Hack 4: activisten wereldwijd bedreigd door hackvoorstel
Maandag 17 juni opende Minister Timmermans de derde Freedom Online conferentie in Tunesië. De Minister sprak daar uitgebreid met bloggers die hem vertelden over de problemen die zij ondervinden bij hun activiteiten, zoals tegenwerking door autoriteiten. Eén van die problemen is het Nederlandse hackvoorstel.
De bekende Bahrainse blogster Amira Al Hussaini vertelt:
“Arab-style dictatorship comes to mind when reading about the new draft law under consideration in the Netherlands. The law gives Dutch police powers to hack into computers, including those located abroad, and search and delete data and install spyware. Much of this is a reality in the region I come from.
As a Bahraini blogger, I felt I was reading a draconian law from my own country or that of a neighbouring country, many of which have internet freedom rankings and human rights records which are a shame to humanity. Activists in Bahrain have recently complained about their computers infected by FinSpy, a product sold by British company Gamma International, which allowed not only spying on material on the infected computers, but also remotely turned on cameras and microphones on the computers and mobile phones being spied on. This is a stark invasion of privacy and goes against human decency. This nightmarish scenario is what makes me weary of any law which aims to monitor, spy and hack into people’s computers under the disguise of fighting cybercrime as there are certainly other means of fighting crime.
As digital natives, we aspire to have the freedoms and responsibilities other “free” people around the world are entitled and bond to. Seeing the “West” descend to this alarming level of enshrining surveillance into a law is a serious concern. What would dictatorships around the world do when a country like Holland rubberstamps such a law?”
Helaas was Amira niet in Tunesië om Minister Timmermans deze vraag te stellen. Wij waren er wel, zodat we zo veel mogelijk mensen van de gevaren van het hackvoorstel konden doordringen. En om de Minister te vragen hoe de voorvechtersrol die hij daar voor Nederland heeft gespeeld, te verenigen is met de draconische voorstellen die in eigen land leven. Het antwoord hebben we nog van hem te goed.
Zeg Ivo, jij vindt toch ook dat deze reactie snel moet komen?
