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."

Comments

thank you sir, may I have another

[Em Emalb]

man, corporations oops, I mean politicians are really pushing this BS aren't they?

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[digitalunity]

Politicians are corrupt. There is value(read: profit) in artificial scarcity. By reducing the consumer's expectations you can get them to pay more for the same service. Profit is good for the economy(in theory).

Soon, you'll pick your ISP or your rate plan based on the sites you want to see. The content producers and ISP's will share the revenue from the increased revenue. Sadly, I really think a lot of consumers will pony up the cash.

Regardless of what the laws say, ISP's can choose to allow universal access. If this new business model fails, they may eventually give up.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[Anonymous Coward]

"And if you order in the next 30 minutes, you can get 100 additional websites for only $19.99/mo more"

Sadly, this is the endgame they're envisioning

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[FooAtWFU]

There is value(read: profit) in artificial scarcity. By reducing the consumer's expectations you can get them to pay more for the same service. Profit is good for the economy(in theory).

In bullshit theory, sure. In real economic theory, however, this setup is horribly inefficient, as it significantly reduces the consumer surplus. Of course, the government can't tax something quite so intangible as such a benefit to society...

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[AuMatar]

Supply siders and businessmen like to ignore things like consumer surplus- it doesn't fit into their worldview (the worldview where they deserve everything).

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[Hal_Porter]

Shouldn't you go to the UK before writing it off, rather than doing so based on a "UK is a policestate" meme on slashdot?

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[AHuxley]

Funny, sounds like we're buying diamonds.
In Australia every packet is gold plated and cost $150 per gig.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[Hal_Porter]

My parents and brother live in the UK and all that "police state" stuff was just in your head, mate.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[0123456]

My parents and brother live in the UK and all that "police state" stuff was just in your head, mate.

I guess you'd have said the same to a Jew in Germany in 1932.

A few days ago I was reading a NASA astronaut's story about his visit to East Germany in the 80s before the Berlin Wall came down; I didn't understand why it seemed so familiar until I realised he was pretty much describing my last visit to the UK.

But yeah, total surveillance, ID cards, a DNA database and total control over Internet access are nothing to do with a police state; just go back to sleep and it will all be OK in the morning...

The funny part is that the way the country is going, Labour will get all these things in place just in time for the BNP to gain power and use those powers to turn the country into a real Nazi hell-hole.

'Your papers please...' Get used to it if you're dumb enough not to get out while you still can.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[Hal_Porter]

Umm, what? The police state in Germany happened after the Nazis had absolute power, i.e. after the Enabling Act. The slippery state argument, i.e. that introducing ID cards - which the government have been talking about for ages but never actually managed to implement - will somehow gradually lead to a totalitarian state is silly paranoia. Germany was rather libertarian before the Nazis took over, which of course is why they were able to take over. If anything the Weimar Rebublic should have been a bit more careful keeping track of wannabe totalitarians.

And the idea that the BNP is on a course to win an election is silly too. If they had seats in parliament and their share of the vote was increasing I'd be concerned. Actually they have no seats and even if they won one they would most likely not be able to win more. Do you really think if a Nazi like party gains power they won't just implement whatever leagal measures they feel necessary?

Maybe you've been smoking too much pot and it's made you paranoid. Best not do that 'across the Atlantic' though, I hear they have much more draconian punishments for drug users. I believe the phrase is "pound me in the ass prison".

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[jabithew]

Politicians are corrupt. There is value(read: profit) in artificial scarcity. By reducing the consumer's expectations you can get them to pay more for the same service. Profit is good for the economy(in theory).

Yes, yes, yes, NO! Profit from artificial scarcity causes a deadweight loss, and is bad for any other industry as well as consumers and therefore the government.

I don't know why my government is doing this, as it sounds like the exact opposite of the changes Britain normally proposes, but I don't understand any of the UK government policies. I would say roll on the general election, but I'm not convinced that Cameron's Tory's will be much better.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[Stanislav_J]

Sounds more and more like cable TV, with its various "tiers" of service based on content, premium channels, etc. That's probably, alas, where Internet access is heading, not just in the U.K., but here in the U.S. as well. Don't kid yourself: net neutrality will sooner or later be just a memory. You can moan and complain and fight, but personally I'm amazed the powers that be haven't already clamped down on the notion of free-roaming flat-rate uncensored Internet use already. Can't control what the masses read and hear that way.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[alan.briolat]

Dare I mention that there are more than 2 parties in the UK? The sooner people get out of this 2-party mentality the sooner democracy will come closer to working again...

