Lisbon, 01/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 1st October the European Commissioner for security, Franco Frattini, again called for information on the manufacture of bombs to be blocked on the internet. He informed EU internal affairs ministers meeting in Lisbon for the informal Justice and Home Affairs Council to, “make punishable misuse of the Internet”. The European Commission is expected to present this proposal to member states in November as part of a series of measuring for fighting terrorism. Mr Frattini recently expressed his idea of developing a study with the private sector on the technical means of preventing people using and searching for dangerous words such as “bomb”, “kill”, “genocide” and “terrorism”. According to Frattini, the current directive on e-trade, adopted in 2000 allows for criminal content on the internet to be punished. This directive does not contain, however, “clear references” on messages or instructions for bomb making, he said, highlighting the need for an update in current legislation. At the same time, an amendment to the framework decision for fighting terrorism (2002) will be proposed to include this reference. The Portuguese minister of the interior, Rui Pereira, whose country is currently in charge of the presidency of the EU, approved the Commissioner's initiative and said that there was a “broad consensus” in favour of this instrument among all the EU27 countries. Speaking at the meeting the Luxembourg minister of justice, Luc Frieden, expressed doubts about the measures he thought could risk “restricting liberties”. He would prefer tackling the terrorists responsible for spreading this kind of information rather than putting a block on certain sites. Speaking at a press conference, Mr Frattini explained that providing instructions for making a bomb had nothing to do with freedom of expression. During the discussion, the Italian minister for the interior, Giuliano Amato, also said that it would be useful if the EU had an instrument for fighting conspiracies of organisations that were not necessarily recognised as being terrorist but which were capable of instigating an attack. Commissioner Frattini supported this idea and indicated that he would study the question of whether conspiracy should be subject to criminal charges throughout the EU. (bc)