Slashdot Mirror
UK Government Wants To Kill Net Neutrality In EU
Glyn Moody writes "Not content with snooping on all Internet activity, the UK government now wants to introduce changes to the contentious EU Telecoms Package, which will kill net neutrality in the EU: 'Amendments to the Telecoms Package circulated in Brussels by the UK government, seek to cross out users' rights to access and distribute Internet content and services. And they want to replace it with a "principle" that users can be told not only the conditions for access, but also the conditions for the use of applications and services. The amendments, if carried, would reverse the principle of end-to-end connectivity which has underpinned not only the Internet, but also European telecommunications policy, to date.' To add to the irony, an accompanying text cuts and pastes from Wikipedia, without attribution."
man, corporations oops, I mean politicians are really pushing this BS aren't they?
Sent from your iPad.
Just another brick in their wall they're building to further close them off from the rest of reality.
I've had this thought for a while now, but now's an appropriate time to say it: Will there be a day when a British tourist visits America and remarks that our cameras must be hidden really well, because they can't see them at all!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
This is the labour party exercising its left wing credentials. It wants total control of the populous. They don't like the internet as it is as it allows people to bypass the laws they set up to police it. They don't want to stop it being used, but they want to control what people use if for, and to have something in place that is sufficiently vague that they can use for any purpose.
The worst thing is that the general population is that ignorant to what the government is doing that as long as this is spun as a measure to counter terrorism, or catching paedophiles, there will be no objection. After all, how could any sane person object to such a thing.
We currently have a government that is ruled by conceit. They know what is best for people and if we ignore what they tell us to do then its because we haven't understood rather than us having understood and rejected the advice. Their next resort is to legislate to force us to do what they want us to do, for our own good of course. HMG has forgotten that they are there to serve the people, rather than the other way around.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
The subjects of the UK are perfectly willing to give away rights in the name of security. What's one more going to matter?
Where did they learn it from? The neo-cons in America.
Sorry, you do not have the rights to access and distribute this slashdot comment.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
I'm not sure that's the case. Politicians in the UK are perfectly willing to throw away people's rights in the name of security, but that doesn't mean the population is OK with it. That's certainly the case in the US, though thankfully the trend seems to have slowed a bit when it took a back-seat to the constant economic bickering.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Those against net neutrality represent the gravest threat the Internet has faced. The Internet routes around damage, yes. But if concerted, simultaneous attacks occur by various governments around the world, Internet freedom can be defeated.
Not to sound overly melodramatic, but our children's children will judge us based on how we react to these assaults, today. If we successfully defend the Internet from those who wish to corrupt it for political, religious or profit reasons, we will have provided the greatest gift humanity has ever received - a free, open, and entrenched global communication network. A step in the evolution of our species.
If we fail in our duty, and the Internet is globally subverted, becoming yet another one-way broadcasting network for advertisers and propagandists, we will have left our descendants to another hundred years of suffering and misery.
Consider some of the things the Internet threatens:
- War: The Internet connects people in warzones with people outside the warzone. This makes it difficult to perpetrate a war without upsetting the aggressor's citizenry, as they will be exposed to the consequences of the war. Youtube, blogging from Baghdad, and english.aljazeera.net are just the start. .. is far less effective when the citizenry can check the facts
- Police brutality: Videos can circle the globe within minutes. The watchers are now watched, and this has a powerful effect on their behavior.
- Propaganda:
- Financial scandals: Anonymous communications help whistleblowers uncover financial scandals-in-progress
Now consider some of the things the Internet enables
- Global scientific collaboration: For both amateur and university-scale scientists, the Internet permits the free exchange of ideas
- The liberation of "intellectual property": (not so good for the profit-seekers, but ultimately necessary for humanity)
- Force multiplication for sellers: individuals can sell their products with the same efficiency and legitimacy as a large corporation, enabling more competition and a true free market (ie. ebay)
All of this has a negative effect on entrenched players, explaining our current situation. And this is the reason we need to fight, and fight hard. Because if we don't, we, and our descendants, will lose.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
From the 1960s, draconian British radio broadcasting restrictions forced would-be music broadcasters to park ships in the North Sea and transmit "pirate radio" stations to the UK.
