit of demogogery comes from a treaty which may, in fact, allow other countries to accuse someone of a cyber crime, and then force the US to monitor that person for them..
A quote from the article:
That worries civil libertarians. The treaty is open to any country, with the approval of those that have already ratified it, and some fear that it could put the United States' surveillance capabilities at the disposal of foreign governments with poor human rights records, who may be investigating actions that are not considered crimes elsewhere.
Note that it's not necessary for you to have broken a US law, just a law in another country.
Which gets us to the law itself:
3. Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to empower its competent authorities to seize or similarly secure computer data accessed according to paragraphs 1 or 2. These measures shall include the power to :a. seize or similarly secure a computer system or part of it or a computer-data storage medium;
b. make and retain a copy of those computer data;
c. maintain the integrity of the relevant stored computer data; and
c. [sic] render inaccessible or remove those computer data in the accessed computer system.
Wonderful. The power for foreign governments to get to your data. My word, how enlightened.
*Sigh*. It's always been this way, I suppose; sometimes I wish I wasn't informed about it, though.
Posted by Ted Stevko at April 25, 2004 11:32 PM | TrackBack