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IMO the amendments in this report would go a long way to repair the defects in the directive.

If all the amendments in it were applied to the Directive, I would have much more confidence in its self-stated objective to clarify the status quo, and would be less worried that it will have the effect of greatly expanding the possibility of software patents!

Amendments

The patenting of computer-implemented inventions is not new. Indeed, patents involving use of software have been applied for and granted since the earliest days of the European patent system and it is now estimated that 15% of all applications for patents received by the EPO relate to computer-implemented inventions.

You can order them by country / fraction on http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repar tition. If there is no e-mail addy listed, try their personal webpage, there's bound to be some sort of contact form.

Software patents are serious.

Yes, they are serious. I've been bombarding my local MEPs about it. And recently I got a very interesting response.

It made me think that maybe we misunderstand the proposal - especially after it was recently been amended.

I quote directly from Article 4a:

Exclusions from patentability:

A computer-implemented invention shall not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus. Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the computer, network or other programmable apparatus in which it is run shall not be patentable.

Justification

This, in conjunction with the corresponding recital, provides clarification that simply specifying technical means is not enough for patentability. There must be a technical contribution. It also makes it clear that the computer implementation of a business method simpliciter is not a patentable invention."

IANAL but to me that satisfies everything we, as Free Software advocates, are seeking? Why are we so strongly opposing this? If you read the full directive, it sounds fairly sensible.

If you live in the EU, don't just sign the petition - email your MEPs explaining why they should oppose the motion (and reminding them - gently - that they want your vote!). Yesterday I emailed all 10 MEPs representing London explaining my concerns, and I've already received 2 thoughtful responses -- one of which was seemed convinced by my arguments.

Probably the best arguments to use are those against patenting algorithmic business methods (also covered by the directive) rather than software per se, as they're more likely to be appreciated by politicians. My example was patenting an 'algorithm' that uses a number keyed in by a bank customer to verify their identity against the account details held on their bank card. Hey presto, your "software patent" gives you a monopoly on ATMs.

You can find a list of UK MEPs at the European Parliament's UK Office. For other countries, check out the main EU parliament website. Note that each constituency is represented by several MEPs, allocated between different parites by proportional representation. The vote on the directive is next week, so email your MEP today!

You think it's simple to take a human process and automate it?

The innovation happened because the inventor was promised, by the patent system, a monopoly on the innovation. Without that promise, the innovation wouldn't have happened.

Furthermore, intellectual property rights aren't intended to do anything. They have no goal. We offer legal protection to intellectual property rights because it's the right thing to do. Period.

Indeed, that's why you have to make sure your wording can be interpreted as broad as possible.

How many patents have you written?

Seriously; I'm asking. Because, you see, you don't do this.

I guess you'll retard^H^H^Hort (look, it's infectious!) by throwing another bunch of petty insults in my general direction, so I'll leave it at this. If you really want to document yourself better, then stop worrying about job security for a moment and read a bit about it. Then maybe the next time you can reply with arguments instead of with insults.

I have no doubt about your knowledge of the patent system (and probably IP in general), but you sound like a mindless drone just repeating his mantra's over and over again, not listening to anyone else because he's convinced he's right and anyone who disagrees with him cannot possibly know what he's talking about, or is a "self-hating apologist" or some such (I'm honestly surprised you haven't called me a communist yet). I really do hope you have some happy moments from time to time as well.

That "study" has been widely discredited.

You have to look at THE RESULTS of research, not the dollars spent on it. We've seen more technological innovation in the fields of software and related disciplines in the last ten years than in all the rest of the history of computing combined.

PS: sorry for answering your trolling.

Eu-Parlamentarians Search engine.
/*I am not sure but if the EU starts to accept software patents will the US patents be enforceable through WIPO or similar. If so then the EU will already be at a loss as all the US patents will come into force and by typing this I am probably breaking a few of them :)*/

This will be the next step. See FFII swpat AG for comprehensive details or join a Mailinglist patents@Aful.org or bxl@ffii.org

No that is for complaining about the EU administration itself.

Correct. From this press release about a guide for citizens.
This Guide highlights the Ombudsman's efforts in recent years to solve citizens' problems with the Community's administration... I hope that it gives citizens a clear picture of the service that the European Ombudsman's office can provide.

I'm not much of a writer for this kind of stuff; but I hope this link will make others interested to the possebilities!

Actually, you're wrong there: every five years, there are EU wide elections for the European Parliament. Together with the Council, which is nothing other than the combined elected governments from each member state with a more fancy name, they are the ones with the power to pass legislation. The EU does have its problems, but it's not nearly as undemocratic as a lot of people (including people in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and the UK) believe.