Perhaps its time for pirate radio 2.0 : unlicensed digital packet radio mesh edition.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I am a proud EU citizen I am tired of the UK being an EU member. UK (both government and population) behaves like stubborn child, like the black sheep. It does not want to adopt Euro, fully implement Schengen Treaty, European Charter of Human Rights, etc.; UK doesnâ(TM)t respect the symbols of the Union (e.g. the flag). Yet they want to rip all the benefits of the common market. Eastern EU workers were good when their citizens did not want to fill in raw work positions. Same Eastern-EU workers are scapegoats now, while their own British born citizens from the former Empire population blow themselves up. And now they want to infect the rest of the Union with their Stalinist type of police state. Frankly, I want UK out of the EU, let them be spied on their island only, have all the raw jobs they hired cheap hard working foreigners they despite, ask them to have a visa to visit EU, be finger-printed, etc. Let's have them alone on their pathetic island, also known for many reason as "The Perfidious Albion". Many of their politicians still behave like 100 years ago when they were a global empire, now the empire is gone and they just pay the price of arrogance. We need the Union to evolve without the hand-brake on. Brits, keep your politicians, CCTV cameras, and KGB-style police at home! Let the European Union alone!
Mod parent up. I'd do it myself but I've already posted.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
They do retain more of that old New-England-puritan hangup about alcohol, on which California's a bit more liberal. You can only buy liquor at state-run liquor stores in NH, and even licenses for on-premises consumption of beer and wine have more regulations---in California it's not uncommon to find coffee shops selling alcohol in the evenings, because the license is easy to get and cheap; good luck finding that in NH.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
To add to the irony, an accompanying text cuts and pastes from Wikipedia, without attribution.
So, who does Gpl-violation file suit against? In fact, if a law quotes you unattributed, doesn't that mean the government is somehow liable for copyright infringement?
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
As a former Brit, now Canadian, I have developed some theories as to the wheres and whys of the British psyche. Being an Island has led to an isolation not found elsewhere in Europe. Historically this allowed the 'subjection' of the 'unwashed' masses by the entitled elites to evolve apace without too much interference from abroad. As luck would have it, even world domination as the British Empire. All sorts of nastiness was developed by us Brits - piracy, slavery, banking, to name a few. However us members of the untouchable class in England gradually picked up a thing or two over several thousands of years of killing, war and banking (as employees) and now have these royal PITA types under some form of control. Keep them in castles and luxury, let them run banks and insurance. We even have the Royals. One of the good things we untouchables started was the end to slavery (real - not todays corporate slavery). However one of the supposed 'great' things we exported was Democracy, as in the 'free' world, esp. the good ole US of A, which is a kind of democracy gone wild. My Canada is sort of a 'sleepy' democracy, less volatile. Note the similarity in Brit/American banking system problems today - a little out of hand. Canadian banks are boringly regulated and quite stable, thank you. This theory may be a lot of bunk, but it suits me just fine. Understanding the Zen of the entitled elites, one sees that they are again restless over in old Blighty, what with the banking/political crisis. It appears that Net neutrality may be tipping the balance of socio/economic power to the restless masses. Oh well. Now that we have them by the yoibles, its time for every free man woman and child to grab a hold and squeeze.
A man spends the first half of his life accumulating stuff, the second trying to get rid of it all.
We may not doing too hot in the "we have rights" department either, but that doesn't mean we can't point out how bad things are elsewhere.
Yet another definition of Net Neutrality.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I really still don't get it, why are the ones who are supposed to be liberals doing such things? I could understand if a douchebag like Cameron wanted to turn the UK into what the Labour party is turning it into, but why does the Labour party do that? Since when is that sort of agenda anything like the liberal agenda? Socialists in France aren't pushing for anything even vaguely similar, neither are the Social Democrats in Germany or the centre-left coalition of Italy, or anywhere else I know of where the main liberal movements stick to a liberal agenda, which, while controversial, is certainly nothing oppressive.
So where on Earth did these guys get their agenda from? Why the fuck are they pushing for stuff like that? What's wrong with these people? That's not how being a liberal is supposed to be. Someone please explain, and please don't bother with the libertarian drivel about big evil governments who want to enslave mankind, I want a good explanation, not some bullshit feel-good "you see, we were right, they're all evil except us" crap.
