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I suspect this is a flamebait. Check the original document rather than the IPTegrity piece. The fuss seems to be about the following amendment:

"there should be transparency of conditions under which services are provided, including information on the conditions of to access to and/or use of and distribute information or run applications and services, and of any traffic management policies"

This seems to propose transparency about existing access conditions, not imposing some new conditions or allowing ISP's to impose more conditions. They justify it in the text as:

"There is nothing in the Framework or elsewhere preventing a service provider from providing subscribers with access to predefined and differentiated set [sic] of services or applications .... Competition will only be effective if consumers are fully informed of the conditions under which the particular service is provided"

See http://www.laquadrature.net/files/UK_PROPOSED_AMENDMENTS_on_net_neutrality_DRAFT_20090223_print.pdf

Also, for information, the 3-strikes law will be discussed next week, and implies juicy stuff like "guilty until proven innocent" and "you can only prove innocent if you have installed official government trojan horses on your computer" and "these malware have no requirement of interoperability, which hurts the choice of costumers (!)". Citizens and bloggers (such as myself) following the Quadrature du Net association are calling for a "blackout" (link in French, sorry) of the French side of the internet in protest.

>> So why in the hell would you spend money to meddle in foreign politics that don't affect you in any way?

> Because people outside Australia may very well end up being affected by it. Western governments have a habit of citing other governments' policies as a way to make those policies more palatable to their own citizens. The British have CCTV cameras at every street corner, let's also put them on our streets. Software patents are allowed in the U.S., let's harmonize the legislation. Australia thinks of the children and censors the Net, we should do the same!

> For instance, even though I'm not in the U.S., I donate to the EFF. It's a global world. We're running out of places where we can hide from these things.

This is exactly right, and why EFF tries to work internationally too: for instance, last week we wrote about how the interpretation of New Zealand's Section 92A law could affect other countries and smuggle three strikes rules through. New Zealand's language originally came from the US (via Australia), but the interpretations of the law have been very different. If New Zealand took one pro-three strikes stance, it would be quickly used as an argument for doing the same thing in other states.

Other countries can also be an inspiration. I know that the French have been inspired by New Zealand activists successful campaign to fight off Section 92A; the Australian battle against Net censorship will be noted by politicians elsewhere who might otherwise think that blocking sites would be a kneejerk vote-winner.

This trial is guaranteed to be unfair even from the start. The EU has released the so called Medina report, already judging the defendants as guilty. The report was issued several weeks ago. This way the judges already know how to judge these individuals, so things are kept simple!

I guess this trial will mean that linking to copyright infringing material will be illegal. Possibly they will make it so it will be illegal if there's an intent which of course will be all the battle.

It's time to vote for the Pirate Party.

More info:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/MedinaOrtega_INI-report-Copyright_JURI-consolidated
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/copyright-dogmatism-ridiculously-strikes-european-parliament

Greetings from a sad Swede

This trial is guaranteed to be unfair even from the start. The EU has released the so called Medina report, already judging the defendants as guilty. The report was issued several weeks ago. This way the judges already know how to judge these individuals, so things are kept simple!

I guess this trial will mean that linking to copyright infringing material will be illegal. Possibly they will make it so it will be illegal if there's an intent which of course will be all the battle.

It's time to vote for the Pirate Party.

More info:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/MedinaOrtega_INI-report-Copyright_JURI-consolidated
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/copyright-dogmatism-ridiculously-strikes-european-parliament

Greetings from a sad Swede

If voting,be sure to check out these impressive tools to help make an informed choice in the European Parliament elections.
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Campaign-Save_amendment_138_and_Internet_Freedom_from_Council_of_EU#General_Advice

For example can sort by amendment 138, see who was against:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score

If voting,be sure to check out these impressive tools to help make an informed choice in the European Parliament elections.
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Campaign-Save_amendment_138_and_Internet_Freedom_from_Council_of_EU#General_Advice

For example can sort by amendment 138, see who was against:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score

If voting,be sure to check out these impressive tools to help make an informed choice in the European Parliament elections.
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Campaign-Save_amendment_138_and_Internet_Freedom_from_Council_of_EU#General_Advice

For example can sort by amendment 138, see who was against:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score

I finally found a resource to help make intelligent decisions when voting in European elections, an excellent one at that:

http://www.laquadrature.net/en

Check out the Political memory resource:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

especially the "List of recorded votes" section to see who voted for what - before you reward them with your vote for them.

