[members-discuss] NCC acting on registrations pursuant to "police order"?

On 11/11/11 13:27, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> I support RIPE NCC in its effort to make the Internet a safer place.  A 
> court order for RIPE NCC to do something would probably have needed a 
> trial, and can sometimes take months and usually years until a decision is 
> handed down.  If the police lodged a formal request then RIPE NCC has to 
> abide by it.  Adjust the charter or procedures to comply with reality if 
> necessary.

I believe that the current situation is unrelated to preservation of
data, so I don't believe there's a treaty obligation involved. From what
I've heard, the bad people have all been arrested so nobody is being
kicked offline who isn't offline anyway.

However, whilst I am not familiar with the legal situation in the
Netherlands, (Is there an independent judicial element to any police
"requests"?) I would be rather worried about any situation in which the
police, based on their own particular policies, might be able to exert
control over what they consider acceptable use of the Internet within
the RIPE region. RIPE covers many countries and not all have the same
set of ethical values and standards and we should be wary of any
situation in which one nation exerts undue extra-judicial influence
because a coordinating body happens to be based there.

Zoë