You just got troll'd!
The subjects of the UK are perfectly willing to give away rights in the name of security.
It's more complicated than that.
The British electoral system ensures that you only need a tiny fraction of the votes to control the country; Labour, for example, got about 22% of the votes in the last election, and they have a majority of seats in Parliament. Worse than that, they actually got less votes than the Tories in England, yet they control the country thanks to votes from Scotland and Wales.
The Tories are the only other party capable of being elected at this time, and they've merely become a wet version of Labour, without any sign of a leader with the balls of a Thatcher who could turn the country around as she did after the last Labour government.
The most likely third party to gain from lost Labour votes is the BNP, who are a bunch of raving national socialists (using that in the literal sense: far-left nationalists).
So there's precisely zero chance of improving anything through political means, and everyone of clue has been getting the hell out, with emigration reaching levels not seen since... uh, the last time the country had a Labour government.
When you combine the inability to make any real change without stringing up politicians from lamp-posts on Westminster Bridge with the exodus of millions of people of clue since WWII, you should hardly be surprised by what a disaster zone Britain has become; the people left behind are the ones least likely to get off their ass and do anything.
is all I needed to say.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
In the UK there is a final arbiter; and that is the Queen, who must sign off on legislation before it becomes law. Nowdays it is mostly ceremonial, I don't think she has exercised the right to not sign legislation for a long time now (if ever, for the current monarch). But it does mean that there is an additional opportunity to stop any Enabling Act type legislation before it becomes law.
In principle, the constitution in the US is a strong document, but in the end it is people who have to uphold it. Primarily, the Justice Department is responsible for giving legal advice to the executive (and, I guess, to congress too?), and if they routinely give advice to the executive that is borderline or illegal, then there is not much recourse. The courts can usually intervene, but that is a slow process - and of course that depends on the courts finding out about the illegal activities in the first place.
Why is it that every time I read "UK" in a news headline I instantly think "what stupid nazi-like decision did these idiots make this time?"?
And why is this sense of forboding always correct?
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Don't be fooled, there is no way this ammendment will go through, and the UK government knows this. The only motviation for proposing such ridiculous changes is to be seen to be tackling piracy and copyright issues, which they can then blame on the EU when they refuse these new powers.
Politicians in the UK are perfectly willing to throw away people's rights in the name of security, but that doesn't mean the population is OK with it.
I'd be willing to go cause some civil disobedience in London over this. Who would join me?
Nobody? Yup, this is The United Kingdom of Apathy alright.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Hmmm... And what do you think stops the Government from bringing about a dissolution of the monarchy?
Could it be that she rubber stamps pretty much anything they put in front of her?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
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
I'd join you. I've been waiting to be stop-and-searched so that I can refuse and be arrested.
(that's legal here, you can be arrested for refusing to submit to a random search, as long as it's a random search for "terrorist" materials)
Of course she rubber stamps everything - that is her job. But consider that her function is similar to the president in the old Weimar republic, but whereas the Weimar republic president was an explicitly political position with real power, and subject to influence (specifically, Hindenburg ended up playing into the hands of Hitler), the Monarchy in the UK is, in theory, above all that. Indeed, the Queen is not supposed to even comment publically on politics, although she certainly has a lot of influence, and has weekly meetings with the prime minister. But there is a last resort measure there, to refuse to sign a piece of legislation. It is unlikely to ever happen, and it would probably end up as the last thing the monarchy ever does, but nevertheless the safety net exists. Of course, that is only effective against some big 'Enabling Act' type of legislation, it does nothing against a gradual erosion of civil liberties, which is of course the problem today.
I am not a monarchist, and I'm not saying that it is a system that should be adopted anywhere that doesn't have a historical backing for it, but as far as systems of government go, a constitutional monarchy isn't bad. Compared with the USA, where if the president runs amok there is not much that can be done except impeachment (which is difficult, especially if the congress is controlled by the same political party as the president), it might even have some advantages.
We can't vote for the other team when the government won't call an election or referendum.
The opinion polls indicated (at least, last time I heard the stats) that the ruling party, Labour would be out in the next election, after some disastrous local elections (alas these local elections don't really have a great deal of influence on national politics) so they have nothing to win by calling for an election now - they'll just keep holding off as long as they can get away with it.