BTW, the previous poster was a little wrong on the population size -- the EU is nearly 380 million people now, and around 100 million more (if I'm not mistaken) next year following the accession of the new member states.

Wow. Thanks for your international interest JBN.

It would be very helpful if you could send emails or faxes to MEPs. Your non-EU citizenship can be used as a positive, i.e.:
"As an American, I see first hand how software patents hurt innovation and competition in a software industry. Start ups find it hard to enter the market when they can be threatened with costly patent lawsuits and investors are nervous about giving funding to a company when they know that a deeper bank account will likely draw the attention of Intellectual Propertly law firms"

There is a listing of all EU MEPs at:
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repar tition?ipid=0&ilg=EN&iorig=home&imsg=

Good arguments for talking to non-techs can be found at:
(RMS and Nick Hill, longish)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4683640,00. html
(and a short one from me:)
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/issue/inview.asp? vpath=/articles/2003/05/28/view02.htm

If you only speak english, stick with the UK and Ireland. Many EU citizens are already talking with their MEPs, your emails or faxes would be a great reinforcement.

Ciaran O'Riordan

", i.e. there are no EU-wide elections."

I don't know who modded you as interesting, but this statement is utterly false. The first elections date back from 1979, the whole parliament is renewed every 5 years and they are the one making laws (directives is more precise).

Now a question : when was the last time you voted ?

For your information, you can also visit this site europa.eu.int (especially EU at a glance and EU Parliament)

I saw this yesterday; I emailed two of the MEPs in my constituency whose parties I was aware were in support of software patents (I would have liked to write, but with a 30 June deadline the letter wouldn't have time to get there). I also emailed Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament and another Irish MEP. Within six minutes, I had a response from his assistant.

The gist of it is this: the European Parliament report will be taken during the session 1-4 September. The European Liberal Group (european meta-party of which Mr. Cox is a member) hasn't taken a definitive position on the report yet, but as it has been going through the committee system they have taken a very restrictive position regarding what can be patented.

I won't copy-paste the euro-speak here. :) I don't fully understand it, but have replied asking for clarification. So far, I'm pleased that he has (a) taken a position and (b) taken one that regards the issue with some care. I also thanked his assistant for correcting me about the vote on 30 June.

This means there's plenty of time. Write to your MEP explaining, politely, how you think software patents would harm our industry in your country and in Europe as a whole, and perhaps explaining the problems inappropriate use software patents have caused elsewhere. The idea of patents is to encourage innovation - explain why software patents don't do this.

No response from the other two yet; I'll be writing to them and following up by phone.

Dave

Here is a link to the official list of all MEPs by country and political grouping. All MEPs have a good contact page that can be reached by following the links on this page.

Europarl
of this list who do i write to all the parties? i dont remember electing any of them to represent me :_(....

Ireland has 2.5% of the votes on this issue. Not all MEPs turn up for votes like this, so if all the Irish MEPs turn up, their votes may make up a larger portion.

It's very important to convince the other countries to contact their MEPs. The all-country page for MEP listings is:
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repar tition?ipid=0&ilg=EN&iorig=home&imsg=

Ciaran O'Riordan

If you are a European and bothered by software patents, now is the time to write to (or even email) MEPs asking them to oppose this directive; it's the 'proposed software patentability directive as amended by JURI' (COM(2002)92 2002/0047). The letter should support the FFII/Eurolinux and/or Green position.

• 1. Mrs AHERN, Nuala Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
• 2. Mr ANDREWS, Niall Union for Europe of the Nations Group
• 3. Mrs BANOTTI, Mary Elizabeth Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
• 4. Mr COLLINS, Gerard Union for Europe of the Nations Group
• 5. Mr COX, Pat Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party
• 6. Mr CROWLEY, Brian Union for Europe of the Nations Group
• 7. Mr CUSHNAHAN, John Walls Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
• 8. Mr DE ROSSA, Proinsias Group of the Party of European Socialists
• 9. Mrs DOYLE, Avril Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
• 10. Mr FITZSIMONS, James (Jim) Union for Europe of the Nations Group
• 11. Mr HYLAND, Liam Union for Europe of the Nations Group
• 12. Mr McCARTIN, John Joseph Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
• 13. Mrs McKENNA, Patricia Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
• 14. Mr O' NEACHTAIN, Sean Union for Europe of the Nations Group
• 15. Mrs SCALLON, Dana Rosemary Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats

The Yahoo story and the slashdot blurb have both been (intentionally) misled. Under this directive anything "technical" can be patented. Programs running on a computer are technical. Business methods implemented "with a computer network" are technical.

