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

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

[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: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: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: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: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.

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

[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: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

[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: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: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: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: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: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!