Promised referendums for EU membership and adoption of EU treaties regularly don't happen, simply because the government has it's own agenda, as you can see by the original topic.
Grassroots politics and small parties have no power in government to control, and even the typical sanity check of any new legislation having to go through the House of Lords has been neutered now that any law can be passed by the house of commons using the Parliament Act.
Another problem is that a lot of the UK populace really have no interest in politics - voter apathy is high, and polling booth turnout is low compared to a lot of places (iirc). This is pathetically the opposite of any major TV 'create a star/pop band/etc' phone vote, which receive millions of votes each week. They have no real understanding of the modern issues that are being raised in Parliament, and tend to vote based on how they were brought up (as far as I've witnessed) - so a person from working class background will vote Labour, and a middle-class background will vote Tory.
The general populace also doesn't understand the insidious nature of half the laws the government is passing, and whenever they're questioned by the vocal minority, the government uses the old 'think of the children' or 'be afraid of the terrorists' line and the law is passed anyway.
It really is making me totally sick of living in this country. The last time I posted my opinion on /. an ex-armed forces guy even agreed with me about leaving the country - and this was a person in the service of the UK who would have been expected to risk their life for their country!
Baka Drew
Fuck off you British tossers. Keep your fucking pound and get the fuck out of the Community.
No problem. We'll take the £billions we pump into European countries with us as well. Good luck surviving without your EU subsidies which we fund. Hope you don't live in Portugal or any of the recent accession countries as we pretty much bankroll your entire country.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Finally someone taking a second to actually investigate. I thought I must have misunderstood, but apparently it's also a lot of people reading a misleading summary.
I read nothing that made me recoil in horror. At worst this would appear to be traffic management to reduce network congestion, hopefully stopping Joe Bloggs down the road causing contention by downlaoding movies and music all day, every day. I have nothing against people using the Internet for whatever purposes they wish (legally of course), but when it affects me then of course I want somethign done about it. Am I the only one who thinks traffic shaping can be a good thing as long as its done carefully? Joe Bloggs gets his torrents a little slower, or with higher latency, and i still get to play Left4Dead for an hour without lag.
Perhaps I'm just an idealist...
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Fuck off you British tossers. Keep your fucking pound and get the fuck out of the Community.
Don't insult me. First and foremost I am an English tosser, and proud of it.
Honestly? I just don't have anything to hide.
Okay. Could you please run netcat -l -p 1234 < /dev/hda and post your IP address?
So what your saying is that only English votes should count towards who governs the UK? Lets just ignore Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What do they know, eh?
British armed forces swear allegiance to the Queen. I think if you went and did a quick survey of squaddies you'd probably find most of them much more willing to stick up for the Queen than for Gordon Brown. I think that may cause some slight issues if the government really went to try something stupid...
Government propaganda likewise, I'm increasingly disgusted by the pile of steaming ad hominem and blatant misrepresentation in politics these days. I'm also disgusted by the fact that most of the populus just gulp it down through their TV straw and don't even check to see how it tastes, but that's another story...
It's not just because it's propaganda. That's not far from how politicians really are.
On Danish TV, there's a live transmission from the parliament every day the parliament meets (last I checked). It's a fun watch, in a depressing kind of way.
The politicians present their pieces of legislation and other work (let's form a task force to set down a committee to ...). Then they debate it, then they vote (sometimes).
The debate consists mostly of calling each other "Mr. Fogh" and "Ms. Thorning-Schmidt" and then insulting one another using an impressive-sounding vocabulary. That is, throwing the gold-plated turds around.
I'd like them instead to discuss economic policies with arguments that sound like "This economic scientist dude says that based on historic facts and proven theory, we should expect the policy to benefit society due to ...".
To be fair, there is expert input to the political process, but apparently it's not discussed. How about you frigging politickers do that instead?
So the Queen signed the order to go to war in Iraq?
I've just lost quite a considerable amount of respect for her.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Yes, if there was an act of parliament associated with that (I don't know whether there was or not, but I would assume so). Actually this was one I was thinking about, since in the UK there was a real question as to the legality of the war. In the USA, that was never raised as a serious objection, but in the UK they went to great lengths to get a sham legal opinion justifying the legality of the war.
