Internet Censorship in Italy

This is an article that I found on OnlyinItaly.com.
Although this site compiles humerous articles, this topic is pretty serious.
How much freedom on the internet are Italians permitted if this law gets passed?
Would this type of vague restriction on freedom of expression ever be allowed to pass in America?
How will international internet service providers respond; particularly American providers?

Internet Censorship Crash Lands in Italy

Rome - February 11, 2009 - Italy may be able to force Internet providers to block access to Web sites including Facebook, the world's largest social-networking site, if they incite or justify criminal behavior, according to an amendment to a bill passed by the Senate.

Italian prosecutors began looking into Facebook groups dedicated to convicted Sicilian Mafia bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore Riina last month to verify whether they were used to send coded messages to mobsters. No official investigation was opened, according to Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia.

"The Internet must be free, but it can't be a jungle where good people and murderers are indistinguishable," Senator Gianpiero D'Alia, the lawmaker in Rome who introduced the amendment, said referring to Facebook fan clubs dedicated to the convicted mafia bosses.
"It's indecent that Facebook said that it won't allow pictures of mothers breastfeeding while there are no rules about removing groups of delinquents," D'Alia said in an interview today.
The aim isn't to block sites like Facebook or YouTube totally if they contain criminal content. Instead, the law is intended to force them to remove pages dedicated to groups inciting or justifying crimes, D'Alia said. The language of the bill doesn't distinguish between blacking out pages or entire Web sites.

The bill says the Interior Ministry will be able to order the blocking of Web sites if prosecutors first verify the criminal content of the sites. The bill would also make it illegal to incite others to commit crimes on the Internet, D'Alia said. It would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, he said. It's already illegal to do so in the printed press in Italy.

Should Internet providers including Fastweb SpA, Telecom Italia SpA or Tiscali SpA fail to follow the ministry's order to black out the pages or sites, they may face a fine of as much as 250,000 euros ($322,338), the proposed law says.

"This creates a precedent for the preventive censure of unwanted opinions," Marco Pancini, YouTube's European policy consultant, said in an interview. "Because it's aimed at service providers, this law won't allow the filtering of single content pages, but will lead to entire platforms being blacked out."

Internet providers aren't able to eliminate single elements from Web sites, Pancini said. YouTube has the ability to eliminate potentially criminal or offensive material in collaboration with the Italian postal police, Pancini said, adding that laws regulating criminal content already exist. D'Alia said that current laws cover only pedophilia. An April 2003 law says that once a Web site is informed of illicit material in its domain, then that material must be removed immediately.

One of the Facebook groups that first sparked controversy last month with 481 fans proposes making Provenzano, who has been convicted of ordering more than a dozen murders, a saint. A group for Riina, who was known as "the Beast" for his penchant for violence and murder, has 945 members whose comments include, "You're my idol," and, "You're the best."

While there are groups for mobsters and even for accused Italian rapists, Facebook also has a group hailing as heroes Palermo prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were assassinated on the orders of Riina after successfully prosecuting hundreds of mobsters. That group has 369,463 fans.

The measure was inserted as an amendment to a bill aimed at cracking down on crime that the Senate passed on Feb. 5. The measure must pass in the Chamber of Deputies without being changed to become law.