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[cayenne8]

"personally I'm amazed the powers that be haven't already clamped down on the notion of free-roaming flat-rate uncensored Internet use already. Can't control what the masses read and hear that way."

Well, it kinda snuck up on them. The govt. never saw this coming really.....if they had, I'm sure things would have been planned out to be MUCH more restrictive at the onset.

Re:thank you sir, may I have another

[jabithew]

Dare I mention the first-past-the-post system? Here one only actually has a vote if you live in a Tory-Labour marginal. The Lib-Dems will never get enough votes to form even the coalition that might introduce real democracy.

That won't stop me voting Lib-Dem. I think Clegg/Cable are the guys I want running the country now. I just know it'll never happen.

Another brick

[Renraku]

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!

Re:Another brick

[hannson]

I just don't have anything to hide

Wrong!
 
  Everyone has something to hide from someone.

Re:Another brick

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, people see you in crowed areas. Oh my god, humans (including some in the government), seeing you in public places. Your privacy has been violated, go hide and whine on Slashdot.

In the real world what we do affects other people more than it does on the internet; therefore behaviour in the real world must be regulated more than on the internet. You can't kill someone, or rape someone over your internet connection, but you can kill or rape someone in the real world, so the double standard is entirely justified. We should have complete privacy on the net, but not in the real world, because we must be held accountable for our actions in the real world, while holding people accountable for their actions on the net doesn't really matter. If it's on the internet and you don't like it, don't look.

Re:Another brick

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Everyone has something to hide from someone.

Except boring people with blogs.

Re:Another brick

[EdIII]

Wow, people see you in crowed areas. Oh my god, humans (including some in the government), seeing you in public places. Your privacy has been violated, go hide and whine on Slashdot.

Way to troll. Hide and whine on Slashdot? You act as if the desire for privacy is unreasonable. Far from it. Privacy and Anonymity are basic human rights. The founder fathers in the U.S had exactly that in mind when they created the 4th amendment.

Guess why?

Governments abuse their people. Always and inevitably. It's just human nature. You mention "including some in the government". Well that is exactly who we are worried about. You think I give a fuck about the pizza dude in a public place? Of course not. I care about the state official hundreds of miles away that looks at databases to predict my movement patterns. When he uses programs to analyze my relationships with other people and corporations. When there is a rating to determine whether I am a "subversive" or a threat to a current political regime. It's not like that is a paranoid or unreasonable position right? It's not like situations like this have not happened in various governments right? Hoover did not have an agenda against MLK right?

You do have a point though. If I a am good little productive unit, don't rock the boat, vote for the right party, and know my place, it's a good chance that I won't have any problems with the people that are in government.

Of course, if I am a political activist and make public statements that go against those in power I just might have to worry. If I am in the right place and right time without the required skin color, eye color, and religious affiliations, I could be in even bigger trouble.

That's the point. People in government should be denied the ability to watch and collect data on citizens. It's just not a good idea and lends itself inevitably towards abuse.

In the real world what we do affects other people more than it does on the internet; therefore behaviour in the real world must be regulated more than on the internet.

That's a logical fallacy. Just because you don't understand how "things" work on the Internet and you cannot see the people causing those affects, does not mean that the Internet has less of an effect. Both the real world and the Internet needs to be regulated within reason.

You can't kill someone, or rape someone over your internet connection,

Now that's just factually incorrect. One of the greatest concerns about devices connected on the Internet is that it can be abused and have fatal affects in the world. What about municipal utilities? Water supplies? Manipulating police agencies to get SWAT called out to a house fraudulently and they kill a 90 year old grandmother? Aside from fatal situations, there is plenty of damage that can occur to people, corporations, and countries from simply manipulating the Internet.

so the double standard is entirely justified

Double standards are never justified. Not ever. A double standard means that we are not being treated equal. You are trying to make the point that they are fundamentally different and therefore different rules and considerations apply. That's a reasonable argument, but incorrect. We must approach both the Internet and the Real World with the same concerns for privacy and anonymity.

