NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Welcome to Her Majesty's Internet Police State!
----- Forwarded message ----- Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:59:26 From: "ohir" Subject: Re: [ PRIVACY Forum ] Welcome to Her Majesty's Internet Police State! To: privacy@vortex.com On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 11:06:52AM -0800, privacy@vortex.com: > The UK is apparently well on its way toward providing a remarkable and > depressing object lesson that could answer this very question > ( http://bit.ly/8ZXmMl [Boing Boing] ). Hi, Seems it is orchestrated across Europe. In my opinion its plain prelude to push ACTA om all EU states: "you know, its nothing new, we have similar laws already, so no worry". November the 16th Polish Department of Finance (sic!) revealed project of new law that requires all ISPs to censor internet sites and _internet_services_ in the name of anti-gambling measures. List of places and services deemed unappriorate is to be prepared by unnamed beaurocrat at our UKE (US FCC counterpart) and new law mention no judical overview or way for get a site or service from the list. Explicite new law mention, that this unnamed clerk has to without further discussion put on the list any site that any of our 12 police/special forces want. Any site or service. Note, that in Polish IT lingo service (usluga) is often treated as light term for given protocol, and its dedicated ports and servers in couple. (http is protocol, but BitTorrent or plain old FTP is described as a service) Our constitution requires all new law to be "widely as possible consulted with any party that new law might affect". Unfortunately, authors of constitution have not set any specific period of these consultations. For this law, consulting period (opinion has to be given in written, no phone or emails) started November, the 16th ended 19th. New law was approved by parliament 20th and, as government declared, should be signed by Mr. President today and ISPs must obey it starting 2010-01-01. Don't know if you have any Polish translator at hand, in case you have, there is good short info of what was done: http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/8752 In same time (first concerned organization, namely our RIAA counterpart, officialy got documents November, the 16th) CoE started Europe-wide consultations on "Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations" and on "Enforcement of Intelectual Property Rights" each with bunch of law proposal you mentioned in your post. No surprise, our govertment has no objections so far, nor any of RIAA/MPAA/BSA counterparts. NGO, who got leaked consultation documents are stuck by high volume of to be commented documents and by the deadline set at 27th and 25th November for the EU and local consultations respectively. More (in Polish) at http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/8767 Most documents linked from there are in English though. "The most important for contemporary parent is to teach his or her child that once upon a time there were people who were proud to govern themselves. For the slight hope that his or her grand grand child will be able to fight for freedom again." Sincerely, Ohir. ----- End forwarded message -----