Civil society considers draft law No. 161, known as the Big Brother law, should be transmitted to the authors for improvement. The law, which offers the state instruments for fighting cybercrime and child pornography, should be drafted with the participation of civil society, the mass media and ICT companies.
Lawyer Vadim Vieru, the representative of “Promo-LEX” Association, told a news conference that the bill considerably widens the powers of the law enforcement bodies in the ICT sector and allows taking some of the actions without the authorization of the judge of inquiry. He said that in the proposed variant, the bill does not envision guarantees for ensuring the right to private life and the freedom of expression, IPN reports.
Nadejda Hriptievski, the representative of the Legal Resources Center, said a law is needed to provide instruments for fighting cybercrime and child pornography, but there should not be instituted changes to violate the person’s rights. “Some of the provisions are vague”, she stated, voicing hope that the authors will yet amend the bill.
In the same news conference, one of the bill authors Veaceslav Badarau, investigation officer, said they will analyze all the comments and opinions of civil society. He noted that this law no way infringes on the human rights.
Editor-in-chief of the paper “Ziarul de Garda” Alina Radu said she is concerned because the bill wasn’t discussed with those to whom the changes apply. As long as the problem of corruption is not solved in Moldova, a moratorium should be instituted on any new law.
Bill No. 161 (Big Brother law) was registered in Parliament in April 2016. On the Parliament’s website, only the appraisal of the National Anticorruption Center was placed and this is favorable and specifies that there were identified no excessive requirements that would go beyond the reasonable framework for ensuring the rights or obligations of those concerned.