Unfortunatly, this report, from the Legal Affairs committee, does support software patents, ignoring the advice of the Industry committee, the Culture committee, and the vast majority of the response to their public consultation on the issue.

Please, may be some UK citizen could send to Mrs Arlene McCARTHY few words to tell her what they think.

Find more information about CEC & BSA at CEC & BSA 2002-02-20: proposal to make all useful ideas patentable

And information about Arlene McCARTHY including e-mail address.

No, they don't. The only area where the European Parliament has any real power is the E.U. budget. In all other cases, all it can do is give advice, which in turn can be ignored...

This is wrong (whoever modded the post up shouldn't have). The powers of the EP are laid out here.

Basically, it jointly decides EU laws on a co-decision basis with the Council. It has powers over non-compulsory expenditure only, which basically means the EP can't stop the Common Agricultural Policy.

Well..

US is definately important and your trade-policy is currently aimed to secure markets to Disney and Microsoft, what ever it takes. In this sense it's very important what happens in the "new continent".

Never the less, EU is still independent and currently there are some indicators that the wind is really changing here to more reasonable direction. For example European Parliament (which nowadays has even some political power) has taken so far a VERY interesting stance on software patents:

ITRE

CULT

Anyway most of this laws are based on international treaties and unless the lobbying will start in WIPO and WTO, the fight is futile..

Ville

PS. We (European Digital Rights) are starting a campaign to minimize the damage coming from EUCD in Central and Eastern Europe. If you are from the region and want to actually do something, please contact me!

Well..

US is definately important and your trade-policy is currently aimed to secure markets to Disney and Microsoft, what ever it takes. In this sense it's very important what happens in the "new continent".

Never the less, EU is still independent and currently there are some indicators that the wind is really changing here to more reasonable direction. For example European Parliament (which nowadays has even some political power) has taken so far a VERY interesting stance on software patents:

ITRE

CULT

Anyway most of this laws are based on international treaties and unless the lobbying will start in WIPO and WTO, the fight is futile..

Ville

PS. We (European Digital Rights) are starting a campaign to minimize the damage coming from EUCD in Central and Eastern Europe. If you are from the region and want to actually do something, please contact me!

There is a strong Anti-Patent movement in Europe. The German based organsation FFII is a very important player in the defence against lawyer interest groups. The EU wanted to introduce software patents back in 1999, the battle is still not over. Eurolinux alliance started an petition against Software patents with more than 140 000 signatures. Of course everybody shall try to talk to EU parliamentarians, esp. Arlene McCarthy(UK labour), Würmling (EVP) ecc. They have Email. European parliament: http://www.europarl.eu.int/ You should also protest against patent policy of EPO at EU Ombudsman

There is a strong Anti-Patent movement in Europe. The German based organsation FFII is a very important player in the defence against lawyer interest groups. The EU wanted to introduce software patents back in 1999, the battle is still not over. Eurolinux alliance started an petition against Software patents with more than 140 000 signatures. Of course everybody shall try to talk to EU parliamentarians, esp. Arlene McCarthy(UK labour), Würmling (EVP) ecc. They have Email. European parliament: http://www.europarl.eu.int/ You should also protest against patent policy of EPO at EU Ombudsman

If you want to really scare yourself about this stuff, read the European Parliment report online here.
It covers in great detail the state of international communications intelligence, with a focus on Echelon (i.e. the UK/USA alliance secret communications interception system), and the related threats to freedom and economic competitiveness.

It's a big report, but its extremely comprehensive and honest. The kind of thing "M" gets to read in James Bond flicks.
It puts estimated numbers on how many phone calls, emails, web accesses, SMS messages, Faxes etc. are intercepted from different countries; and also describes how they acheive this.

I was very surprised how little attention it got from the media when it was published.

