Dec 20, 2010 15:55 GMT  ·  By

The French National Assembly has adopted a controversial article of a bill known as LOPPSI 2, which allows the government to order websites blocked without a court order.

LOPPSI 2 stands for "loi d'orientation et de programmation pour la performance de la sécurité intérieure," which translates to "law on guidelines and programming for the performance of internal security."

The proposed law has forty-eight articles dealing with issues like traffic crimes and online child pornography. Article 4, in particular gives the government the power to request that certain websites be blocked immediately without any judicial oversight.

Civil rights activists consider this a significant blow to Internet neutrality. They also claim that child protection is only being used as an execuse and that the government will abuse the new power to block other websites as well.

Its willingness to do so was displayed recently when industry minister Eric Besson warned ISPs that there will be consequences for hosting WikiLeaks on their servers because it is unacceptable for French companies to host websites deemed criminal.

Of course, the illegality of WikiLeaks' actions have never been proven in court. In fact, the whistleblowing organization has not even been charged with anything in France or elsewhere.

"It is very worrying to see Members of the French Parliament have given their approval to the administrative censorship of the Net just as the government is trying to ban WikiLeaks without fair trial," said Félix Tréguer, legal and policy analyst at La Quadrature du Net, an Internet freedoms watchdog organization.

"Nobody will be able to verify the way blocking measures are implemented, through a secret blacklist, and there will be no way of challenging them. Such a provision is a blatant violation of free speech," he concluded.

Leaving aside the proven inefficiency of blacklists to keep users away from illegal content, the Interpol is already working on a similar service to which ISPs will be able to opt-in voluntarily.

Interpol has probably more experience in monitoring child abuse websites than the French government and ISPs who refuse to adhere to the blacklist can be publicly shamed.