Letzte Woche haben wir darüber berichtet, dass die geheime Liste in Deutschland indizierter Webseiten veröffentlicht wurde. Am folgenden Tag haben wir uns entschieden, den Link zur Originalseite herauszunehmen, da die Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (KJM) gedroht hat, uns wegen “Zugänglichmachung von Kinderpornografie” anzuzeigen. (Danach haben wir je ein Interview mit der Hackerin/dem Hacker und der Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (BPjM) veröffentlicht.)
Jetzt hat die KJM auch den Hoster der Leak-Seite kontaktiert. In einer veröffentlichten Mail schreibt die Bereichsleiterin Jugendmedienschutz:
Two lists (containing URLs) were published on one of your blogs […]. The list of URLs contains child sexual abuse material (CSAM), animal pornography, nazi propaganda, minors in poses involving unnatural sexual emphasis and content inciting hatred, just to name a few. All of the URLs are illegal under German law. Since CSAM is also illegal under US law, we are of the opinion that this site violates the laws applying to your service and also violates your terms of conditions.
[…]
The KJM would therefore be thankful if you would support the German system by taking [the website] offline.
(Wir haben mal bei der KJM angefragt, gegen welche(s) Gesetz(e) alle diese URLs verstoßen.)
Kyle Drake, Gründer des Hosters Neocities (ein Nachfolger des legendären Freehosters Geocities), hat dazu einen Blog-Beitrag verfasst: The German government is pressuring Neocities to censor a disclosure of their censorship list. Darin beschreibt er, wie er mit Juristen der Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) gesprochen hat und diese auch noch nicht genau abschätzen können, wie die Rechtslage für ihn ist. Also hat er gemeinsam mit dem Leaker/der Leakerin beschlossen, die URLs zunächst zu entfernen:
As far as I see it right now, the BPjM leak is a responsible and justified disclosure to highlight the glaring security problems with the German government censorship system. But much more importantly than that, it highlights the chilling implications of allowing an unelected, anti-judicial government censorship agency to publish an arbitrary, secret blacklist with no public inspection or due process of law for those who have been falsely accused. Neocities does remove sites due to content from time to time, but the context here is different. As I understand it right now, this is fundamentally about disclosing insecure, unfair, and unaccountable government censorship on the web. That seems like a legitimate use of Neocities to me.
But hosting the site puts me in a very dangerous situation. If I remove the site, I am curtailing discussion on the problems with internet censorship. If I leave the site up, it means that Neocities may get banned in Germany, using the same censorship list. The German censorship list would then, in essence, be used to prevent discussion on the problems with the censorship list, which is something I find to be thoroughly abusive. It’s also possible that hosting this list (even as plain-text) violates United States law, as the German censorship agency suggests.
I was able to discuss this (informally) with EFF staff attorneys on Monday (I hope you’re a member of the EFF, this is why they’re important), and unfortunately, the legal implications of hosting the plain-text list are currently uncertain. I’m pretty worried about that, obviously.
Both for the protection of Neocities, and for the protection of myself, I have (per the discloser’s own suggestion and the EFF’s informal opinion) requested that the discloser remove the list of sites for the moment, until I can get some legal clarity on the situation. Disclosure of the vunerability, however, will remain intact, and the discloser’s rights to use Neocities will not be curtailed unless I am forced by US law to remove them. If I receive legal clarity that it is legal to publish the list in the United States, I will inform the discloser, and they will be free to add the list back to the site, if they choose to.
Neocities würde sich über Spenden für Anwaltskosten freuen.