October 12th Manifiesto
(or why the LSSI is not a good idea)


"National sovereignty lies in the spanish people, from which the powers of the State derive"
(Spanish Constitution, Article 1.2)

(Original Spanish version here)

On October the 12th, 2.002, the Law on Information Society Services (LSSI) came into force and became part of the spanish law body. The government´s official version displays a law necessary for the strengthening of electronic commerce in Spain, generating security and trust, wiping uncertainties away, and contributing to create a stable law frame for the Information Society; all this after a transparent and frank process, ruled by dialogue and goodwill.

Nothing further from the truth. The LSSI was born in stealth, almost in silence. When made public, the reaction of the Ministry of Science and Technology was twofold. On the one hand, the claimed over and over again that critics were wrong, that the law would create security and trust, that social agents were being consulted for its improvement; on the other, the state machinery carried out the draft project against all odds, with no dialogue carried out other than with a single association and paying no attention at all to the rest of the netizen community. The result has been a legal piece that pleases no one, draws critics from all sectors involved, and indeed does contribute nothing to create neither security nor trust.

A wide sector of society do not agree with this law. Therefore, and with the goal of explaining our main reasons, here are our arguments: These are the main topics which, in our opinion, make LSSI unacceptable. Some lawyers have gone so far as to claim that this law is an outright violation of some constitutional principles such as the right to privacy, the non-abuse of computers, presumption of innocende, freedom of speech and of the press, or the scope of the judiciary. We'd like to stress here a Constitution article not quoted before, number 9.2, which states: It's our opinion that the spanish government las failed to fultull its obligations derived from article 9.2 of the Constitution. The LSSI will not encourage an effective freedom for individuals, and it will hinder citizens' participation in social life through the Net

For those reasons, and by this Manifesto, we:

Arturo Quirantes Sierra. October 12th, 2.002