March, 2011 | cearta.ie

If the router don’t store it, you must acquit – War-driving in Holland

On the main site, I have on several occasions considered the legality of war-driving, ie, piggy-backing on someone else’s open wifi. Here’s an interesting, if minor, example of the genre from the Netherlands:

If the router don’t store it, you must acquit

A court in the Netherlands has ruled that hacking a WiFi connection is not inherently illegal. But the ruling was based more on a technicality in the law than the principle, meaning it’s possible officials could seek to update legislation.

The ruling is actually a small part of a wider case involving a student who posted on the notorious 4chan board threatening to shoot people at a Dutch high school (for which he received a community service sentence.)

The post was made while using somebody else’s WiFi connection without permission, which led to prosecutors tacking on a hacking charge to the case — a charge that was dismissed, even though the network had been secured.

The reason for the ruling is that the wording of Dutch law says only computers can be hacked, and defines a computer as a machine that processes, transmits and stores data. The student accessed the Internet connection through a wireless router which — because it doesn’t store data (beyond user settings) — is not classed as a computer.

The case will now go to appeal in a higher court where prosecutors look set to argue that the law should be interpreted more loosely to cover routers. It’s also been noted that in cases such as this, the WiFi hacker could be open to civil cases for breaching the network security.

A previous case in the Netherlands concluded that neither hacking a WiFi network, nor piggybacking on to an unsecured connection, can be classed as theft. That’s because the court ruled that bandwidth is not an asset for these legal purposes.

via geeksaresexy.net

These daft Soviet-style controls on universities must be abolished – The Irish Times – Tue, Mar 22, 2011

FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI

LEFTFIELD: If the Government insists that the civil service micro-manages our colleges, it will destroy third level education

…

It cannot be said loudly enough. This scheme is mad. It is senseless and destructive. It harms Ireland’s recovery. And it must be reversed as a matter of absolute priority.

via irishtimes.com

Suppose the law: M. NourbeSe Philip’s The Zong!

The Zong (Gregson v Gilbert (1783) 3 Doug 232, 99 ER 629, [1783] EngR 85 (22 May 1783) (pdf)) is an infamous case. It concerned a claim against an insurer for the value of slaves thrown overboard from The Zong to allow the crew to survive a chronic lack of drinking water. The claim succeeded at first instance, but failed on appeal before Lord Mansfield and Willis and Buller JJ. I have already blogged about Nate Oman’s review of Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings: Britain, Slaves, and the American Revolution (Harper Collins, 2007) which discussed the case, and about an episode of a television drama inspired by the case. Now Kate Sutherland brings news that poet (and recovering lawyer) M. NourbeSe Philip has published an extended poetry cycle about the case: Zong! As told to the author by Setaey Adamu Boateng (Wesleyan University Press | The Mercury Press | Google Books (2008)). The abstract describes the book as “a haunting lifeline between archive and memory, law and poetry” and continues:

In November, 1781, the captain of the slave ship Zong ordered that some 150 Africans be murdered by drowning so that the ship’s owners could collect insurance monies. Relying entirely on the words of the legal decision Gregson vs Gilbert—the only extant public document related to the massacre of these African slaves—Zong! tells the story that cannot be told yet must be told. Equal parts song, moan, shout, oath, ululation, curse, and chant, Zong! excavates the legal text. Memory, history, and law collide and metamorphose into the poetics of the fragment. Through the innovative use of fugal and counterpointed repetition, Zong! becomes an anti-narrative lament that stretches the boundaries of the poetic form, haunting the spaces of forgetting and mourning the forgotten.

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News: Reframing Libel event – papers now available « Inforrm’s Blog

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In November 2010 we reported on the Reframing Libel” event at City University London. This brought together academics, practitioners, and campaigners to discuss the future of libel reform. We subsequently published posts based on the contributions by Razi Mireskandari (one of our most popular posts), Dominic Crossley and Hugh Tomlinson (Part 1 and Part 2).

Writing on her “Meeja law” blog journalist and researcher Judith Townend (who was involved in the organisation of the event) reports that, to coincide with the government’s publication of the Draft Defamation Bill, the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University London has made digital papers available here.

via inforrm.wordpress.com

Would you recognise the signs of elder abuse? Attend a free Age Action workshop this Spring. | Age Action Ireland

Age Action is organising a series of workshops for the public in the coming weeks to help raise awareness about elder abuse.

The workshops will take place between March 28 and April 8 at venues in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Athy, Co. Kildare. They aim to raise awareness about what elder abuse is, the warning signs of abuse, the supports available if a person is being abused, and how to access them.