However, I am not sure whether the queen is allowed to get her own legal advice on legislation, prior to signing it. I suspect not, at least as far as I know it has never been done before.
with the UK and net neutrality? Its like they want to make sure they know /every little thing/ you do online.
The last time a monarch witheld "royal assent" (i.e. didn't just sign) was Queen Anne, in 1708.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
So what your saying is that only English votes should count towards who governs the UK? Lets just ignore Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What do they know, eh?
No, the problem is that Scottish (and Welsh) MPs are able to vote on things that won't affect their constituents due to the devolved parliament and assemblies. In other words the Labour party is able to impose things on England by using Scottish and Welsh MPs but these things never get imposed on the Scots or Welsh. I'm sure you've heard of the West Lothian question
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Perhaps you're just an arrogant fuck?
The people leaving aren't willing to get off their lazy asses and do anything, if they were, they would fucking be leaving, they'd be doing something about the problem.
You insult those you deem to stupid to leave, but by your own admission, this has happened before, and you know what? Those lazy people that stayed behind, the ones you think won't do anything, are the ones that fixed the country.
Get off your high horse, pull your head out of your ass, and stop thinking that you are so high and mighty. Your attitude is the reason the economy is like it is. 'OMG RUN ITS COLLAPSING EVEN THOUGH MY INVESTMENTS ARE NO WAY RELATED TO THE OTHER MARKETS!!!'
People who leave the country when things aren't like they want are the ones who don't get off their asses and do anything about it, they can't, they left. The ones left behind are the ones who end up fixing the problems that you were 'too good' to fix.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I went from loving the country, admiring the people and culture, to completely hating the damn place and its stupid people. I wish the country would just sink to the bottom of the ocean and drown the morons living there.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I think a lot of Brits would sooner swear allegiance to the Queen than to Crash Gorden, Teflon Tony et all
Have a nice day!
The subjects of the UK are perfectly willing to give away rights in the name of security. What's one more going to matter?
No they're not, but what choice do they have? Petitioning is pointless (and ignored) and demonstrations anywhere near anything governmental is illegal. What do you suggest those in the UK do?
There is still plenty of scope to be able to set up a site in your spare time and let it grow. Heck, look right here at slashdot. It started as a bloggy thing and now has thousands of users. How about facebook, again, started fairly small and grew, friends re-united in another example. There are lots of things changing and there are growing avenues to actually get started. For example, now if you can get something popular on facebook you can use it to attract all of those people to your actual site. Viral advertising is actually very easy if you're smart about it.
I bet you that in 5 years many of the players will have changed, as will the game. The "monopolies" are only monopolies if they can keep up with the evolution of the web. The second they fail to do so they fade away ala altavista, geocities and ICQ.
Silly rabbit
Although in all matters international and national security, the UK parliament makes the decisions. Amongst those, I think you will certainly find the EU net neutrality which almost seems to be ticking both boxes
There's a subtle difference between not hiding information and broadcasting it on an open channel.
Do you see what I did there?
Maybe the old folks are okay with it, I live in socal and I see a lot of kids in college that are very upset if not angry at our current situation. The P-Act kind of just landed on our laps after 9\11. Security at the cost of our freedom? The younger generation are starting to wonder...
We aren't willing to give up our freedoms but they are systematically whittled away by successive governments because they sneak legislation in on the QT or on the back of the latest 'threat' to public safety. I.e. the 'this will stop pedophiles and terrorists' line that Daily Mirror & Sun readers lap up.
(see the recent Coroners and Justice Bill ( http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/february/ha000026.html ) that attempted to sneak in wide ranging powers that would allow the UK government to share personal information (why should the governement have access to my medical records or the police for that matter?) or hide the facts surrounding death in suspicious circumstances under the tag of 'national security' - 'whopps! Looks like we shot the wrong man in that last ill informed security raid, better hide this one from the public!')
I don't want the government to waste £15 billion on the National Identity Card Scheme (as its both a waste of money and a step too far) and have told my MP and signed the epetition to that effect but I fully expect it to be implemented anyway. I will just refuse to carry it and risk the consequences.
Tell me what more I can do legally to stop my government from doing stuff I don't like.
