August 17, 2005 the Pisanu decree was published in the Official Gazette and difficult times began in Italy for the Internet that it makes sense to retrace these days when the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan has turned the clock back twenty years.
And so the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, the military intervention in Aghanistan to hit terrorism at his home we would say today, and then the new, bloody attacks in Europe, in Madrid and London. It was right after the one in London on July 7, 2005 (a series of suicide explosions on public transport caused 56 deaths and over 700 injured), that the Italian Parliament, in a hurry, just 3 days, and with a very large majority, he converted into law the decree passed by the second Berlusconi government and which takes its name from the then Minister of the Interior, Giuseppe Pisanu.
In the decree there were several measures to combat terrorism and, in Article 7, a powerful squeeze on public wifi. It must be said that at the time (it was 2005) the Internet coverage was really poor: there was at most the 3G mobile network and navigating with a mobile phone was complicated. Because of this Internet Cafes proliferated, public places (often bars) that offered free connectivity to customers (in some cases you paid, but affordable figures). In short, public wifi was the way to stay on the Net when the digital divide was too wide and it was therefore essential to make the awareness and the digital culture Italians. But the Pisanu decree was about to stop time.
After the conversion of the government decree into law at the end of July, on August 16 the minister issued an implementing decree of article 7 (that relating to public wifi), which better detailed the fact that in order to offer the wifi service a public operator had to ask the commissioner for a license, identify all customers with a document to be registered (other than Green Pass) and finally keep navigation data for any police investigations. Practically that was the end of public wifi.
Subsequent analyzes showed that the measure it had no real effect on countering terrorism Islamic. In fact, a movement of opinion for its repeal almost immediately started. And yet the norm remained in force for a long time: every year, the Pisanu decree also entered into what is called Milleproroghe decree and therefore its effects were still prolonged. Until 2010, when another center-right government surrendered to the evidence and the Minister of the Interior at the time, Roberto Maroni, in the Milleproroghe inserted the repeal of article 7 of the Pisanu decree with effect from 1 January 2011.
I remember that in the previous weeks, to journalists who asked him if he too did not agree by now on the fact that the public wifi should be released, Pisanu replied politely: “I don’t know, I don’t understand much about technology…”.
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