The company alleges that the court has created a path that bypasses the Secret Monitoring Law; a ban has been imposed on publication of suspects' names and the suspicions against them.
Internet provider NetVision yesterday appealed to the Tel Aviv District Court the Magistrates Court decision requiring it to copy all the e-mail correspondence of four of its subscribers, as of the day their subscription commenced, and forward it to the IDF's central unit for special investigations. An order was issued banning publication of the names of the subscribers and the nature of the suspicions against them.
NetVision alleges that this order constitutes secret monitoring of computer communications, and that nobody but the Chief Justice or Deputy Chief Justice of a district court is empowered to issue such an order.
According to NetVision, the Secret Monitoring Law protects e-mail, and it, the company, is precluded from carrying out secret monitoring. The company maintains that e-mail is a Bezeq call within the definition thereof in the Secret Monitoring Law. Therefore, it maintains, the monitoring, recording or copying of e-mail messages without the consent of one of the parties to the call, is deemed to be secret monitoring.
NetVision also alleges that following the extraction of electronic mail from its computers, it no longer retains its subscribers' e-mail messages.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 12 April, 2000