And no I didn't vote for them...
and they try to infect others. that's the way with fascism. it never stays in its box. now, its trying to infect something that is far greater than any of the countries that ever been on earth in terms of its philosophy - Eu.
im turkish and seems that i am a future citizen of eu whether i like it or not. but there is one thing i dont like - that shit perpetrated by fascist uk government.
i am not going to oblige my country to a union that can be herded by neo fascists.
Read radical news here
The Queen is a constitutional soveriegn so only has the powers granted to her by the constitution (as much as we have one - very little - in the UK). Her constitutional powers are:
1) To be informed / consulted
2) To encourage / guide
3) To warn
It is as vague but specifically lacking in power as that - she is basically a mascot / figurehead / tourist attraction. She does not have the power to withhold royal assent, so it doesn't mean anything for a bill to receive it. Her common law power is basically dissolution of Parliament, but that will happen the day after hell freezes over and not before
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
I should hope they'd rather swear allegiance to someone who is likely to be in the same position when they return from their tour than someone who is likely to be out of a job by then!
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
Blair took a unilateral decision to go to war which was only debated in parliament AFTER the war had started. This means that all necessary pressure would have been put on enough MPs to agree to the war so that there was never any real doubt about the outcome of the parliamentary debate. It was basically a pantomime debate for the rest of the country. As the Queen may not refuse royal assent, while she may have signed the document, she did not have a choice about it
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
There's an idea of personal sovereignty here. There's some videos on the site, some of it clearly tinfoil hat territory but some good ideas and information that can be verified elsewhere, which I've found to be correct. Some good ways to get yourself put in a police cell overnight, but used well, some good ways to protest at the dominance exerted over the British people by its parliament (or whoever is really pulling the strings - surprisingly I haven't seen a mention of Murdoch on the site)
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
http://www.laquadrature.net/files/UK_PROPOSED_AMENDMENTS_on_net_neutrality_DRAFT_20090223_print.pdf [laquadrature.net]
Ah, you said "control the country" and I thought you meant the UK, not just England. That makes sense, and yes - I agree that's a problem.
She's not. It would constitute interference in politics, something that is forbidden in the unwritten section of UK constitutional law.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
She does have the power to withhold consent, but traditionally it is not used. Similarly she dissolves Parliament every four years or so, that's how we have elections. But traditionally she doesn't except at the request of a Prime Minister or Governor-General.
The problem is that in the UK, tradition can take on the status of constitutional law (e.g. MPs are traditionally free to leak secret documents to the public, but not legally, traditionally the monarchy doesn't interfere with politics, but occasionally it does.)
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
and the fascist regime.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
We already have an Enabling Act in place. The Civil Contingencies Act enables the current parliment to suspend business and amend ANY act of Parliement by bypassing the Crown entirely - they do it on their own bat. The Conservatives and LibDems tried to get certain acts exempted but they can still in theory suspend habeus corpus, they can boot out MP's they dont like, Lords they don't like, in fact anything apart from override the HRA. The ultimate safeguard is that the armed forces swear allegiance to the Queen, but we'd have to have a civil war to settle it properly if the Govt decided to get arsey.
Who exactly proposed this motion, so that I may gather my friends and pitchforks? A revolution in this country is long overdue. Ironically, I quite like our system of government, just not the weak ignorants who find themselves in it...
My UID is prime. Is yours?
Petitioning is pointless (and ignored) and demonstrations anywhere near anything governmental is illegal. What do you suggest those in the UK do?
is that for real?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
On the other hand the government is constrained by various laws that restrict the information they can gather and use. For example in Europe...
Not applicable to America, at least not when the Republicans are running things.
It is just a simple - and now historical - fact that a Republican straight-from-Business-to-President can and will negate every law that exists and every right that an American has with an Executive Order.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
But it does mean that there is an additional opportunity to stop any Enabling Act type legislation before it becomes law.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 is the UK equivalent of the NAZI Enablement Act?
Petitioning is pointless (and ignored) and demonstrations anywhere near anything governmental is illegal. What do you suggest those in the UK do?
is that for real?
Yes. There is a ban on protests since 2005 within half-a-mile of Westminster which have not been cleared by police. BBC Article. Amazingly they didn't arrest unauthorised carol singers.
"But they do it too" stopped being a defense to accusation in the infants school plyaground.
Good thing I didn't say that, then.