Iceland could become a internet and press freedom haven

A communication by Smári McCarthy of the Icelandic Digital Freedoms Society on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative:

This really important project, endorsed by the P2P Foundation, was also reported on BBC News:

“In recent months a group of local and international people has been working on an initiative here in Iceland to propose reforms in media- and freedom of expression law, with the goal of creating the best environment for publication in the world. The method has been to adopt the strongest protective laws that exist in the world, such as the Swedish press freedom law, the Belgian source- and communications protection law, the New York Libel Terrorism Protection law, and so on, and bundle them into a broad proposal.

As the freedom of expression is constantly eroded, with recent
examples of a source secrecy ban in Ethiopia, a draconian data retention policy being enacted in Belarus, and even in supposed liberal
democracies, laws such as the FRA law in Sweden, censorship lists in
various countries including Australia, Sweden and Norway, and more than 300 secret gag orders in the United Kingdom, the need for a place where the right to know is guarded and the right to share knowledge is upheld becomes ever greater.

We have set up a website for this initiative, which is, while we
finish the final cleanups and such, closed, but it will be open soon.
Until then I invite you to preview it. I hope that you will share the
URL and credentials with trusted friends and contacts.

Our goal is to get public endorsements from a number of international
organizations who believe this is generally a step in the right
direction. We have already received a few endorsements, including from Wikileaks and Eva Joly. If your organization is willing to endorse the proposal, I request that you let me know via e-mail. If you have a
comment of some sort, please let me know.”

1 Comment Iceland could become a internet and press freedom haven

  1. AvatarMichael

    This is really a great step ahead in the interests of free speech and information sharing. Too many governments the world over are stifling important information on one pretext or the other. This has go to be stopped.

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