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France Seeks To Push 3-Strikes Law Across Europe
quanticle writes "As you may recall, France previously threatened to cut off broadband access for file sharers. However, after lobbying by the public, the legislation failed in the National Assembly. Now, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to revive the the measure by pushing it as an amendment to the pan-European Telecoms Package. This amendment has the potential to impose 3-strikes across Europe, not just in France."
If you would hate just Sarkozy, it should be quite enough. Most French don't like him either (and no, not just because of filesharing).
There are two kinds of democracies. Representative and direct. They go under the same name, but they are very different. Unfortunately, we are stick with the first type. People need to realize there is a difference between those types, and not rely on honesty of politicians.
There is an excellent book about direct democracy: http://www.democracy-international.org/book-direct-democracy.html
Oh trust me, the rest of Europe isn't too keen on him either
Lobbying from the PUBLIC seems to have an effect there.
Why are politicians so retarded?
You are there to represent the people and your country. If you find yourself having to subvert the will of your public, your constitution, your own justice system etc., then take that as a big fucking clue that YOU ARE WRONG and the best way for you to help is to STFU.
Sarkozy is the worst leader in EU since Berlusconi.
that was a press thing, do you really believe we americans would add an extra syllable to our fries, we actually prefer to communicate in grunts as we stuff our faces.
Although I think direct democracy would have its own problems too - we'd be under the will of the masses.
There are some things that referendums are appropriate for (issues that affect everyone), but just look at what happens when you put questions like "Should gay people be allowed to marry" to referendums as I believe has happened in some US states.
I'm not sure how things would work in this case - whilst few people would care about the record industry and most people happily copy CDs/tapes, filesharing is still something only done by a minority of people AFAIK, and most people probably don't see the Internet as some fundamental need, so I fear that a proposal to ban filesharers (especially with a bit of campaigning that associates "filesharing" with not only "stealing", but terrorism and p0rn) would still get passed in a referendum.
Here in the UK, our unelected second house is the only thing that can stop some of the authoritarian measures the Government is pushing through (similarly with the unelected Supreme Court in the US being the thing which protects the Constitution).
The french law project which establishes an independant authority with power to ban users from the Internet (by cutting the Internet access) after three strikes has not failed to pass in the National Assembly : IT STILL HASN'T BEEN EXAMINED THERE !
It is scheduled to be examined soon by the Senate first and then eventually by the National Assembly. You can read it there in french : http://www.senat.fr/leg/pjl07-405.html
What is true is that right now the French ISP association (including every french ISP), the web services association (including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and such), the commission in charge of regulating telecommunications, the commission in charge of the defense of privacy and several others have all said they were against this law.
Besides, even though I can imagine Nicolas Sarkozy being pleased if there were european legislation copying his ideas, I don't see any particular lobbying from his part in the European Parliament. Just look at the amendments and who wrote them (in the IMCO, ITRE or LIBE committee).
http://www.laquadrature.net/files/amendements-compromis_ITRE-IMCO_7juil/
And I'm not even speaking of the usual fierce independance of MEP toward national governments. They're much nicer with regular lobbying groups, in this case the music and movie industries.
Most French don't like him either (and no, not just because of filesharing).
As a brit living in France for the past 12 years or so, this is one of the most annoying traits of the French vox populi. They forget very, very quickly that most of the French actually voted for him. His politics since he's been in power aren't that different from what he announced, and certainly not that different from his opinions in previous government positions. Short memory, and quick to criticise, the French - they did pretty much the same thing when Jacques Chirac got a landslide victory when most of them couldn't be bothered to vote and so Le Pen got to the second round.
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
This rule would still have to be approved by the European Parliament for it to become law. If you're an EU citizen, do like the FA says and write your MEP:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members.do?language=EN
drill down the map until you get to the member page; there are three postal addresses at the bottom of page. I'd either write to them in Brussels or their constituency address, since they're only usually in Strasbourg once a month. There's an email contact too, at the top.
On a side note, I've actually been in the mailroom at the EP building in Brussels, and it's really nice. It's in a prominent position right on one of the main corridors between the offices and the hemicycle.
The rest of Europe (indeed, the rest of the world) should have no say in the democratic election, but is free to have an opinion on the resulting democratically elected official. After all (checking carefully for Godwin), the fact of his initial democratic election did not prevent much of the rest of the world taking a view of Adolf Hitler, did it?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Because I am.
Curiously, some French politicians are brilliant, but they're not part of the French government.
A French "European deputy" (for lack of a better name) has opposed this three-strike legislation, arguing (rightly so imho) that "an industry that is not able to make do with new consumer habits [the Internet]" shouldn't impose its rules to the government. The French government hasn't listened.
