Josephine Bosma on Tue, 16 Dec 1997 01:14:38 +0100 (MET) |
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<nettime> pressrelease XS4ALL |
(This is a rough translation, my appologies for spellingmistakes and vocabulary misreadings....many legal terms JB) XS4ALL has filed complaint against Justice Department Today XS4ALL has informed the Head Public Prosecutor Vrakking in Amsterdam of the requisitioning of the Examining Judge and Public Prosecutor which ordered XS4ALL on October 31st to tap the internet traffic of one of its clients. The Justice Dept had based its requisition on article 125i of the Dutch lawbook (WvSr). November 13th XS4ALL refused to give in to the requisitioning because in her opinion there is not enough legal basis for it. Not obeying such an order can be punished. >From all reactions XS4ALL has received since its refusal, she is strengthened in her opinion the Justice Dept went too far with its requisitioning. On basis of the mentioned article no tap can be requested. XS4ALL thinks that an attempt of the Justice Dept to have her engaged in an illegal activity can not happen unsanctioned. XS4ALL is aiming at a speed test trial so a criminal judge can utter his thoughts about the requisitioning and the acts of the officials involved. XS4ALL therefore has filed charges on basis of articles 365 and 140 of the Dutch lawbook (WvSr). Article 365 implies 'compulsion by official', where an official abuses his authority and forces somebody to do something. In this case the officials involved knew the requisition had no legal basis and they abused their power by demanding this requisitioning anyway. Furthermore, publications show that many other internetproviders were approached with this same requisition and that long negotiations took place beforehand. Because of this fact, there is enough reason to suspect the officials involved of participating in an organisation that is aimed at committing crimes, for which article 140 is adressed. (article 140 is often abused by the Justice Dept to arrest people without real reason, like during the EU-top last summer, and also a few years ago when some possible radio 100 suspects were arrested. JB) XS4ALL feels principally obliged to protect the privacy of her clients. Besides this XS4ALL has a commercial interest, as she cannot risk that clients bring civil action against her for illegal activities. This might happen in the case of such an intervention, which is not based upon the law. Finally it is important from a social point of view that the procedure of criminal investigations has enough legal basis. Cooperating with this requisition could create an undesirable precedent that is of great influence on the privacy of all Internet users in the Netherlands. XS4ALL has no opinion about the nature of the investigations or the suspected crimes. Neither will XS4ALL give any information about the content of the investigation, the region in which it is happening, or the identity of the officials involved, as it is not her intention to corrupt the investigation. More information about this case, including press releases and articles (mostly if not only in dutch JB): http://www.xs4all.nl/ * --- # 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