DDL Intercettazioni or the Wiretapping Act is a piece of legislation put before the Italian Parliament in 2008.[1]
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The Max Planck Institute calculated that in 2006, a higher proportion of Italians had had their phones tapped than citizens of any other European country. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his allies have been subject of a number of wire-taps which have been published. For instance, in December 2007 the audio recording of a phone call between Berlusconi, then leader of the opposition parties, and Agostino Saccà (general director of RAI) were published by the magazine L'espresso, attracting strong criticism of Berlusconi from several media sources.[2]
The law was proposed by the Berlusconi IV Cabinet and presented by Italian Minister of Justice Angelino Alfano in 2008[3], approved by the Camera in 2009[4], then modified by the Italian Senate[5] and brought up again for approval at the Camera in October 2011. Supporters argued that courts were authorising the practice of wiretapping too often, and that the media should not be privy to the results.[6] Berlusconi said in 2010 that legislation was necessary to protect the privacy of Italian citizens.[7]
One of the measures proposed (paragraph 29) would allow anyone who believes themselves to have been offended by the content of a publication or website to enforce publication of a reply, uneditable and uncommented, in the same place and with equal prominence, within 48 hours. Failure to comply could result in a fine of up to €12,000.[8]
Italian journalists went on strike on 9 July 2010, in protest over the wiretapping bill.[7]
All pages on the Italian version of Wikipedia on 4 October 2011 were redirected to a statement opposing the proposed legislation.[9] The statement is available in Italian, English, Catalan, Croatian, Esperanto, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian and Spanish.