We should have complete privacy on the net, but not in the real world, because we must be held accountable for our actions in the real world, while holding people accountable for their actions on the net doesn't really matter. If it's on the internet and you don't like it, don't look.

We should have complete privacy both on the Internet and in the real world. Especially from the government. Now I mean privacy by default as

Re: Another brick

[Logic Worshiper]

I've been a political activist (hell, I've been intimidated by the government for my political activities), and I can tell you first hand that anonymity is no friend to activists. The thing that gives you power in political activism is your publicity, the same thing that attracts the government's attention. Publicity is the opposite of privacy. You can't change the world without standing up and putting yourself on the line for what you believe in.

We can't set a double standard for government because it's impossible. The government will always have the same access to a you a random stranger does because the government is made up of people. On the topic of double standards, it is perfectly reasonable to hold a double standards for different types of behaviours, especially when one type of behaviour presents a greater risk to others than another type of behaviour. For example, walking verses driving drunk; driving drunk is a great way to kill someone else, while walking drunk will hurt no one but you (so a double standard is justified). Claiming there is no double standard that can ever be justified means you don't understand the use of the term in context. The term "double standard" can also mean "where the analogy fails", or "why the principles you're applying there don't work here".

Some people love the anonymity they have in crows that they find in places like New York, London, and lose in the suburbs or in rural areas. In some ways the best privacy you can have in the real world is to be one among millions, unnoticeable to anyone.

You can only commit property crimes online (and there are many measures in place to prevent you doing even that), you can't rape or murder over the internet, and those crimes are much worse than any property crime.

Re: Another brick

[Ed Avis]

The government will always have the same access to a you a random stranger does because the government is made up of people.

Not really true. On the one hand, the government has the resources to wiretap your phone, for example, in a way that a random stranger cannot. On the other hand the government is constrained by various laws that restrict the information they can gather and use. For example in Europe at least data protection legislation restricts sharing of information between government departments, so even if the government as a whole knows several things about you it is unable to correlate them to reach conclusions. You can tell this data protection legislation is having a real effect because the British government wants to give itself the power to override the legislation.

Left wing credentials

[MrMickS]

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.

Re:Left wing credentials

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the labour party exercising its right wing credentials.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Left wing credentials

[Chabo]

This is the labour party exercising its left wing credentials. It wants total control of the populous.

http://www.talkswindon.org/politics/speedcameras/Brown%20is%20stalin.jpg

I apologize for the squished aspect ratio on the photo.

I first saw that photo on Top Gear, when Clarkson was comparing Brown and Stalin: that he is restricting movement by raising fuel tax, and that ID cards and curfews are to follow.

I'm an American, and the British government has made me not want to live in the U.K., which I would otherwise like to do someday.

Re:Left wing credentials

[arevos]

This is the labour party exercising its left wing credentials. It wants total control of the populous.

And right-wing politicians don't?

Re:Left wing credentials

[hyades1]

This has nothing to do with left wing or right wing, and allegations that it does are simply foolish. The English Conservative Party has a well-documented history of fascist tendencies going back at least as far as WWII. There were even quite a few Tories who thought Hitler had the right idea, and said so publicly. Sir Oswald Mosley illustrates the point well. First he was a Tory, then a Labour cabinet minister, then he abandoned both parties to found the British Union of Fascists.

You might also be unaware that in its current incarnation the Labour Party is to the right of what has traditionally been the British centre.

In any case, this situation is just another indication of a coercive government doing what it does best: get people under its thumb and squeeze out any hint of thought and activity it doesn't either monitor or control. Just try to find real differences in the position of the Tories and Labour on any issue of substance. Currently, "Right" and "Left" are simply labels of convenience to soothe the party faithful.

Re:Left wing credentials

[Chabo]

As a former resident of New Hampshire, I highly recommend it as a place to live if you're sick of over-reaching government. The west side of the state is left-leaning, the east side of the state is right-leaning, but the whole state has a very libertarian attitude.

