Prisoners allowed books, not video games: Swiss court
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Swiss prisons can stop detainees using video games consoles in jail without undermining their fundamental rights, Switzerland's supreme court has ruled.
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Convicted sex offenders in Sweden are free to read pornography in their cells following a court ruling that has angered the prison service.
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The federal Bureau of Prisons said it was prompted by a report that mentioned that since most prisons did not catalog their library materials, books that incite violence and hatred could infiltrate the shelves.
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U.S. court says it's a French matter; plaintiff organizations want ban on sale of Nazi memorabilia.
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Switzerland has warned a company that tracks file sharers for copyright violations that its tactics violate the country&#39;s telecommunication law.Logistep, which supplies information on suspected file sharers to law firms around the world for use in copyright violation cases, has until Feb. 9 to respond to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), said Marc Schaefer, the agency&#39;s legal advisor.Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP (Internet service provider) can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said.&#160;The IP (Internet Protocol) address&#160;of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered &quot;personal&quot; information.In order to try to claim damages from people suspected of trading songs or movies, Logistep has asked Swiss prosecutors to open criminal cases, Schaefer said. As the criminal cases progresses, Logistep receives information from prosecutors that identifies the file sharer.Logistep then initiates a civil case against the file sharer while the criminal case is ongoing. Prosecutors usually drop the criminal case against the person, Schaefer said.By starting a criminal case &quot;to obtain the identity behind an IP address ... they just found a way to avoid the telecommunication law,&quot; Schaefer said. &quot;Therefore, we told Logistep to stop their work until there is a legal basis which allows such an identification.&quot;The FDPIC&#39;s recommended to Logistep to stop the practice, but is prepared to take the matter to court, Schaefer said. Logistep would be in the clear if they pursued a civil case after the criminal one is complete, he said.Logistep has issued a statement contending an IP address is not personal information. Company officials could not be reached Friday.An IP address can indicate the location of a computer but not necessarily who is using it. Several people could share the same computer, which would have one IP address. But ISPs, as well as wireless routers used in home, can also dynamically assign IP addresses, which adds further ambiguity regarding who is using the computer and who may be responsible for illegally activity conducted on the PC.That means the person paying the bill for the Internet service may end up as the target of the civil proceeding rather than the offender, adding another worrying factor into the lawsuits, Schaefer said.On its Web site, Logistep said it can compile a history of illegal files shared by someone, even if encryption or proxy servers are used to mask the sharing.The row comes amid growing concerns over how personal data is collected and retained in Europe.On Monday, a top European data protection official, Peter Schaar, said at a European Parliament hearing that an IP address should be considered personal information since it can be used to identify people.Schaar is chairman of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, which is looking at personal data and privacy issues, such as what kind of data search engines retain. A report is scheduled for release by April.Also earlier this week, privacy activists claimed victory over music and content industry lobbyists concerning a report issued by the European Parliament&#39;s Committee on Culture and Education.Struck out of the report was a suggestion that ISPs should monitor content and ban users for suspected copyright infringement, wrote Danny O&#39;Brien, international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which lobbied against the suggestion as well as others.The report, entitled Cultural Industries in Europe, will be used to make recommendations to European Union countries on intellectual property and other issues.&#160;
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A new legal opinion has concluded that some non-Iraqi prisoners are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
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Judge says law violates free speech, orders blocking stopped.
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Islamic militants are using Switzerland as a base because of its strategic location and different legal system from surrounding European Union countries, a government report published on Thursday said.
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December 02, 2004 - Missouri prison officials pulled 35 Playstation 2 games from the Jefferson City Correctional Center after discovering that they were &#39;violent.
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A judge in Helsinki has dismissed cases against two men charged with violating a European copyright directive, saying that the CSS technology the men are charged with hacking doesn't constitute much of a copy protection in the first place.
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A German citizen is convicted of Holocaust denial and jailed for five years by a German court.
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Â· Lawyer says thousands of prison documents 'lost'Â· Legal notices demand release of key information
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CHICAGO _ Dressed in a revealing halter-top, the 28-year-old woman sits in handcuffs on a motel-room bed in Des Plaines, Ill. Nearby, undercover police officers examine her modern-day tool of the trade: an Apple iBook. "Show us your Web site," demands Cmdr. Matt Hicks.
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ZURICH (SwissInfo) - Switzerland's military justice system is investigating a Swiss citizen who worked for the controversial U.S. security firm Blackwater in Iraq. Authorities are looking into whether the man broke a law that bars the Swiss from working for foreign military services, an official said on Tuesday. Switzerland started its probe in May, said Frank Zellweger, spokesman for the Swiss military justice system. If the judiciary rules that employment for Blackwater constitutes military service, the man - referred to by Swiss television only as "Mike" - could receive a prison term of up to three years or a fine. He declined to identify the Swiss national, citing the country's strict privacy rules.  Switzerland, which was famous in the Middle Ages for sending mercenaries throughout Europe, strictly prohibits service in a foreign military.
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Â· Court rules controversial book can be published  Â· Goldman family, not former actor, to benefit
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A divided federal appeals court upheld a new law stripping judges of the authority to review the cases of foreign prisoners held at GuantÃ¡namo Bay.
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A Swiss court on Tuesday convicted four Swiss air traffic control managers of negligence in a 2002 mid-air collision over Germany that killed more than 70 people, mostly Russian schoolchildren.