Slashdotters will probably be interested in the Telecoms Package section as well: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package

I finally found a resource to help make intelligent decisions when voting in European elections, an excellent one at that:

http://www.laquadrature.net/en

Check out the Political memory resource:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

especially the "List of recorded votes" section to see who voted for what - before you reward them with your vote for them.

Slashdotters will probably be interested in the Telecoms Package section as well: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package

I finally found a resource to help make intelligent decisions when voting in European elections, an excellent one at that:

http://www.laquadrature.net/en

Check out the Political memory resource:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

especially the "List of recorded votes" section to see who voted for what - before you reward them with your vote for them.

Slashdotters will probably be interested in the Telecoms Package section as well: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package

The European Council, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, removed the amendment before passing the Telecom package.

Well not exactly.
First of all, this is the Council of the European Union, not the European Council. Everybody confuses them (and also with the Council of Europe, with is not related with European Union. Someone even mixed up with the European Commission some comments above). Some people argue that people make things hard (like similar names hard to remember), so that it's harder to fight (you can't fight what you don't understand).

Also, the Council wasn't led by Sarkozy, but by Luc Chatel, secretary of State for Consumer affairs and Industry. But it's true that nobody in the French government would have the guts to make Sarkozy unhappy on purpose. They are totally devoted to him. So incidentally we can indeed say that Sarkozy led the Council even if he wasn't here.

Laquadrature published something more accurate : Citizen safeguards striked out in EU Council

This means that there's now nothing stopping France's controversial 'three strikes' law from going into effect. What hope is there for a 'parliament' where near-unanimous agreement can be completely undone so easily?"

Woa, kinda alarmist, don't you think ?

The text hasn't been adopted yet. You can fin a nice diagram describing where we are in the current procedure. The step described in this article is the point #4=>#9. The next step will be #11. But first, there will be a tripartite meeting (Council + MEPs + commission) and probably a #10 as commission and council doesn't agree.

So there will be a second reading by the EP. So please stop saying that UE is a dictatorship. There are a lot of things to notice before we can say that :

• As you can see on the diagram 1/ there will be a second reading by the EP 2/whatever happens then, after the second reading by the council, the act cannot be adopted without EP approval (steps #15, #28 and #30).
• At any moment, the commission can change the text (or withdraw it).
• Remember that the two legislative chambers are composed by MEPs (elected), and by ministers (witch are named, this is true, but you elected the guy who names them).
• As a French, I can say that it's way much easier/friendlier to reach MEP, than member of my own national parliament. I can argue with them (and by them, in most case, I mean their assisants), I can know what they do, what they vote etc. For example : if I want to know who voted for 138, then I just wget the pdf from the EP webside, and I can see a list of names page 43 : http://quadrature.theocrite.org/results_of_roll_call_votes_20080924.pdf . This allows people to script the results and make it more user friendly, like this : http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score . Pretty transparent for a dictatorship, isn't it ?

Again, nobody says that EU is perfect. Of course it isn't. But saying that "The EU is a great idea but the execution is terrible.", or other thing I read in the comments, seems disproportionated to me. It's probably due to the fact that the article was mis

The European Council, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, removed the amendment before passing the Telecom package.

Well not exactly.
First of all, this is the Council of the European Union, not the European Council. Everybody confuses them (and also with the Council of Europe, with is not related with European Union. Someone even mixed up with the European Commission some comments above). Some people argue that people make things hard (like similar names hard to remember), so that it's harder to fight (you can't fight what you don't understand).

