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German Parliament Enacts Internet Censorship Law
TheTinyToon writes that by a vote of 389 to 128, "the proposed censorship law to block child porn has been passed by the German government. Not surprisingly, a member of the conservative party (CDU) announced plans to also check if the law could be extended to include so-called 'killer games' like Counterstrike, only two hours after the law was passed. More [in German] on netzpolitik.org."
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the development of tools is in OUR hands and the infrastructure is essentially beyond the control of individual governments.
Unfortunately, the bullets are still in their hands. While we can whargarbl all day long on the internet, if a government really is concerned about shutting you down they will resort to the simplest, most effective, technological trick in the book: killing you. Take a good look at North Korea or China, these are examples of governments who have decided to keep control and aren't afraid to drive over a few piss-ant protesters with tanks.
This is why it's important to fight this stuff while we still have a government which we can effect with noise and votes, and not end up with an extra hole or two. It is far better to fight while the fighting is easy and winning very possible, because eventually you may reach a point where the fighting is hard and victory impossible.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
The way the government (left-right coalition) just ignored all expert testimony and all citicism could well loose them the younger generations completely.
It already did. So, by politician logic, they stopped caring about us at all.
The SPD (one of the two major parties) recently formed a technical consulting committee which helped the party leaders understand Internet and other modern technologies, and helped them campaign in these new mediums, etc.
Most of the committee walked out on them in disgust after yesterday's vote.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Because they're not actually interested in eliminating kiddie porn, or protecting children, or any of the other reasons they're giving.
If they were, what you say is exactly what they'd do. When the discussion started, some activist picked the danish block list and called up or mailed all german ISPs that hosted a site listed on that list.
Surprise, almost all of them got shut down, and very quickly.
Incidently, "delete instead of block" is the motto of the counter-movement - http://loeschenstattsperren.de/
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's planned for tomorrow - details here: http://piratenpartei.de/node/773