CleanIt Act Wants Internet Companies To Enforce Real Names, Photos To Combat Terrorism

If you thought SOPA, CISPA and ACTA were bad, just wait until you get a load of the CleanIT draft hoping to gain traction in the EU. This bad boy would see internet service providers enforcing the use of “common” real names, and require voice-services such as Ventrillo or Teamspeak to have a “flag” for those who could potentially be a terrorist and for Governments to disseminate lists of illegal “terrorist” websites. If that sounds like some kind of horrific George Orwell meets Terry Gilliam nonsense, you're not alone.

Ars Technica has a beautifully written piece detailing the whole CleanIT Act. A rough Google Translation of what the act aims to achieve can be perused on the official website.

Now I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of it (heck, that's why I linked to Ars Technica) but the basic gist is that the CleanIT Act would aim to enable the following, as listed in the PDF draft which you can view here:

* "Knowingly providing hyperlinks on websites to terrorist content must be defined by law as illegal just like the terrorist content itself"
* "Governments must disseminate lists of illegal, terrorist websites"
* "The Council Regulation (EC) No 881/2002 of 27 May 2002 (art 1.2) should be explained that providing Internet services is included in providing economics instruments to Al Qaeda (and other terrorist persons and organisations designated by the EU) and therefore an illegal act"
* "On Voice over IP services it must be possible to flag users for terrorist activity."
* "Internet companies must allow only real, common names."
* "Social media companies must allow only real pictures of users."
* "At the European level a browser or operating system based reporting button must be developed."
* "Governments will start drafting legislation that will make offering... a system [to monitor Internet activity] to Internet users obligatory for browser or operating systems...as a condition of selling their products in this country or the European Union."

Now the best part about all of this is that none of the public was supposed to know about it. Hoho, that's right. For some reason a lot of people in charge think that the best decisions are the ones made without the knowledge of the general public.

According to But Klassan, the Dutch fellow in charge of the CleanIT Act, he opined to Ars Technica, saying...

"I have no problem with publishing everything we do afterwards. I’m open for debate, but I’m not convinced that everything should be fully transparent 24/7."

"We really didn’t expect that people would publish a document that clearly says ‘not for publication’—that really surprised us," ... "I don’t know if it’s naive. Why can’t I trust people?"

The same reason we can't trust politicians? See how that works...it's a two-way street, ace.

Just earlier this year everyone was up in arms over ACTA, PIPA and SOPA, they were effectively killed and buried under people coming together to protest the acts and preventing the bills from being passed. We also had the one issue about the U.S. Navy using a contract company to spy on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii gamers using modified console hardware.

Thankfully Ars managed to make it public enough so that hopefully this is something people keep protesting in order to protect common internet freedoms. And besides, with all the potty-mouthed death threats that pass around in the competitive gaming circuit, that poor “terrorist report” button would probably be abused to no end for most services.