Move over Somalia, Sarko's after the cyber-pirates Now

My twitter erupted with activity yesterday as news spread that the French lower house had at long last passed the much-maligned Hadopi bill, the hugely controversial legislation that would ban people from using the internet if they are caught repeatedly downloading files illegally.

This was the third attempt to pass the measure, but the third time was the charm and since it’s already passed the French senate, Sarkozy’s piracy-busting measure will now become law. It will be the toughest anti-internet piracy legislation in the world. The slow journey of this legislation has been closely watched by other European countries and now that the precedent has been set, they will now likely enact their own similar laws.

The bill, named after the new anti-piracy government agency it will create, would permit authorities to impose a variety of penalties on people caught downloading illegally including cutting off their internet connection for a year, imposing fines of hundreds of thousands of euros, and even jailing them for two years.

Homegrown piracy

As video was played over European airwaves this weekend of the Russian defense minister proudly reporting to President Medvedev that the navy had gloriously rescued the Russian freighter that had gone missing in the English Channel, there were many in Europe who weren’t feeling as visibly reassured as the Russian president appeared to be. Though Russia has tried to portray the rescue of the apparently hijacked ship as an unparalleled success, the reality is quite different. This hijacking– thought to be the first incident of piracy in European waters since the 17th century – could herald a dangerous new era for European shipping.

Details about what exactly happened in this mysterious ship disappearance have been slow in coming. The 4,000-ton ship, named the Arctic Sea, first left Finland with a load of timber bound for Algeria in late July. However after passing through the Baltic and North Seas, it disappeared from radio contact in the English Channel. There was wild speculation for a few days about what could have happened to it. Because the Russian shipping industry is permeated by organised crime, people immediately thought it had something to do with drug or weapons smuggling, or perhaps political intrigue. Wilder theories speculated there could be nuclear equipment on the boat.

Over the weekend the Russians revealed they had tracked down the ship near the islands of Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa. The 15 Russian crew members were rescued and eight hijackers - from Russia, Estonia and Latvia - were arrested. They said the rescue effort had been a joint Russian, Swedish, Finnish and Maltese (the ship was flying under a Maltese flag) operation, and that no media had been informed about what was going on for the hostages’ safety. According to the Russians, the crew reported that they were boarded by a group of men in an inflatable boat while they were in Swedish waters. The men claimed to be police looking for drugs, but then forcibly hijacked the ship and forced it to go to West Africa. The ship’s insurance company says they were contacted with a $1.5 million ransom demand, threatening to blow the ship up if they didn’t receive it.