Also, the Council wasn't led by Sarkozy, but by Luc Chatel, secretary of State for Consumer affairs and Industry. But it's true that nobody in the French government would have the guts to make Sarkozy unhappy on purpose. They are totally devoted to him. So incidentally we can indeed say that Sarkozy led the Council even if he wasn't here.

Laquadrature published something more accurate : Citizen safeguards striked out in EU Council

This means that there's now nothing stopping France's controversial 'three strikes' law from going into effect. What hope is there for a 'parliament' where near-unanimous agreement can be completely undone so easily?"

Woa, kinda alarmist, don't you think ?

The text hasn't been adopted yet. You can fin a nice diagram describing where we are in the current procedure. The step described in this article is the point #4=>#9. The next step will be #11. But first, there will be a tripartite meeting (Council + MEPs + commission) and probably a #10 as commission and council doesn't agree.

So there will be a second reading by the EP. So please stop saying that UE is a dictatorship. There are a lot of things to notice before we can say that :

• As you can see on the diagram 1/ there will be a second reading by the EP 2/whatever happens then, after the second reading by the council, the act cannot be adopted without EP approval (steps #15, #28 and #30).
• At any moment, the commission can change the text (or withdraw it).
• Remember that the two legislative chambers are composed by MEPs (elected), and by ministers (witch are named, this is true, but you elected the guy who names them).
• As a French, I can say that it's way much easier/friendlier to reach MEP, than member of my own national parliament. I can argue with them (and by them, in most case, I mean their assisants), I can know what they do, what they vote etc. For example : if I want to know who voted for 138, then I just wget the pdf from the EP webside, and I can see a list of names page 43 : http://quadrature.theocrite.org/results_of_roll_call_votes_20080924.pdf . This allows people to script the results and make it more user friendly, like this : http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score . Pretty transparent for a dictatorship, isn't it ?

Again, nobody says that EU is perfect. Of course it isn't. But saying that "The EU is a great idea but the execution is terrible.", or other thing I read in the comments, seems disproportionated to me. It's probably due to the fact that the article was mis

The European Council, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, removed the amendment before passing the Telecom package.

Well not exactly.
First of all, this is the Council of the European Union, not the European Council. Everybody confuses them (and also with the Council of Europe, with is not related with European Union. Someone even mixed up with the European Commission some comments above). Some people argue that people make things hard (like similar names hard to remember), so that it's harder to fight (you can't fight what you don't understand).

Also, the Council wasn't led by Sarkozy, but by Luc Chatel, secretary of State for Consumer affairs and Industry. But it's true that nobody in the French government would have the guts to make Sarkozy unhappy on purpose. They are totally devoted to him. So incidentally we can indeed say that Sarkozy led the Council even if he wasn't here.

Laquadrature published something more accurate : Citizen safeguards striked out in EU Council

This means that there's now nothing stopping France's controversial 'three strikes' law from going into effect. What hope is there for a 'parliament' where near-unanimous agreement can be completely undone so easily?"

Woa, kinda alarmist, don't you think ?

The text hasn't been adopted yet. You can fin a nice diagram describing where we are in the current procedure. The step described in this article is the point #4=>#9. The next step will be #11. But first, there will be a tripartite meeting (Council + MEPs + commission) and probably a #10 as commission and council doesn't agree.

So there will be a second reading by the EP. So please stop saying that UE is a dictatorship. There are a lot of things to notice before we can say that :

• As you can see on the diagram 1/ there will be a second reading by the EP 2/whatever happens then, after the second reading by the council, the act cannot be adopted without EP approval (steps #15, #28 and #30).
• At any moment, the commission can change the text (or withdraw it).
• Remember that the two legislative chambers are composed by MEPs (elected), and by ministers (witch are named, this is true, but you elected the guy who names them).
• As a French, I can say that it's way much easier/friendlier to reach MEP, than member of my own national parliament. I can argue with them (and by them, in most case, I mean their assisants), I can know what they do, what they vote etc. For example : if I want to know who voted for 138, then I just wget the pdf from the EP webside, and I can see a list of names page 43 : http://quadrature.theocrite.org/results_of_roll_call_votes_20080924.pdf . This allows people to script the results and make it more user friendly, like this : http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score . Pretty transparent for a dictatorship, isn't it ?

