Here's an issue that prominent Hebrew bloggers and Internet activists like Hanan Cohen, Jonathan Klinger (English version here) and Gadi Shimshon are taking very seriously: A bill that proposes to introduce Internet censorship to Israel has passed a first reading in the Knesset without opposition. A full list of Hebrew bloggers' posts about the bill is here. Gal Mor wrote about the issue for Ynet last March, but I noticed the article only after Julien Pain, Internet Freedom Editor for Reporters Without Borders, sent me the link and an inquiry: how likely is it that the bill will pass all the readings and become law?

Hebrew speakers can read the original bill here; my translation is below.

 

Proposed law to limit Internet access for adults

Definitions:
1. For the purposes of this law -

• "Sites for adults" are those that deal with sex, violence or gambling
• "Physical recognition"  - by physical means, electronic or biometric, which will confirm the identity of the computer user, in addition to a password

2. Blocking Internet sites

• The ISP will block access to the Internet sites, and will not permit access except by means of physical recognition

3. Punishment
(a) The ISP that violates the law, as outlined in section 2, will be jailed for one year and pay a fine of NIS 20,000 (about $5,000)
(b) An ISP that has been convicted of breaking the law and then repeats the offense, will have its license revoked, in addition to any other punishments, for a period of not less than 6 months.
4. Commencement
The law will take effect 30 days after it is passed
Comments - Explanations
Today the Internet is so common that it has exposed minors to sites that may damage their education and provide them with a twisted and damaging view of reality.
This bill is proposed in order to minimize this damage, whereby access to the sites will be blocked and made possible only by means of physical recognition. Thus access for minors will be minimized.
This bill has been laid on the table of the sixteenth Knesset by MK Yechiel Hazan and MK Yitzhak Vaknin.

 

 

My feeling is that this bill is unlikely to become law. I think it has failed thus far to attract wider attention because the Israeli public has become massively apathetic over the past few years. But if the day does come when people discover they have to apply to their ISP's for permission to surf "sex sites"  at home, for example, I'm sure there will be a rather loud reaction. However, just the fact that this bill has been introduced to the legislature of a democratic state is pretty embarrassing. If parents are worried about their children accessing unsuitable sites, they can purchase filtering software or find some other way to monitor their kids' Internet use. It is not the government's job to decide for adults what sites are suitable for them to access. And besides, as Gal Mor and everyone else has pointed out, the wording of this bill is outrageously vague: by what criteria is a site deemed "violent"? The news is pretty damned violent - does that mean the Ministry of Communications can force Israeli ISP's to block access to Ynet and Haaretz? Will Youtube be blocked because it has hip hop videos?

 

Jonathan Klinger writes:

The Statute itself is quite brief and [inconclusive]. It does not explain how such Biometric data be taken, and who will manage the database. The Statute does not determine who is considered an Adult (the Israeli Law includes quite a few ages of consent) and will all traffic be blocked on a “White-List” basis or a “Black-List” basis. The Draft also does not explain what is considered an “Adult Website”, i.e: Is a website whose main business is sexual instruction considered adult or is a website with Gay content considered one?

I need not to explain what is wrong with allowing (or mandating) ISPs in holding Biometric Identification Databases, These databases are currently being held only by the Israeli Police and contain only information regarding Suspects, Convicted Felons and Evidence found in crime scenes. Data regarding suspects is deleted after suspects’ acquittal. These databases can only be accessed by Israel’s Security Authorities and may only be used for solving crimes or preventing them. What are the uses of the Biometric Identification held at the ISPs?

The bill was introduced to the Knesset by two members of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party. One of its supporters is Shas MK Ariel Attias, who is currently Minister of Communications. The vast majority of the Israeli mainstream media is secular, as is the majority of the Israeli public, but the religious parties do have power that is disproportionate to their number of constituents. This has been a source of tension in Israel for decades, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this piece. I mention it only because much of the commentary in opposition to this bill has included anti-Orthodox mudslinging. It's easy to understand why: as Eran Gabay points out in this article for Haaretz, MK Attias does not use the Internet at home for religious reasons, and he could have suggested that ISP's supply their customers with screening software instead of taking the radical step of trying to censor the Internet. But I think it is a huge mistake, for both moral and pragmatic reasons, to let anti-religious prejudice distract from the real issue: censorship is wrong, full stop. The Internet is democracy in its purest and most glorious form: It allows free access to information, and unfiltered communication. Internet censorship has no business in a democratic society - or any society, for that matter - and ordinary citizens need to make their government aware that they oppose this bill.

Update: Amos, who contributes to the group blog Kishkushim, makes an important point in the comments:
...I am afraid that you are not really going to convince the other side that "censorship is wrong, full stop" either. The haredi elite and large parts of the public see censorship and surveillance as absolutely crucial to the maintenance of their ways of life. There is no real private sphere for unmarried individuals in that world - or at least, there aren't too many people who would invest energy in defending it. Not that it gets much better for married people.

I am not saying this to denigrate that way of life; but I think those who care about this encroachment on their freedom should make it very clear that this is about a fundamentalist minority trying to impose its norms on the rest of society.