• Body of Secrets - Anatomy of the ultra secret National Security Agency by James Bramford. - I'm reading this now and it is excellent. It is quite astounding what the NSA were capable of in the 50s, let alone today.
• Report by the European Parliament into Echelon - huge, amazing, has some great pics. Quite focussed on Echelon's abilities in the corporate espionage area.
• Books by Phil Agee - CIA Diary: Inside the Company and On the Run. Both out of print, no suprise but I got my copies through a mail order house in the UK. The were posted a day after my order but took a month and a half to get to me. suspicious moi? Although more about the CIA they contain fascinating insights into the overall operations of the Intelligence Services as they were in the 70s. Especially interesting is Agee's description of the CIA being alerted to his every move from hotel checkins, phone taps, border checks and so forth. Makes you think twice about checking into a hotel - anywhere. Also very interesting is his description of standard CIA destabilisation stratagem - you can see these same tactics being deployed today against Chavez in Venezuela and Schröder in Germany.
• A Secret Country by John Pilger. The chapter on the CIA's infiltration of the Australian labor movement and the subsequent 'dismissal' of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is excellent in particular. Whitlam had threatened to evict the NSA's Pine Gap and Narrungar remote monitoring and relay facilities from Australia. This was also aroud the time of the ill fated Nugan Hand bank which was being used by the CIA to launder heroin money. The NHB was the prototype for the equally ill fated BCCI, Bank of Credit and Commerce International aka Bank of Crooks and Criminals International. The bases, with their unregulated traffic were perfect conduits for heroin from south east asia.
• American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand - If you like his style, and many people don't, this is historical fiction by James Ellroy that is rich with character driven insight into the working of corruption on the grandest of scales. If i see the Cold6K on someone's shelf I just can't help picking it up, turning to a random page and reading. I am always immediatly drawn in. I can't wait for the 3rd in the series to come out. :-)

Here is a quote from Echelon Watch's FAQ:

Q - If ECHELON is so powerful, why haven't I heard about it before?

The United States government has gone to extreme lengths to keep ECHELON a secret. To this day, the U.S. government refuses to admit that ECHELON even exists. We know it exists because both the governments of Australia (through its Defence Signals Directorate) and New Zealand have admitted to this fact. (10)

This "wall of silence" is beginning to erode. The first report on ECHELON was published in 1988. (11) In addition, besides the revelations from Australia, the Scientific and Technical Options Assessment program office (STOA) of the European Parliament commissioned two reports which describe ECHELON's activities. These reports unearthed a startling amount of evidence, which suggests that Echelon's powers may have been underestimated. The first report, entitled "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control," suggested that ECHELON primarily targeted civilians.

So, what exactly is this article about? What have we won?

For the still-skeptical people amoung us, here is a warning from the EU government to e-mail users, originally stated in it's original form here. You can also find an EU resolution on the matter here

If you are not of the faint of heart, you can see the highly detailed 200 page report into the system here [pdf doc]. This report was originally reported in the news mid September, 2001. Obviously due to other news items, it wasn't widely reported and the whole affair was convienently swept under the carpet.

Here is a quote from Echelon Watch's FAQ:

Q - If ECHELON is so powerful, why haven't I heard about it before?

The United States government has gone to extreme lengths to keep ECHELON a secret. To this day, the U.S. government refuses to admit that ECHELON even exists. We know it exists because both the governments of Australia (through its Defence Signals Directorate) and New Zealand have admitted to this fact. (10)

This "wall of silence" is beginning to erode. The first report on ECHELON was published in 1988. (11) In addition, besides the revelations from Australia, the Scientific and Technical Options Assessment program office (STOA) of the European Parliament commissioned two reports which describe ECHELON's activities. These reports unearthed a startling amount of evidence, which suggests that Echelon's powers may have been underestimated. The first report, entitled "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control," suggested that ECHELON primarily targeted civilians.

So, what exactly is this article about? What have we won?

For the still-skeptical people amoung us, here is a warning from the EU government to e-mail users, originally stated in it's original form here. You can also find an EU resolution on the matter here

If you are not of the faint of heart, you can see the highly detailed 200 page report into the system here [pdf doc]. This report was originally reported in the news mid September, 2001. Obviously due to other news items, it wasn't widely reported and the whole affair was convienently swept under the carpet.

The European Parliament approved a directive that requires member states to prohibit devices that are specifically designed to prevent re-use or recycling. It is part of a directive about recycling waste from electronic systems, and say absolutely nothing at all about monopolies.

The European Parliament Daily Notebook : 18-12-2002 has an item on the directive. Note that although "printer cartridges" are mentioned in the daily notebook, and in various reports of the discussions, they are not specifically mentioned in the product design part of the directive.

Following a few of the "loonie" links, I stumbled upon a call for a global ban:
30. Calls in particular for an international convention for a global ban on all research and development, whether military or civilian, which seeks to apply knowledge of the chemical, electrical, sound vibration or other functioning of the human brain to the development of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings, including a ban on any actual or possible deployment of such systems;
Go see for your self: A4-0005/99

It's doubtful based on the reports that the US will allow such a thing to pass unless they can intercept and read it.