Again, nobody says that EU is perfect. Of course it isn't. But saying that "The EU is a great idea but the execution is terrible.", or other thing I read in the comments, seems disproportionated to me. It's probably due to the fact that the article was mis

Our fucktard in chief, AKA Naboleon, is pushing for his three-strike law to please his big content buddies. I talked to the fine people fighting this nonsense, and that much is clear: beyond the obvious evil motivations, the main feature of these assholes is their complete lack of understanding.
It's not just that they don't get it -- and they certainly don't get it. It's that they don't even care. Sure they order surveys from academics and various government agencies; but they quickly proceed to ignore them, or claim the opposite of what they say.
The list is mind boggling. Every single government-related agency with a modicum of technical or legal expertise and a minimal amount of political independence has rejected their proposals in surprisingly frank terms:

• The European Parliament passed amendment 138 which condemns the proposed law
• The European Commission accepted said amendment in spite of Sarko's protests
• The Commission on Data Privacy (CNIL) delivered a completely negative evaluation, and even went as far as to ostensibly leak the report because the Bush's BFF wouldn't let them publish it
• The highest court in the land gave a thumbs down

And the dumbass in charge of this nonsense, Christine Albanel, basically claims they all support her position. Conveniently, the afore-mentioned career civil servants and jurists are prohibited to respond publicly.
It's just insanity.
It's not yet quite as retarded as the aussie's anti-porn filter, but we're closing in.

That's why we need to promote transparency (which is the subject on this article). We need to make EU closer to people. "Media pay no attention" ? Well, euronews speaks about it. Other media don't ? Well let's watch the good media then. Also we have to promote actions like La quadrature. Laquadrature watches EU when they vote something concerning freedom and internet.

Completely agree. We need more transparency and it is good to know what organisations and news services pay attention to what is happening re. privacy and freedom on the Net.

Thanks for the link to La quadrature!

That's why we need to promote transparency (which is the subject on this article). We need to make EU closer to people. "Media pay no attention" ? Well, euronews speaks about it. Other media don't ? Well let's watch the good media then. Also we have to promote actions like La quadrature. Laquadrature watches EU when they vote something concerning freedom and internet.

Completely agree. We need more transparency and it is good to know what organisations and news services pay attention to what is happening re. privacy and freedom on the Net.

Thanks for the link to La quadrature!

In case none of you know, the EU is pretty much a mislabeled dictatorship. Citizens of the EU have pretty much nothing to say about what goes on or who gets "elected" for this or that. Democracy, pah!

Eu is not the perfect democracy, we agree on this part. But saying it's a dictatorship where "Citizens [...]have pretty much nothing to say about [...] who gets "elected"", this is not true. The two legislative chambers are :

• The Council of the European Union, composed by the ministers of all EU countries. That's right you didn't vote for them, but you voted for a government that named them.
• The European Parliament composed by Euro-deputies elected by direct universal suffrage.

The EU is a very good idea gone horribly wrong.

That's Manichean. It's never a good idea to say "this is all {good,bad}". Some things are bad, some things are good. You speak like someone that lost everything.
EU isn't a lost cause. A lot of good things came from Europe. The fact that MEPs didn't vote for software patents back in 2005 (14 votes against 300+), the fact that MEPs adopted[1] the amendment 138 of the telecoms package (88% of MEPs votes !) and the commission accepted it[2], the fact that they adopted amendments aiming to reduce greenhouse gases (despite the huge lobbying of car manufacturers and oil vendors), etc. are all clues that EU can bring good things when people are watching.
Of course I'm not saying everything is wonderful, but I think that fixing what is broken is a better approach than just saying that EU is a dictatorship, let's burn all and start again from scratch.
I mean, we have to admit that even if it's not perfect, we have something working pretty good, and considering that to make one step, we have to please 27 different countries (used to be less, but it was still difficult), we can easily understand why it wasn't straight forward (We all know that many times, countries had important disagreements).

