Jewish group seeks Internet block on racism

A Jewish think-tank has called for the Internet to be brought under the same legal controls as book publishing. Lack of legislation, the Institute of Jewish Policy Research says, is giving users of the electronic network a unique chance to broadcast material from anti-semitic and other obnoxious groups.

The Institute wants the companies that sell Internet access to be treated as the publishers of the material accessed through their services, and not to act as if they were no more responsible than telephone firms.

In a report published tomorrow, the Institute says: "The Internet has provided a relatively regulation-free environment for the publication of racist material and the organisation of the activities of neo-Nazi and other far-right org- anisations, and terrorist and extremist groups."

White supremacist groups, it says, are using American Internet sites to publish material which is illegal in many European countries.

It claims the greatest danger is posed by the World Wide Web, which is being used to disseminate ideas from American-based organisations such as The New Aryan Movement, Zionwatch, the National Party, and Independent White Racialists. Relying on credit card sales, groups are able to push propaganda through music; Resistance Records, for example, sells CDs with titles like Aryan New Storm Rising.

The sheer size of the Internet, and the availability of easy ways to encrypt or render messages anonymous, means that no law enforcement agencies in Britain or the US have seriously monitored the material.The German authorities, by contrast, are monitoring the Internet for counter-terrorist purposes. In 1993 and 1994 German and Norwegian neo-Nazi groups were co-ordinating their activities over the Internet, and the feuds within the British far-right were partially conducted on a Norwegian Bulletin Board system.

Much of the activity was legal in some countries. But the Institute claims it would be illegal to receive most of it in Britain, due to the Public Order Act, the Malicious Communications Act, and the Telecommunications Act of 1984.

The report says that though the technical and libertarian arguments against controlling undesirable material are com- pelling, schools, libraries, and other bodies, should voluntarily censor their material.