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Threat To Net Neutrality In Europe
Narcissus writes to tell us that the European Parliament is planning a vote in the Industry, Transport, Energy (ITRE) committee that could reintroduce amendment 138 (currently amendment 46) which deals with safeguards to user rights on the internet and graduated response schemes. There are several online campaigns trying to drive awareness and action already but there is limited time to act. "The Council may propose a compromise version of amendment 138/46 that is completely neutralized, or that may even become the opposite of the original by allowing the 'three strikes' scheme instead of preventing it. According to the latest negotiations, am.138/46 wouldn't anymore be an article (that must be transposed by Member States in their law) but a mere recital that has just indicative value. It is urgent to contact the members of the ITRE committee to advise them to reject compromise with the Council that failed to respect the intent of the original amendment. The best would be once again to approve the amendment."
As long as carriers can set their own policies for traffic carried across networks that they own, Net Neutrality is a dead topic.
Free Enterprise dictates that the carriers have the right to price services according to market demand. If your carrier starts adopting tiered pricing or starts prioritizing your traffic in ways that it sees fit, then let your feet do the walking to another carrier.
Free Markets do eventually work their way around to providing the services people want for the price they're willing to pay.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Send a clear message that this nonsense will not be tolerated... to help make an intelligent decision when voting in European elections, see:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en [laquadrature.net]
Check out the Political memory resource:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory [laquadrature.net]
especially the "List of recorded votes" section to see who voted for what - before you reward them with your vote for them.
Also of interest, the Telecoms Package section: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package [laquadrature.net]
Stop trying to equate network neutrality with stealing. Punishing those who keep stealing/pirating content doesn't have anything to do with NN.
It's quite clear to me that the end of the Golden Age of the Internet is drawing near.
The internet has finally drawn the attention of the huge money and power brokers of the world. These people are going to make sure that the Internet serves their ends as much as possible.
Oh, there will be the few geeks who know how to set up a proxy to secure a tiny bit of anonymity until one of the Big Fish get wind of you and get interested in tracking you down, but for the most part, all connections are going to be monitored. They are going to know who's on each end of every communication channel, and they are going to know what is being communicated, and to a large extent, they will control it. Whether it's priority transmission speeds, bandwidth capping, or outright censoring, there's too much money at stake on the Internet now to leave the playing field "neutral".
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Bad form to reply to own post, but I just saw this related news item at http://www.laquadrature.net/en
URGENT: Two days to help Catherine Trautmann protect EU citizens.
Paris, April 20th 2009 - The Council of the EU is strongly pushing Catherine Trautmann - rapporteur of the main directives of the "Telecoms Package" - to accept a useless, neutralized version[1] of amendment 138. This amendment, opposing to "graduated response - or "three strikes" â" schemes, has been overwhelmingly adopted by the European Parliament in its first reading on September 2008, and is crucial for safeguarding EU citizens' rights and freedoms. La Quadrature du Net calls European citizens to urge their MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.
[1] The Council wants to make it a merely indicative recital instead of an article that Member States must transpose into their law
Call back later? Wrong answer. Once the amendment's passed, it's too late to call your representative. We Americans have discovered this from personal experience wherein today's proposal suddenly passes the Congress tomorrow, and now we're stuck with the law. Too late to whine after it's a done deal.
NOW is the time to call your reps.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Yes. The vote hasn't happened yet.
Generally speaking its best to raise awareness of an important vote before it happens, so that you can contact your representatives and make it clear what you expect them to do. You know, so that your representatives actually represent you. Believe it or not democracy doesn't have to happen with elected officials doing what they want while you mutter under your breath, you are allowed as a citizen to actually participate in the process by making your opinions clear to those people who make the vote.
And if they don't get what they initially wanted, they'll try another law, and if that doesn't go through, they'll try another law... Until they finally manage to come up with the perfect timing when nobody is paying attention and it goes through.
That or they'll just declare that it's in effect, they can get away with that more and more these days. It's not like voting them out would change anything.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Most of the people I know are not familiar with the intricacies of today's technology. If they think for one minute they are being monitored, watched and spied upon by anyone, let alone government and telecoms companies, they'll stop internet shopping, social networking and wikipedia surfing immediately (which lets face it, is all most normal people use a PC for nowadays anyway). Just look at how much people kicked off over Facebook wanting to protect people's email inbox after the sender deleted their copy...
If this even get close to being passed, mainstream media will have a field day, especially given that most UK tabloids despise Europe in its entirety already.
Perhaps this is a ploy to stimulate high street sales amirite?
For all the Dutch people here (part of the EU), mail this to the NOS News at nosbinnenland@nos.nl to send your press tips and raise awareness.
The NOS news has been reporting on censorship last week with that local newspaper... I am sure some of you will remember, so they will express interest in this too.
Hint at the Australian censorship as to why 'child-porn' blocking went instantly into censorship of Wikileaks and Wikipedia among other legitimate websites. You can alos find that block-list on Wikileaks.
If more people than just me tip them about it via email then I am sure they will air it tommorow!
Don't think that some one else will already do that beauce usualy no-one does because they think "ah a lot of people will read this so I don't have to"!
Here be signatures