"The sender cannot know whether a message will be received on a mobile or fixed terminal because of the convergence.
That is a technological fact.
Banning unsolicited commercial SMS messages while allowing unsolicited electronic messages based on other technologies is therefore not a workable solution."

Laws in the EU must be passed by the Council (governments of the member states), and sometimes the European Parliament, in order to come into effect.

In this case, the EUCP was already passed on European level last year, and member states are required to implement it in their own legislation.

The EU equivalent of the US constitution are the treaties that formed it, and other treaties that have been approved. There are a handful of them. Member state laws and EU laws can be challenged in the European Court of Justice (the EU equivalent of the US Supreme Court) on the grounds that they conflict with the treaties. For example, a far-reaching EU ban on tobacco advertising was challenged and thrown out on the grounds that the Commision did not have the juristiction to pass such a law.

The treaties are long and complex. No normal human being reads through them so I am not aware to what extent the EUCP may conflict with the treaties. Even if the EU as such can not pass it, there is nothing preventing the heads of state of the individual governments from coming together outside the EU and deciding to collective (try) to get this directive passed in each and every state (assuming the national legislatures agree).

The European Court of Justice, comprising judges from each member state, is traditionally used by member states or institutions to sue other states or institutions. It is rare that individuals challenge laws, but to the best of my knowledge this is possible -- I think recent case law confirms that.

There is also another possibility: some 40-50 countries of Europe are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has its own court. If the EUCP happens to violate any of the freedom of speech and freedom of expression guarantees found there, I imagine a motivated individual with the proper legal assistance may be able to try this as well.

Tedious, emotional, nationalistic and irrelevant as this rant is, as some goddamned fool has decided that it counts as insight, I might as well trawl through the drivel:

1. The fact that the USA has withdrawn from so many international activities (climate change, international criminal court, land mines) has resulted in it being subject to criticism. I'm glad that the poster regards this as placing the USA in a morally inferior position, but that is entirely his interpretation. To suggest that these initiatives were deliberately developed to embarrass the USA is completely delusional.

Quoting random statistics about Europe internal difficulties, whether real (anti-immigration policies) or imagined (crime rates vs. the USA) have no bearing on the case for action on climate change. One might as well decide to ignore Nelson Mandela given the crime rate in South Africa.

2. Europe will continue to make a number of changes in its economy to keep to the protocol. Whether you view this as changing or not changing its behaviour is irrelevant.

3. Your confident assurance that "Brussells" bureaucrats are not democratically elected will come as something of a surprise to the European Parliament responsible enforcing the Kyoto protocol. Or is democracy outside the US of A not democracy by definition?

4. I'm at a loss as to how to respond to this bit of incoherent blather. It appears to be a recitation of the first point, with a dig at evil US environmentalists thrown in for good measure. Presumably they are also making 'meaningless gestures to enhance their moral standing over the US'?

The Reg's Liverpool striker link is, apart from funny, wrong: I would think this is the real Meijer, along with his contacts. A nice polite email of support might be good. Nice. Polite.

The guy asking these questions, Erik Meijer MEP, probably realized the game was up when the Parliament issued it's preliminary answers in only one format... Microsoft Word.

This, taken from the the original parliamentary submission upon which the Reg article is based, is laugh-out-load funny:

2. Is the Commission also aware that failure to register with .NET Passport results in exclusion from many sites' services, that unsubscribing is not possible, that periodically only out-of-date information is removed and that the passwords to be given (minimum of six characters only) are easily accessible, to some extent, to others posing as system administrators or possessing considerable knowledge of dictionaries?

You realize, of course, that pot is legal in the Netherlands?

It's nice to discuss this subject on slashdot. It's very nice if you support the EFF... but there's something else you can do if you're from europe: your country has representatitves in the European Parliament. Let them know what you think! Their job is to represent you and they can only do this if they know what you think.

You can find the members of the European Parliament on http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps.short_ list Just choose a country and press on search. Most of them don''t have an emailaddress so you have to search a bit with google to get it. There are also some lists on the internet, for example here but they are not always complete and up to date.

If you're from belgium: i've got an almost complete list on http://dries.ulyssis.org/eucd/belgium.html

I'm happy to rumormonger with you all for a little while...

I hear things from various people that I shouldn't hear, not often, but occasionally. These are people who are rather credible - not totally, but rather. I feel pretty confident in this particular "rumor," because I've heard basically the same set of facts from three different people with three different kinds of intelligence community experience.