Michel Rocard is famous for opposing software patents. The French government hasn't listened.
French automobile club leaders, the least of which is not the president of the ACO (Automobile Club de l'Ouest, supervising the 24 hours of Le Mans) said that the pollution tax is a mistake, because one already exists and that's the TIPP (Taxe Intérieure sur les Produits Pétroliers, Internal Tax on Petrol-derived Goods, for lack of a batter name) that one pays for each centilitre of gasoline/Diesel in the tank, and that there's no reason than a guy driving only 3000 miles a year in his Ferrari should pay more than one driving ten times that in his Diesel Renault Logan. The French government doesn't listen.
Just, where has common sense gone?
To anyone who's had their financial life destroyed by medical bills here in the US, I bet it sounds pretty good, actually.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The problem with the public is this.
Think of how stupid the average person is; well, half of the public are stupider than that.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Kind of ironic to say that on the day that France won the USA's independance.
Do you have any particular reason why you think it wouldn't scale? I don't see any reason why it wouldn't, it works in Switzerland pretty well, and there are 7 million people (I suspect that you chose large city exactly for that reason). I would, for example, say that some human institution won't scale if it relies on bounded number of humans somewhere, or if the people cannot meet or know each other personally. But none if this is relevant in Switzerland.
I agree that not everything should be voted on, and I agree that voting should be about rules that hold for everybody (or everybody who has a particular behavior), and not a specific group or person.
Second, I also believe that very important and overlooked property of democracy should be reversibility, i.e. we can change the law back if we don't like the outcome. This is not a bad thing. People do learn by mistakes, and human societies are no different. This by itself prevents voting out some group of people.
Third, I think that competition of law systems is important. Switzerland has a rule that every law gets decided on the relevant level (federal, canton or local). That way some new law can be tested on small scale first and then, once the result is known, it can be (if people wish so) applied on the larger scale.
Geez, he didn't get elected all that long ago. What did he do to piss everyone off so quickly?
Well, he just did what he promised to do : help rich people to earn more money, throw more and more dark skinned people in jail, etc ...
Indeed, at least 53% of french people can't read and vote for the candidate most seen on TV.
The problem is : all elections are over, president and national assembly are elected and we're stuck with him and all his friends for the next 4 years.
Yeah. Some of them don't even know the difference between median and average :).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I'll give you example from my country (Czech Republic). Most people here (70%) supported gay marriage before politicians supported it. Last year (I believe) it passed, but just so-so.
Anyway, Switzerland has 150 years of experience with this. So there are some empirical results. And they show, for the most part, that voters are very conservative, and usually resist any change. Switzerland had voting rights for women until very recently, for example. On the other hand, they have pretty decent human rights record.
I don't know why you assume that elected government is somehow able to protect minorities better. In fact, I would challenge you to come up with a historic example where the elites protected some (non-elite) minority better than the majority of people would.
Oh, I see why you think that. You believe that politicians protect minorities because they will gain their support. But it's an illusion. If the protection of minorities is unpopular, why would they risk doing something unpopular and lose the majority? If you think about it, there is no way they could support a minority view and gather more support than by supporting majority view. Unless, of course, the majority doesn't really care about the minority, which is in fact most commonly the case.
Regardless, the major problem with your analysis is to assume that people do indeed vote randomly. If it were the case, your argument would be spot on and one of democracy's biggest flaws would not be a source of concern. If uneducated people vote randomly, their votes basically cancel out (as your correctly pointed out) and smart people choose which policy will be implemented.
In the real world, however, voters do not simply vote randomly. They have systematically biased beliefs that influence the way they vote.
In the world you describe, if asked about NAFTA, average people would basically flip a coin and vote either in favor or against it at random. Economists, however, would know better and choose the right policy, which would then be implemented. In the real world, people are much more likely to vote against it because they share the same misconceptions about NAFTA and free trade! Thus, although some people know better, their voices are not heard and bad policies get chosen.
You should read Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter , he makes this argument very convincingly.
Is baseball that popular in France?
Or maybe they know that IQ is normally distributed - therefore the median and the mean would be the same :-)
That does not change the fact that in France, people don't go broke, lose their homes, declare bankruptcy just because their child got sick. More important, the French don't have to make the Sophie's Choice of whether to fix a daughter's asthma or a son's nearsightedness.
We're going to be hearing a lot more about how awful universal health-care is and how being able to afford an operation takes away a person's liberty, but increasingly, people just aren't buying that baloney.
You are welcome on my lawn.