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Smothering The Blogs?
From Italian blogger Beppe Grillo, via Iain Dale:
"Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man , undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement.
"The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money. Blogs are being born every second, anyone can start one without a problem and they can write their thoughts, publish photos and videos. In fact, the route proposed by Levi limits access to the Internet."
"What young person is going to submit to all these hoops to do a blog? the Levi-Prodi law obliges anyone who has a website or a blog to get a publishing company and to have a journalist who is on the register of professionals as the responsible director. 99% would close down. The lucky 1% still surviving on the Internet according to the Levi-Prodi law would have to respond in the case of the lack of control on defamatory content in accordance with articles 57 and 57 bis of the penal code. Basically almost sure to be in prison. If the law gets passed, it’ll be the end of the Internet in Italy. My blog won’t close. If I have to, I’ll transfer lock stock, barrel and server to a democratic State."
The Register, however, argues that the law is unlikely to survive without serious amendment. "Comparisons with Burma" reportedly caused the centre-left coalition to backpedal over the terms of the law, which is set to be revised: Ministers have admitted that the law they just approved was "liberty-killing" and "needs fixing."
Nevertheless, as the Register's report concludes, it demonstrates that Italy's government is desperately out of touch with the information revolution. Romano Prodi's team are far from alone in this respect - commentators on the Register note that Poland has a similar law in place, a 1984 relic of Soviet rule which hasn't been struck from the legal code. Britain has laws which allow police to demand encryption codes. It is possible that other EU nations have dormant or buried clauses which could restrict web publishing should a government choose to interpret it in that way... it could be a matter of throwing a switch.