I'm in California now (I took a job out here) and I can't stand it because of how willing the residents of this state are to let government of all levels control their lives. It's given me a very intense appreciation of what I had.

People (especially Europeans) forget how large and diverse the U.S. is. California and New Hampshire have twice as much distance between them than London and Moscow, and the two states have even less in common with each other than France and Belgium, two other "states" that also share most of a language.

Re:Left wing credentials

[Jurily]

This is the labour party exercising its turd wing credentials.

What exactly is this left-and-right BS you people keep saying? All I see is a bunch of politicians disconnected from the real world, and from the people who vote on them. Does it really matter what "side" they're on if they act stupid?

Re:Left wing credentials

[sapphire wyvern]

It wants total control of the populous.

Sorry for the pedantry, but I've been seeing this particular malapropism a lot lately. "Populous" is an adjective, meaning "densely inhabited". The noun you're looking for is "populace", meaning a population of people. Yes, they're pronounced exactly the same, so it's a very common substitution.

Re:Left wing credentials

[jabithew]

The English Conservative Party has a well-documented history of liberal tendencies going back at least as far as the Great War. There were even quite a few Tories who thought David Lloyd-George had the right idea, and said so publicly. Sir Winston Churchill illustrates the point well. First he was a Liberal, then a Tory prime minister.

The Tories, like Labour, are a fairly big tent.

Re:Why?

[pete6677]

The subjects of the UK are perfectly willing to give away rights in the name of security. What's one more going to matter?

Re:And yet

[Chabo]

Nah. Governments have a tendency of giving themselves more power, whether they're left or right.

Partisan politics are the method by which the government gets us to argue amongst each other long enough so we won't notice that they're all colluding to strip us of our rights.

Vote for a more limited government, no matter what country you happen to live in.

Access Denied

[BountyX]

Sorry, you do not have the rights to access and distribute this slashdot comment.

Re:Why?

[Firehed]

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.

This affects us all

[nightfire-unique]

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.
- Police brutality: Videos can circle the globe within minutes. The watchers are now watched, and this has a powerful effect on their behavior.
- Propaganda: .. is far less effective when the citizenry can check the facts
- 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.

Re:This affects us all

[fractoid]

Excellent post. It's more than a little scary to think about how much the Internet has improved humanitarian matters through exposing abuses. It shrinks the globe far more than the airlines did - Iraq is generally way, way outside Joe Citizen's monkeysphere, but that guy in his WoW raid is definitely inside it, and when that guy says "sorry, I have to go, someone's bombing my block"... that has an impact.

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...

That said, I don't think the 'net as a whole is under any long-term threat, simply because due to scalability requirements it will eventually turn into a wireless mesh system. As networks grow very large, they _must_ become increasingly decentralized and therefore increasingly resilient to attacks of the kind that net neutrality seeks to prevent.

Re:This affects us all

[SanityInAnarchy]

due to scalability requirements it will eventually turn into a wireless mesh system.

I would guess that'll happen because of the threat of censorship, and the relative cheapness, more than anything else. Fiber is pretty scalable.

As networks grow very large, they _must_ become increasingly decentralized and therefore increasingly resilient to attacks of the kind that net neutrality seeks to prevent.

Keep in mind, the Internet currently is very centralized in other ways as well.

For example: How do we find anything on the Internet? Google. How does eBay allow individuals to become sellers? By routing them through the corporate hub of, well, eBay. Who decides how to allocate DNS and IP? The IANA.

And yet, when you completely decentralize it, you open yourself up to spam. That is, if everything is defined by a consensus of peers, all someone has to do is control a large number of those peers, either by infecting real peers, or by fabricating them.

I don't have a good solution, and I have no idea what a good solution would look like, unless it went entirely peer-to-peer. But then we'd have to set about building a web of trust that spans the planet, and any one entity might still not have a good path to trust another entity.

Pirate Radio one more time around?

[presidenteloco]

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.

Re:Pirate Radio one more time around?

[fractoid]

I always wondered where the 'pirate' connection with copyright infringement came from. The image of a bunch of geeks with eye patches and cutlasses sailing up and down English coast shouting YARRRR and broadcasting popular music pleases me inordinately.