What I hear is that your assertion is true. The NSA has had the ability to break RSA cyphertext "for some time." Even extremely large key sizes are said to be vulnerable, and they can do it "reasonably quickly."

This, of course, flies in the face of all accepted non-defense conventional wisdom in the field - at least until today - but, as I said, three sources. So I believe it.

This may be the result of harrowing secret advances in factoring techniques, or it may simply be brute force. This is an agency that has historically measured its computing power in acreage.

So, "reasonably quickly." The other part of this "rumor" is that reasonable is not reasonable enough to do RSA decryption on a large scale, and hence, while they can break open a particular piece of data, they haven't necessarily integrated RSA see-thru into their global signals intelligence regimine. That, for the uneducated/head-in-the-sand types, is Echelon - and yes, the NSA does listen to, and data-mine, almost all of the world's information traffic.

Final piece of this particular story: the NSA is apparently fastiduous about not sharing this technology, even with other federal agencies. Kevin Mitnick's infamous laptop, rife with PGP-encrypted documents, was impenetrable to the FBI, and despite numerous, desperate appeals for help, the NSA refused to assist them in decrypting the data. That suggests the NSA is abiding by their charter, which basically forbids them from becoming involved in domestic law enforcement (i.e. they're not supposed to spy on Americans) - a necessity if you consider consitutional guarantees about "search and siezure" applicable (by no means a universally held view, unfortunately).

I wouldn't mind EU government if it was founded on something similar to US constitution but current EU parliament is thoroughly undemocratic.

See the following:

• Overview of the European Parliament
• Euromyths debunked
• Lots of EU factual information

"EU government systems"

The EU has their Europa site running for a fair few years, but I wouldn't exactly call them a government, they have their parliaments and (largely unelected) members but their power is limited to arguing and bickering amongst themselves, they have no real impact on anybody apart from draining a few billion from the member states, but having a talking shop full of self-edifying people is cheaper than war.

The Council of Europe have quite a nice site too, it's very useful for finding out about their latest facist policies such as the cybercrime treaty. It's great for marveling how unelected groups can wield so much power. The CoE actually banned MEP's from their committies because they weren't invited to take part in forming policy, so you ban the already spuriously electec individuals from a nonelected group that decides your laws, shameless, how I love the EU.

Of course non of these sites are useful for practical matters such as paying taxes registering your child for school etc, because the EU doesn't actually do anything remotely practical apart from inventy abstract laws that are largely ignored by all member states apart from Britain or Germany.

I do however hold the technical groups such as the ETSI, Eureka in high regard.

On November 13 the EU Parliment will vote on the the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector
Read the report here . If passed it would make it illegal to idenitfy users on the internet without their permission. Keep your fingers crossed.

Not all things that come out of the EU are bad. Belive it or not :)

They aren't banning the cookies (or web bugs, which are also covered). Read the proposed amendment: PDF (page 6) or text (converted from PDF).

Check out this European Parliament report on COMINT of automated processing for intelligence purposes of intercepted broadband systems. The author, Duncan Campbell, believes that the key means of accessing long distance optical fibre cables is by tampering with optoelectronic "repeaters".

You can download the full study or others on civil liberties directly from the European Parliament STOA site.

--

"European Parliament Approves Rules Granting Greater Copyright Protection." (from Quicken.com)

"EU Parliament approves draft copyright law to fight high-tech piracy" (Silicon Valley News)

Also, y'all might want to check out Prof. James Boyle's editorial ("Whigs and hackers in cyberspace") in London's Financial Times the other day dealing with the foolishness of re-creating a European version of the American DMCA.

Also, I went to the European Parliament's web site and poked around for some primary documents. Here's a fairly thorough summary of what transpired inside the hallowed halls of the EU Parliament. However, I noticed that the embedded link (supposed to wisk one away to the actual text of the report) seemed to re-direct me to an unrelated discussion about energy in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Has anyone actually found the text the the EU Parliament's Copyright decision?

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

As can be seen from these shotlists, the House has voted to establish a committee on Echelon. The first meeting is planned for September 9th, 2000.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/ebs/s hotlist/ref15543.htm
http://europa.eu.int/comm/ebs/s hotlist/ref15545.htm

There are also five volumes packed with good stuff (some by the mentioned author himself) at http://www.europa rl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/publi/pdf/98-14-01-1en.pdf
(and 2en.pdf, 3en.pdf, etc.)

Enjoy your reading!