Something that appears to have fallen under the blogosphere radar today is a treaty that was ratified by Senate to fight cybercrime:

The Senate has ratified a treaty under which the United States will join more than 40 other countries, mainly from Europe, in fighting crimes committed via the Internet.

The Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime, ratified late Thursday, is the first international treaty seeking to address Internet crimes by harmonizing national laws, improving investigative techniques and increasing cooperation among nations.

The convention had been signed by 38 European nations plus the United States, Canada, Japan and South Africa, as of the end of 2005. It was opened for signature in 2001

“While balancing civil liberty and privacy concerns, this treaty encourages the sharing of critical electronic evidence among foreign countries so that law enforcement can more effectively investigate and combat these crimes,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

The convention targets hackers, those spreading destructive computer viruses, those using the Internet for the sexual exploitation of children or the distribution of racist material and terrorists attempting to attack infrastructure facilities or financial institutions.

“This treaty provides important tools in the battles against terrorism, attacks on computer networks, and the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet, by strengthening U.S. cooperation with foreign countries in obtaining electronic evidence,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said. “The Convention is in full accord with all U.S. constitutional protections, such as free speech and other civil liberties, and will require no change to U.S. laws.”

So doesn’t sound to bad at first – does it? Well maybe the racist part could be provide an infringement on the civil liberties here at home, but we have laws protecting that. Don’t we? Let’s look to the EFF for the answer on that one:

The Convention on Cybercrime is a sweeping treaty that has been waiting in the wings of the Senate for nearly three years. Now the administration is putting pressure on the Senate to ratify it in the next two days. If it does, it would mean the U.S. would enforce not just our own, but the rest of the world’s bad Net laws. Call your Senator now, and ask them to hold its ratification.

The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries’ “cybercrime” laws – even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdiction’s requests to log their users’ behavior without due process, or compensation.

The treaty came into force last year on the international front, but not in the US, where it needs to be ratified by Congress first. So far, ratification has been blocked thanks to a “hold” placed by conservative lawmakers. But Republican senators this week are now being heavily pressured by the administration to drop their objections, and let it fly.

So when we are online, we not only have to worry about the laws of our nation, but the laws of other nation’s now. In other words, if you attack a race on the internet and some other country has a law against that then that country can come after you, even though you were well within your rights here in the United States.

This is just another loophole for the government to use in order to reduce the rights we as American citizens enjoyed at one time. Give it another 10 years and we will have no rights at all in our nation. This is a sign of the times and damn it is scary.