The bill to amend and supplement the legislation to ensure information security and combat cybercrime should leave ‘no doors ajar’. This should be analyzed in detail together with civil society so as not to allow room for interpretations, the director of the Independent Journalism Center Nadine Gogu said in the public debate “Real and nonexistent dangers to the basic human rights generated by the government’s intention to modify information technology regulations” that was staged by IPN News Agency and Radio Moldova.
According to Nadine Gogu, the amendments drafted by the Government must be definitely adopted, but there are a number of provisions that leave room for interpretations and should be thus removed. The situations when the provisions will be implemented must be clearly specified. “To my mind, when amendments to the law are suggested, these should be very precise and should ‘close all the doors’, metaphorically speaking. There should be ‘no doors ajar’ because otherwise we can witness penalties or abuses against the mass media when the law takes effect,” she stated.
The Independent Journalism Center director also said that the amendments to the Penal Procedure Code will enable to read the email messages and other textual messages. Furthermore, the article that introduces obligations for Internet providers in the Contravention Code provides that these will have to filter out and archive the traffic that goes through the own network.
Nadine Gogu expressed her concern about the fact that the new law could allow closing webpages with comments that can be classed as instigation of violence and racial hatred. “In this case, anyone can come to a portal that this likes or dislikes and tell that there were particular comments on it and the law should be thus applied,” she said.
The April 4 debate is the 52nd of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are organized with the support of the German Foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
