Some legal trouble with TOR in France

[Lionel Elie Mamane]

On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 02:29:09PM +0200, Landorin wrote:

> Here in Germany I wouldn't dare to run an exit node yet until it was
> decided whether they can accuse you for this or not

The chaos computer club runs a tor node (in Germany); they
semi-regularly get accusatory letters from police; they have a form
letter explaining what tor is and containing legal reasoning as to why
what they are doing is OK. Police used to be angry at them, but
apparently they more or less about tor-like things now, and the answer
they get now is like "oh, I see, sorry, goodbye".

Roger also told me he had a German lawyer up his sleeve that is
willing to defend any tor node operator in Germany. (Was it pro bono?
I'm not sure anymore.)

Personally, I think Germany is one of the safest countries to run a
tor node in.

I think it is actually illegal in France (a mere anonymous remailer
is), but (in the anonymous remailer case), there is at least one
long-standing anonymous remailer in France; his owner has had
experiences similar to Olivier (he might actually have spent a night
or two at the police station), but he never got charged ("inculpé").

-- 
Lionel