On April 17th, 2009, five major internet providers signed a contract with the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). With this contract, they commit themselves to impede access to websites contained on a blacklist maintained by the BKA. Further details of the contract are kept secret.

There. Now it's correct. Unfortunately. There's not a big differrence actually - in Germany, the Internet has overtaken newspapers as source of information, and the same will probably happen to TV in a few year's time. That aggravates the fact that a federal agency can now control the content of what is a large part of the German internet market (thanks to the five willing major internet providers). And that without any legal basis.

For me, the worst about all this is the fact that in this system, there is no supervisory body. The BKA plans to hire four to six people to update the blacklist daily. What ends up on the list will be blocked. Any further investigation through a judge or the parliament is not planned. This doesn't follow the rule of law in Germany so far. In the case of exigent circumstance, the police can search houses even without a judge signing the warrant. However, these cases must be affirmed by a judge later.

So far, this is a voluntary secret contract, limited until the end of 2010, but a new law is being worked on.

That would be enough. But unfortunately, it goes on. The access control plans are enforced by the German Minister of Family Affairs von der Leyen. According to her, the goal is to prevent access to child pornography. To support this, a lot of claims are made that prove to be untenable when looking a bit closer.

And now, we are back at square one: The information published by both sides is biased. For someone that has no background in the topic at all, the numbers stated by both sides cannot be verified. And of course, statistics in general are hard to interpret without the necessary background. However, the material I found leads me to the conclusion that the German government publishes misleading information regarding the alleged commercial distribution of child pornography on the Internet - whether intentionally or unintentionally. Another question unanswered is why the government does not proceed against the providers of child pornographic material rather than just blocking access to it. It seems they are trying to build up a case to implement the infrastructure for access blocking.

Before I link to some of the material, I'd like to say something about two arguments often heard against the currently implemented access control:

First, many argue that the implemented controls are easy to circumvent. For me, this is the wrong line of argument. If many people try to use alternative proxies or DNS servers, it will not be long before they are blocked on an IP level.

Second, the slogan "Von Laien regiert" (ruled by laymen - a pun on von der Leyens name) is often heard (it is also used for today's strike against internet access control at Spreeblick). True, the slogan sounds nice. Still, I find it wrong to argue that the access control is implemented poorly or without a better understanding of the Internet. And I'm not sure whether this is really the work of people that don't know better. Some things might have been done this way intentionally.

Some background material (all in German)

The thirteen lies of Ursula. A polemic article that doesn't really back up its claims, but that demonstrates the basic problems with the claims the government makes.

The arguments for child pornograpy access control are going nowhere. Some background information from c't-Magazin.

Indiskretion Ehrensache, the blog of German financial newspaper Handelsblatt, has some more background information and links.

The Süddeutsche writes that it can be easy to disconnect servers with illegal material - if you want to.

The Zeit interviews a victim of child abuse that speaks out agains access control. I'm not sure whether he speaks for more people than just himself, but it is still a very interesting read.

To finish, a quote (see the German version of this blog entry for the original text):

“When this law comes into effect, it will not protect children against abuse, it will not protect offenders against themselves or help to catch them, it wil not protect the curious from getting into trouble with the authorities. It will not even be something the CSU can use to hunt down anyone.

All of this is very far away. Far away from the more nuanced views of investigators, therapists and psychologists. It is just close to the citizen's emotions. There is nothing that makes people feel as empty and angry as children being tormented. Nothing that bewilders you as much as fellow citizens mauling their offspring with plastic bags, photo lenses, broom sticks, bottlenecks and their own bodies.

[…]

Conjuring a tightly organized hunt-down therefore is just election campaign rhethorics. It would be much more helpful if Ursula von der Leyen were to focus on her main competence, the place that harbours most of the offenders even in an Internet age: the family.”

Via Tautoko, taken from an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung