Polish Authorities Demand British Law Enforcement Interrogate Tor Exit Node Operator About Information He Doesn't Have
from the colossal-waste-of-time-and-effort dept
As numerous posts on Techdirt attest, the authorities really don't like Tor, even though the Onion routing system was developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory, not some terrorist hacker group. The latest jurisdiction to misunderstand how Tor works is Poland, as this report on Motherboard explains:
Polish authorities have requested British law enforcement to interrogate the node operator because of a 2014 forum post supposedly insulting the ex-mayor of a small Polish town; apparently an illegal act in Poland.
Specifically:
A letter from the District Public Prosecutor's Office in Bialystok, Poland, to the UK Home Office points to Article 212, paragraph 2 of the Polish Penal Code, which says, in sum, that characterising someone else in such a way that might "degrade them in public opinion or expose them to the loss of confidence necessary to occupy a given position […] is subject to a fine or the penalty of limitation of liberty."
The Tor exit node used by the person who allegedly wrote the problematic post is run by Thomas White, better known as TheCthulhu on Twitter, where his bio reads:
Technology and privacy activist. Hidden service dev. Turkey-certified terrorist. Radical giver of no shits.
It will therefore come as no surprise that White is unsympathetic to the request by the District Public Prosecutor's Office in Bialystok. Even better, he has posted part of his statement in reply to that request, which is well-worth reading.
White points out that the Polish law in question seems to violate Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, further enshrined as Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. He says that he accepts the ex-mayor in question may have found a statement about him to be humiliating or offending, but adds:
I have many times felt offended where his political party have made derogatory remarks concerning the LGBT community for example, or where his complaint is an attempt to trample upon the rights of others. The difference is that I seem to have the mental capacity to take the opinions of others on board and reason my views with them to make my points.
White concludes pretty much as you might hope and expect:
I can only reaffirm my position that I have no intention of assisting with the request from the Polish authorities
Of course, the great thing about Tor is that White couldn't help the Polish authorities even he wanted to, since he was just operating the exit node, and knows nothing about the origin of the Tor traffic he facilitates. The sooner governments learn this basic fact, the sooner they can stop wasting time and resources trying to extract information from people that don't have it.
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Filed Under: law enforcement, poland, thecthulhu, thomas white, tor, tor exit node, uk
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Alternatyivly, they know the information is not availabel, but they hope to hassle TOR operators into shutting down their nodes.
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Send the mayor to: https://www.lysator.liu.se/jokes/polish.html
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And he excels at it apparently. *thumbs up*
Turkey-certified terrorist.
I assume he is stopped by clueless customs officers all the time because of it. But it gave me an idea: why don't we all write on our facebooks accounts we are terrorists? I mean, why not play with the collective tiny brains of these people?
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Almost like someone has a list and is checking off names of those who have been naughty.
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Given the law they're trying to use I have to wonder when the ones who filed the request will be charged under it. I mean someone may have said some 'mean' things about the ex-mayor, but they the ones characterizing him as so thin-skinned that simple words are enough to wound him to the point that he goes legal over the matter, something I'd consider much more damaging to his reputation than any amount of 'mean words' might amount to.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibDRcBV4x3c
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However, the translation of "pomawia" as "characterizes" is simply wrong — in reality it means "falsely accuses", refers to an accusation made in privacy (§ 1) or in public (§ 2, including on the Internet) and it can be invalidated via Article 213:
Rest of the article sets restrictions on what can be legally trialled for truth due to the privacy right of an individual but that doesn't apply to public figures like a mayor, unless the accusation is false, of course.
The biggest problem with it is, I think, that it's a criminal law regarding libel that allows for up to imprisonment (which doesn't really happen, mind you) and demands the accused to prove his innocence, reversing the innocent until proven guilty paradigm which should be reflected in matters of criminality. This makes it a rather favoured tool of scumbags politicians aiming to create a chilling effect and stifle criticism.
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Re: Draconian Europe...
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Ex Mayor?
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