I am tired of UK being a EU member

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

De Gaulle, and gaullists in general, was very much against the UK joining the EU. His major objection was its overseas empire and is connection to it. A connection that would preclude any stronger connection with the continent.

These days, I think it must be said that De Gaulle was certainly correct, except that he mistook the connection. The UK is not so much linked to its former empire, as it is inextricably linked to its former colony, and now arguably its master, the United States. There is also the concept of the Anglosphere in general.

The Anglosphere is a very real cultural and economic force, if not a political one. This is what De Gaulle saw, and is why he did not want the UK forcing that worldview onto the EU. With English now being used as the dominant language in the EU, and with the UK promoting measures such as this, and all but standing in for the US in the commission, I think his objections were valid.

The UK should not have been let in.

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[kegon]

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. [.....] Yet they want to rip all the benefits of the common market.

Show me an EU member country that is doing any different. They all act for their own benefits, none of them are selfless. All countries have negotiated these treaties and agreements, are you saying other countries were unfairly forced to sign and the UK somehow cheated ?

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

Examples ? Links ? Facts ?

How does this flame bait get modded "Interesting" ?

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[ElectricTurtle]

The Europeans have nobody to blame but themselves for the kind of people that the British are. Stronger connection with the continent? Heh, yeah, what like when the Romans invaded? The Danes? The Viking raids and invasion attempts? The Normans? The Spanish would have if they could have, same with the French both under their monarchy and Napoleon, and lastly the Germans under Hitler (we'll let the cold war Russian threat slide). I think I'd be a little schizophrenic about 'the continent' with that much 'history'.

It's funny that the EUropeans hold Britain's former colonies against her. All the major states of Europe had colonies, the only difference was that they all came to nothing. Mexico doesn't have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Algeria sure as hell didn't save Europe from the Germans (twice), Indonesia never managed to put men on the moon, etc. etc. Many of the British colonies were the only European colonies to achieve a 'European' level of rule of law and quality of life, and I think that makes the other European powers jealous. I think it bothers the French that no matter how many words they make up for new technology, it's still only English that's accepted as the universal language of air-traffic control (because English-speakers invented powered flight). I think it bothers the great Universities of Europe that no matter how good they are, they'll never carry the gravitas of Oxford and the Rhodes Scholarship simply because that's what Britain impressed on all her colonies and sphere of influence as the excelsior achievement. Anyway, the point is well enough made.

The transfer of global primacy from the British in the 19th century to the Americans in the 20th represents a very unique event in known history. Never has the center of the primary political and military power on earth shifted such a vast geographic distance without a similarly vast shift in language or culture. As a grand coincidence, those two English-speaking centuries oversaw the production, dissemination, and regulation (or lack thereof) of virtually every new technology that has changed human civilization, including the internet. This made the 'Anglosphere' into the primary progenitor of the coming modern monoculture. Any scion of the other major cultural powers who understands these things would be justifiably miffed, and I believe they are.

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument has many flaws. USA becomes a great nation by becoming independent from the British influence. Without the revolution, we would have become another docile Canada (sorry, no pun intended to our good neighbor from the North) because of the spirit of its citizens and the genius of its founding fathers!

We had to fight against British arrogance in our American Revolution to become free. While most of the original 13 colonies were British ones, many other territories and states had a much diverse European population (including French descendants, Spanish decedents, Irish, German, etc.). US are a unique melting pot cultures, not just the English one. We march with the Scottish pipes, because persecuted Scottish found a home away from the oppression of the English. Same for Irish. German population was a big share of the initial US. British have no merit regarding where US is now.

The merit is of the American people who found a free land (with natives, all right), undeveloped (from the European perspective), with a climate similar in many regards to European one. US are Europe 2.0! British readers, please, don't assume merits you don't have in what America has become!

Your Empire has vanished, you are just an island nation now, that's all, living from the memories of the past, when pound was what USD is today, and when London was what is Washington, today. And with your copy-cat economy, Frankfurt am Main in Deutschland will soon become the financial capital of the EU.

