German President Horst Köhler has brought another delay to a maligned German bill designed to create a secret Internet blacklist in Germany by refusing to sign on the dotted line.
Köhler has requested supplementary information about the bill which would require the German government to adhere to a classified, state-managed list of blacklisted websites. The bill is alleged to be an effort against the proliferation of child pornography, but critics argue that it could be zealously extended to other, legal websites–a move tantamount to censorship, and a violation of German law.
The bill was created under the country’s previous administration, a grand coalition between the nation’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and liberal Social Democratic (SPD) parties. Spearheaded by CDU ex-Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen, the bill has received more public backlash than any other political effort in the history of modern Germany.
Now that Köhler has refused to sign, the effort is effectively dead in committee until it can legally be rejected. If no legal method to reject the bill can be found, the German Ministries of Justice and the Interior have ordered federal authorities not to act on the law.
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