Slashdot Mirror


German Member of Parliament Joins Pirate Party

Political Observer writes "Jörg Tauss, a member of the German Parliament (Bundestag), left the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is part of the coalition government, and announced that he is joining the German Pirate Party (Google translation; original German article). Tauss resigned from the SPD after all but four of the party's members voted for a new censorship law, which passed the parliament on Thursday. The law, which aims at reducing child pornography, introduces an infrastructure for DNS-based content blocking and is the subject of major criticism from Internet users. In March 2009 Tauss became the subject of investigations by the German police for possession of child pornographic material. He said he had this material only for research as part of his role as a member of parliament. Investigations are still continuing."

3 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. oh great, here comes by circletimessquare · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    the grammar nazi party

    we're all doomed to a life of assumed inferiority because we don't apply strunk and white's element of style to throw away comments on a backwater chat forum

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  2. Re:Well done Germany by Anarchduke · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I am sorry what country are you in?

    Is it England? The Magna Carta, which is your first document which limits executive power, did start the long process of England to become somewhat democratic. It did, however, take some bloody battles and a a few executions before the House of Commons truly became more than a sop thrown by the nobility. So, if you are in England (Not Great Britain, but England only) then you have an argument. Any other part of Great Britain and you were, like us, victims of the English tyranny. Ask Ireland, they can explain what English Tyranny means in great and graphic detail.

    Germany? Oh yeah, that is right, Hitler WAS elected. A real beacon of Democracy there. Kaiser Willhem of WW1 fames wasn't elected though, sorry.

    France? Well, France did have their Republican revolution, and although it was a nasty, bloody one, they did get rid of the nobility which had plagued their country. Sure Napolean was a tyrant, but they have a pretty good track record in democracy.

    Spain? Fransisco Franco - enough said.

    Italy? - Benny Mussolini and a long history of

    Greece? - Well, there you have it, the whole concept of democracy was pretty much fleshed out in Athens. Plato conceived the Republic. But Greek history hasn't been too friendly to democracy in many of the centuries past that.

    Face it, we colonists here in America have been the shining beacon for representative governance. We fought a bloody civil war over the question of human rights, and we have shed blood over the rights of people many times. Whether it was appropriate to do so is another question. Many of us "Yanks" died to save Europe from its own clutches. It wasn't us that caused TWO world wars, it was Europe. Frankly, I think we would be better off pulling out of NATO completely, and let you Europeans self destruct like you always do.

    --
    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  3. Re:No one here's buying it. by unauthorized · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    If the difference between an adult human being and a child eludes you, then perhaps you need to pay a visit to your doctor. Most concerns are rightfully about very young children and not about weather some porn actress really is 18 or 17.

    Now, anti-CP laws can get pretty silly, so much is true. I remember a story about a 16 years old boy getting arested for CP possession, because he had naked pictures of his 15 years old girlfriend. And don't get me started on that idiotic judge who concluded that possessing drawn images depicting children was the same crime as actual CP.

    You are not looking the act of possession under the right angle through. We've all seen how well anti-drug laws work when only selling them is illegal. If the legal status of CP changes, this will encourage underground rings to produce it (since their "customers" will not be scared of purchasing it) which in turn will increase the number of children exploited. There are many stupid censorship laws that get day to day coverage, but CP has real victims and as such the current system is working as intended. As far as victumless drawn art goes, I don't see why moralfags make such a big deal of it.

    We can never purge pedophiles from the dark corners of the Internet, but as long as they keep themselves underground in the various darknets, nobody will make money off it, and it will remain something that only the truely interested and somewhat tech savvy can find. Which is fine, since you can't stop these people, unless government spyware comes preinstalled within the BIOS of every single PC in the world.