Media pay no attention to it either. What's going on in EU politics? You wont get it from the telly, the paper, or the generic news sites (though Obama is all over the place)...

That's partially true. classic media don't pay a lot of attention to Europa. That's probably the main problem, more important than the fact that people are elected or not. EU is too far from people. Nobody knows that EU makes that is good for them, but they always know what is bad for them. They even think that good things coming from EU are bad. Why ?
Well because EU is the best thing that happened to our national politicians. "I can't do this, see, EU voted that", "I'd like to please you, but I can't EU doesn't allow me to". This is the best excuse ever. So every time a politician screws up, he can say that's EU fault, thus making people hate it.
That's why we need to promote transparency (which is the subject on this article). We need to make EU closer to people. "Media pay no attention" ? Well, euronews speaks about it. Other media don't ? Well let's watch the good media then. Also we have to promote actions like La quadrature. Laquadrature watches EU when they vote something concerning freedom and internet. ffii watches EU when it's related to software patents, ACTA and so on. Very few people are watching them, it's true, but as long as few people keep watching them and alerts medias and citizen when needed, well there is still hope.

Give me the information and my 1/300m'th say in who our new EU overlords are, and I shall welcome them!

What is 1/300m ?
AFAIK, EU is 27 states and 500-M citizens.

[1] http://www.laquadrature.net/en/telecoms-package-european-democracys-victory-already-threatened

In case none of you know, the EU is pretty much a mislabeled dictatorship. Citizens of the EU have pretty much nothing to say about what goes on or who gets "elected" for this or that. Democracy, pah!

Eu is not the perfect democracy, we agree on this part. But saying it's a dictatorship where "Citizens [...]have pretty much nothing to say about [...] who gets "elected"", this is not true. The two legislative chambers are :

• The Council of the European Union, composed by the ministers of all EU countries. That's right you didn't vote for them, but you voted for a government that named them.
• The European Parliament composed by Euro-deputies elected by direct universal suffrage.

The EU is a very good idea gone horribly wrong.

That's Manichean. It's never a good idea to say "this is all {good,bad}". Some things are bad, some things are good. You speak like someone that lost everything.
EU isn't a lost cause. A lot of good things came from Europe. The fact that MEPs didn't vote for software patents back in 2005 (14 votes against 300+), the fact that MEPs adopted[1] the amendment 138 of the telecoms package (88% of MEPs votes !) and the commission accepted it[2], the fact that they adopted amendments aiming to reduce greenhouse gases (despite the huge lobbying of car manufacturers and oil vendors), etc. are all clues that EU can bring good things when people are watching.
Of course I'm not saying everything is wonderful, but I think that fixing what is broken is a better approach than just saying that EU is a dictatorship, let's burn all and start again from scratch.
I mean, we have to admit that even if it's not perfect, we have something working pretty good, and considering that to make one step, we have to please 27 different countries (used to be less, but it was still difficult), we can easily understand why it wasn't straight forward (We all know that many times, countries had important disagreements).

Media pay no attention to it either. What's going on in EU politics? You wont get it from the telly, the paper, or the generic news sites (though Obama is all over the place)...

