The Conflict

In recognizing the limitations of existing laws when applied to cyberspace, individual governments authorized new legislation to tackle rising crime on the Internet in the late 1990s. They also came to recognize the need for cooperative measures. The Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime represented the first international treaty designed to deal with computer crime. Thirty countries signed the treaty on November 23, 2001. Moves towards greater government regulation of the Internet, particularly in matters of censorship and surveillance, proved controversial with civil rights and privacy protection groups, who, under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, protested the provisions of the European Convention.

Political

• To bring about an end to "lawlessness" on the Internet, governments considered it necessary to work towards a mutually acceptable system of regulation, and, to some extent, put aside...