German President Horst Köhler has hammered another nail in the coffin of a controversial law to block child pornography on the internet by refusing to sign it, news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. Köhler has asked for “supplementary information,” the Spiegel report said. The law, which critics argue would block access to other, innocent sites…
Category: Non-U.S.
Ar: New law forces DNA tests to find ‘disappeared’ kids
Mayra Pertossi of the Associated Press reports: Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina’s Congress has authorized the forced collection of DNA from people who might have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago — even if they don’t want to know their birth parents. Rights activists hope that the new law…
AU: Police to have power to strip-search at random
Tom Reilly reports: Police will soon have sweeping powers to search people at random, including strip-search, even if there is no reasonable suspicion those targeted have done anything wrong. The ”stop and search” tactic is part of a law and order crackdown set to be passed by State Parliament, despite the Government conceding that the…
Viviane Reding picked to re-write EU data protection laws
Paul Meller reports: Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner who for the past five years has championed consumer rights in the telecommunications and IT arenas, has been picked to take charge of a re-write of the European Union’s 15-year-old data protection laws due to start next year. Reding is famous for slashing the cost of roaming…