That's partially true. classic media don't pay a lot of attention to Europa. That's probably the main problem, more important than the fact that people are elected or not. EU is too far from people. Nobody knows that EU makes that is good for them, but they always know what is bad for them. They even think that good things coming from EU are bad. Why ?
Well because EU is the best thing that happened to our national politicians. "I can't do this, see, EU voted that", "I'd like to please you, but I can't EU doesn't allow me to". This is the best excuse ever. So every time a politician screws up, he can say that's EU fault, thus making people hate it.
That's why we need to promote transparency (which is the subject on this article). We need to make EU closer to people. "Media pay no attention" ? Well, euronews speaks about it. Other media don't ? Well let's watch the good media then. Also we have to promote actions like La quadrature. Laquadrature watches EU when they vote something concerning freedom and internet. ffii watches EU when it's related to software patents, ACTA and so on. Very few people are watching them, it's true, but as long as few people keep watching them and alerts medias and citizen when needed, well there is still hope.

Give me the information and my 1/300m'th say in who our new EU overlords are, and I shall welcome them!

What is 1/300m ?
AFAIK, EU is 27 states and 500-M citizens.

[1] http://www.laquadrature.net/en/telecoms-package-european-democracys-victory-already-threatened

It was leaked, it is not published officially yet and includes very controversial statements such as the remark that the French Presidency is trying to find a way to get "criminal sanctions" in ACTA despite lack of EU competence which leaves it stalled or the planned lifting of the mere conduit principle for ISPs in line with wishes of the French presidency who aims for internet control, three strikes. See http://www.laquadrature.net/

All those objections have been raised. I know personally the people at the main advocacy group opposing this nonsense, and from what they tell me, they are in complete in denial. They are impervious to the technical arguments. The entertainment industry feeds them their talking points, and that's good enough for them.
But the technical aspect is just a part of the whole problem; constitutionnally, it's on grounds just as weak. And the European Parliament, backed by the Commission, has shot it down premptively.
It doesn't make any fucking sense.

The pure bullcrap law was voted *unanimously* by all the political groups of the senate who expressed their vote (right wing, socialist, centrist). Only the communist group abstained (*sic*). There wasn't even *one* courageous senator to vote against! Let's hope the same won't happen in the National Assembly, which members are directly elected (which is not the case for the senators) The author probably messed the score for the final vote with the public record vote for Retailleau's amendement, the only one published on the French Senate website (where 15 persons voted for after the executive branch felt it could easily pass, suspended the exam and made a few phonecalls). Look at http://www.laquadrature.net/en for more details about the vote, and soon a translation of the most disturbing parts of the law (help needed ;). Be also aware that Nicolas Sarkozy's plan is to spread such a mechanism to the European level! Every European shall take action on his Member State's government, so Bono/Cohn-Bendit/Roithova's amendement to Telecoms Package remains into the Council's position! (more infos soon)

'The legislation passed with a massive cross-party majority of 297 votes to 15. Only a handful of conservatives, centrists and socialists voted against, while the Communists abstained.

Actually the 297 against 15 wasn't the actual vote, it was just an amendment trying to substitute the disconnection with a fine. The final vote for the law was unanimous, every political group voted "for" except the communists who preferred the abstention.
That was a sad day.

See the report from the advocacy group LaQuadrature:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/graduated-response-will-france-disconnect-europe

The way that I read it, you're right and the linked analysis is "not even wrong".

Did they not read the "no" before "mandatory requirements"? You could be charitable and assume that someone for whom English isn't a first language completely misinterpreted an English draft (the linked docs on http://www.laquadrature.net/files/amendements-compromis_ITRE-IMCO_7juil/ are in English).

The quoted paragraph actually demands that no state can block free trade of kit by imposing an anti-DRM circumvention requirement. Actually it goes further as "specific technical features" only includes this "without limitation".

"Specific technical features" on electronic features have been imposed in the past - e.g. SCART sockets on TVs.

Having read the original Directive 2002/58/EC and the various documents that La Quadrature say are the proposed amendments I do not see a contradiction. I am afraid that "The paragraph immediately below that" is not a sufficiently specific reference for me to understand your point. The only thing to which 'that' might refer seems to be "the proposed amendments" and that just does not make sense to me.

Neither the Directive nor any of the amendments require ISPs "to do everything in their power to prevent customer copyright infringement" as far as I can see. If you think that they do can you please be specific about which part of which document you think says that.