[LINK] Effi: Finnish police censors a critic of censorship

[rene]

(Background: Some/all(?) Finnish ISPs started voluntarily - after 
government encouragement - blocking access to so-called c-p sites on a list 
provided by police in late 2007, most of them started blocking in Jan 2008. 
A law was created giving police the right to collect info about c-p
sites and to ask ISPs to block access to same).

Finnish police censors a critic of censorship, Effi press release, 12 Feb 
2008 
http://www.effi.org/julkaisut/tiedotteet/lehdistotiedote-2008-02-12-en.html

"Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) demands the National Bureau of 
Investigation (NBI) of Finland to explain why it has censored a net site 
that criticises Internet censorship.

NBI maintains a secret blocking list of web sites allegedly containing 
ch--d pornography, pursuant to a law passed last year. [Most of the major 
Finnish Internet service providers use this list in a DNS based filtering 
system under pressure from the government.] The purpose of the law is to 
prevent the access to the foreign sites that contain ch--d pornography.

Now the censorship list has been appended with a site called 
lapsiporno.info [translates to ch--dpornography.info] that is maintained by 
a Finnish Internet activist Matti Nikki. The site does not contain ch--d 
pornography, but articles that criticise censorship and a list of blocked 
IP addresses.

Leena Romppainen, a member of the Effi board wonders: 'If the site really 
had some illegal content, wouldn't the correct solution be to take the site 
down and take the site owner to the court? The site is located on a Finnish 
server and the name of the site owner appears visibly on the root page of 
the site.'

'The whole net censorship project is just a hat trick that is used to sweep 
under the carpet the real problem, that is, the sexual abuse of the 
children', shoots Tero Tilus, a member of the board of Effi.

Most of the censored sites are located either in the United States or EU 
countries.

'The local authorities have taken no action on these sites. Therefore, 
either the sites do not contain ch--d pornography or the NBI has not 
informed the local authorities', says Leena Romppainen. 'Both of the 
alternatives are equally scary.'

Major part of the censored sites are legal adult sites. From the beginning, 
there have also been attempts to expand the censorship for example to the 
net poker sites.

'Some faceless official decides which sites the Finns may not see, and this 
decision cannot be appealed. Now he has apparently decided that net 
filtering may not be criticised', finishes Tero Tilus."

More info in English at:

Matti Nikki's English page about the Finnish ISP/police blocking system:
http://lapsiporno.info/english-2008-02-15.html

Anti-Internet censorship website placed on police filter list over links to 
ch--d porn sites, Helsingin Sanomat International edition, 15 Feb 2008
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Anti-Internet+censorship+website+placed+on
+police+filter+list+over+links+to+ch--d+porn+sites/1135234057449

(Note: the link above will not work unless it's changed back to +child+)

Irene