The workshops, which are funded by the HSE, will take place as follows:

Dublin: Wynn’s Hotel, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1, Monday, March 28 (9.45am to 12 noon);

Athy: Carlton Abbey Hotel, Athy, Friday, April 1 (1.45pm to 4pm);

Galway: Croi na Gaillimhe Resource Centre, Mills Street, Galway, Monday, April 4 (9.15am to 11.30am);

Cork: Imperial Hotel, South Mall, Cork, Friday, April 8 (1.45pm to 4pm).

If you are interested in attending any of the workshops, or are part of a group that might benefit from attending one, please contact us to register. Pre-registration is necessary as each workshop is limited to 40 people.

To register your place at one of the workshops: phone 01-4756989; email info@ageaction.ie or write to Age Action, 30/31 Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2. If writing or emailing, please state which venue you wish to attend.

via ageaction.ie

Report criticises Irish human rights measures – RTÉ News

IHRC – Called for ‘key reforms’ to strengthen human rights in Ireland

Ireland has ‘serious gaps’ in its human rights protection, according to a new report published today.

The Irish Human Rights Commission published its report to the UN on Ireland’s Human Rights Record and called for immediate action.

Ireland will be examined for the first time on its record on all of its human rights obligations under a new UN process called the Universal Periodic Review, in October.

via rte.ie

The UK’s libel reform proposals are a good start

The UK’s Ministry of Justice has announced its long-awaited consultation on the reform of the UK’s libel laws. Much of the territory covered by draft Defamation Bill was covered in Ireland by the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here), though there are some important differences as well. In this post, I want briefly to compare and contrast the UK Bill [the Bill] with the Irish Act [the Act]. To spoil the conclusion (for those of you who won’t read further than this opening paragraph) the Bill is largely in line the Act, and, in this respect, I am reminded of the Irish adage “tosach maith, leath na h-oibre“: a good start is half the work. In the end, that is what the Bill is: a good start.

Similarities
Clause 2 of the Bill provides for a defence of responsible publication on matter of public interest. In many ways, this analagous to the defence of fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest contained in section 26 of the Act. But clause 2 is a far less mealy mouthed version of the defence than the unworkably narrow section 26 is: there are fewer hurdles to be jumped by a defendant seeking to rely upon it.

Clause 3 of the Bill provides for a defence of truth (to replace the existing defence of justification), and this is analgous to the defence of truth contained in section 16 of the Act. The Bill requires that the “imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true” whereas the Act requires that it be true “in all material respects”. Only time – and expensive cases – will tell whether this is a distinction with any real difference.

Clause 4 of the Bill provides for a defence of honest opinion (to replace the existing defence of fair comment), and this is analgous to defence of honest opinion contained in section 20 of the Act. However, the Bill is more objective than the Act – the Act requires that the opinion is honestly held by the defendant, whereas the Bill simply requires that an honest person could have held the opinion. Moreover, as with the public interest defence, the Act places more hurdles in the way of the defence than the Bill does.

Clause 5 of the Bill provides for some technical amendments to the statutory occasions of qualified privilege, which differ in the details from the similar amendments worked by section 18 and Schedule 1 of the Act.

Clause 6 of the Bill replaces the common law multiple publication rule with a single publication rule, analgous to the reform worked by section 11 of the Act. This was already the subject of a consultation in the UK, and is a very welcome proposed reform, but – unlike the situation in respect of the public interest and honest opinion defences – the UK clause is far more elaborate than the Irish section. In this respect, I much prefer the starkness of the defintion in the Act to the over-elaborate technicalities in the Bill.
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The dubious legality of the second Employment Control Framework

On 26 March 2009, the Minister for Finance confirmed that the Government had decided to implement a moratorium on public service recruitment, precluding recruitment, promotion, renewal of fixed-term contracts, or payment of an allowance for the performance of duties at a higher grade. The standard letter sent to the various government departments emphasised that exceptions to this principle would arise only in very limited circumstances and would require the prior sanction of the Minister for Finance. There were additional rules for Education and Health, and these were supplemented for the third level sector by a controversial Employment Control Framework. That framework has now run its course, but news has seeped out over the course of the weekend that, in one of his last acts before leaving office, Brian Lenihan, the outgoing Minister for Finance, last week sanctioned a successor Employment Control Framework. It has been been much derided on Twitter at #ecf11, and it has drawn a chorus of detailed criticism from Des Fitzgerald, Ferdinand von Prondzynski, Colm Kearney, Paul Walsh, Dermot Frost, and Donncha O’Connell. For a bunch of academics, the unanimity is extraordinary. All are agreed that this new Framework is a thoroughly bad idea. I agree too, but I would go further. I think that it is also of dubious legality.

At least two questions arise. First, did the Minister for Finance have the legislative authority to sanction the Framework. Second, even if he did, is the Framework a valid exercise of that authority.
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