You see, Germans got it right, by involving in the EU as a key engine part, they achieve peacefully now goals that they fought - and lost in the past. Deutschland and France look into the future, British are so much anchored in the past. What is your role and influence in today's world? Diminishing every day... IMHO

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[Petrushka]

You've got some interesting points, but I suspect that if de Gaulle were around today he'd be thoroughly in favour of keeping the UK in the EU. It really specifically was the Commonwealth that he was concerned about, and the UK has wholeheartedly and thoroughly done its best to bring the Commonwealth to an end.

Today the major powers in the EU -- France and Germany, and to a lesser extent Benelux -- very much want to keep the UK in the EU, and I suspect that's precisely because of the UK's trans-Atlantic links. The UK may have always been ambivalent about the EU -- it so happens that the yea-sayers have been winning so far -- but since the Commonwealth became moribund, the EU has been working remarkably hard to appease the UK and keep them in. Perhaps the UK's importance in the field of banking is another reason to keep the UK. If not for those two things, I would imagine that France in particular would have given up on UK-appeasing long ago.

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[Anonymous Coward]

The Revolutionary War was about sovereignty, not society or culture. Aside from giving up tea for coffee and banning titles, American society was solidly derived from English society, most importantly common law.

While the French, Spanish, and Dutch had some significant holdings, they were not as well populated as the British holdings, nor as solidly held. The lands in the south such as Florida and Louisiana bounced between Spanish, French, British and American control like pinballs, and the Dutch didn't hold onto New Amsterdam long enough for even the name to stick. The Germans came largely rather late to the party, a fair number of Hessians didn't want to go back after their mercenary role in the war was over. Otherwise the bulk of Germans (and Irish and Scotts-Irish and Scandinavians and other Europeans) came in the centuries following the war. However, by the time of that influx, the socio-cultural foundation had already set, and the waves of Europeans coming in were largely absorbed into it.

So to say that the 'British have no merit regarding where US is now' ('merit' is a strange word to use in this context) is disingenuous at a minimum. There's a reason why we (I'm 3rd generation American of Norse/German extraction) speak English and use a legal system based on British common law, and it is purely that the British cultural influence was the most dominant of those in play at the time of the Revolution and the solidification of the US during the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.

Re:I am tired of UK being a EU member

[kegon]

It's "interesting" because it reflects a widely held view of Britain and the British people throughout the European continent. It's not "flamebait" for the same reason.

Having a widely held view does not make that opinion interesting or less provocative.

The post does not have an argument it is purely hostile. As I said before, EU treaties were all negotiated and signed by more than one party. If the original poster is unhappy with this he should ask the politicians of his country to negotiate differently and not sign treaties his people don't want !

I'm not sure how to defend against something that lacks an argument. AFAIK Britain has kept to her end of all the EU treaties she has signed, or is that defined as "perfidious" ?

The only other thing I can say is that the British people do not identify with this idea that they are clinging on to the remnants of their empire. As far as they are concerned the British Empire is a relic of history books. It seems that it is the rest of the EU that need to get over it. Do I need to defend that too ?

If a law violates GPLD

[Hordeking]

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?

Re:Why?

[0123456]

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.

Re:Why?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

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.

Re:What kind of agenda is that?

[bongomanaic]

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.

The Labour party isn't a liberal party, it's a populist pro-business centre right (by European standards) party. It's platform since the early 1990s has been "the third way", i.e. the pursuit of egalitarian aims such as reducing poverty and improving education coupled with traditionally right-wing concerns such as the promotion of market capitalism and reduction in crime. Individual liberty is low on their agenda. They promised a fairer and more prosperous society, not a freer society. The UK government's position is easy to understand when you consider that, unlike most EU countries, the UK is a net exporter of cultural goods. The short-term interests of an important sector of the UK economy would be threatened by the introduction of net neutrality.

Why is it that...

[AlgorithMan]

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?

Everyone can see what they are trying to do...

[Turzyx]

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.

Re:Why?

[L4t3r4lu5]

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?

Re:What's up with England?

[AndyboyH]

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!

Re:British

[Computershack]

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.

Re:British

[Chrisq]

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.

Re:Why?

[VJ42]

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

Re:Why?

[BitZtream]

Perhaps you're just an arrogant fuck?

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.

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.