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Secret UK Plan To Appoint "Pirate Finder General"
mouthbeef writes "A source very close to the UK Labour government just called me to leak the fact that Secretary of State Lord Mandelson is trying to sneak a revision into the Digital Economy Bill that would give him and his successors the power to create future copyright law without debate. Mandelson goes on to explain that he wants this so he can create private copyright militias with investigatory and enforcement powers, and so he can create new copyright punishments as he sees fit (e.g., jail time, three strikes)."
We need a new Internet. Any ideas?
Okay, this comes from BoingBoing so it may be nonsense, but what does the government think they're doing appointing Sith Lord Mandleson? He's an out-of-control power-crazed sociopath and should never have been allowed back into government.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
But this is exactly up Darth Mandelson's alley. He truly and passionately believes in the utter dominance of the State over the individual. Of course, he plans to be a most benign dictator.
For those not in the know, Lord Mandelson is the de facto ruler of the United Kingdom, and one of the chief architects of the European super state under the (also "benign") dictatorship of the unelected, unaccountable European Council of Ministers.
He is the #1 threat to individual rights and freedoms in the UK and possibly in the whole of Europe. Think Palpatine, only with fruitier ties.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is the same sort of moves that were made during prohibitions and during the war on drugs. They do not care about the consequences to the economy or about the UK citizen. He only cares about the people he really works for and thats the copyright cartel. This Mandelson works for the RIAA/MPAA. He is their man, not yours. If you want this to change then your man will have to be in that position.
"What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright"
Which means that it's undemocratic. If nobody can control this unelected official, what's to stop them from abusing their position? In my opinion, that's a bit too much power to be given to any individual.
Would the (supposedly democratic) government be so kind to please start representing the people again already?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
But you need more than new politicians. You need "your" politicians. You need more influence, and it will only change when people who profit from peer to peer are financing campaigns and getting people elected. It will only change when the political atmosphere changes. The old timer curmudgeons rule the political arena and until you put new minds not just new faces into these positions it will not change. Keep in mind that bribery/quid pro quo is how things get done and corruption is how things work.
Considering the proud history of the British navy, it would make sense of them to appoint a person in charge of finding pirates on the high seas. I don't see how this is relevant to Slashdot, though. Nor do I see why they should keep such a role secret. Keeping our oceans save is a noble job.
If pirates and piracy is measurably affecting ocean travel and commerce, someone should get on doing something about it. If not, then this ocean pirate hunter idea seems kind of pointless.
I'm sure they have reliable data from the people who use the oceans which affirm that ocean piracy is a big issue.
face recognition following their every move...
We don't have face recognition in public CCTV systems, I don't know where you pulled that one from. I agree we have massive surveillance problems here in the UK, but we don't need to make things up to make it sound worse. It's bad enough already
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
I thought piracy was the key to stopping global warming. Why are they trying to speed up global warming?
You know your government is truly in the gutter when an American begins to criticize its brazen corruption and abject stupidity. How the hell are you guys still stuck with Mandelson?
Yeah - perhaps they could could better worry about the analogue pirates off the Horn of Africa.
You are wrong about the purpose/origin of copyright law. Copyright law was written to protect against someone else profiting from "stealing" your creative work. It was not designed to keep me from copying your stuff for my own use. Until the advent of computers it to some degree it had that effect. The cost of producing copies was high enough that, for most people, it was more cost efficient (counting both time and money) to buy a copy from the copyright holder (although with the advent of home recording devices that began to change).
As the cost of copying dropped with modern technology, many companies that based their business on distributing copyrighted material wanted to use the reduced cost of producing copies to increase their profit, intending to use copyright law to prevent people from using the now affordable methods to produce copies for their own personal use from obtaining copies.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Is ensuring he has a new Mercedes S600 every year, a decent yacht, a few homes, unlimited access to private jets, and access to the best schools for his children.
Politicians are offered incentives to fuck over human beings, but face no consequences for doing so. Now, I'm not normally one to consider people as pure incentive-following machines - but politicians aren't people in the strictest sense. They are psychopaths.
Look at Tony Blair. He lied to start an illegal war which killed probably hundreds of thousands of people. He left office when he chose to, and is now living comfortably, despite what he did. Why wouldn't a British politician simply do as they will? They know they are fucking untouchable.
I'm trying to think of sane and enlightened ways the people can deal with this situation, but the only thing running through my mind is sic semper tyrannis. They need, somehow, to fear the consequences of their actions.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
FWIW, a lot of the proud history of the British navy is due to their support for pirates. Privateers were a sizable portion of the British navy that sunk the Spanish Armada (of course, a timely storm helped a lot with that one). They were also a very important tool in the economic war with Spain that QE I was waging. I read a very good biography of Drake that goes into detail... suffice it to say the Crown fully supported piracy, as long as it wasn't targeted at British vessels. So much so that QE I entertained Drake as a suitor to ensure his support of Her.
There's some kind of analogy here... if the high seas, as a chief method of commerce of the time, can be equated to the internet, as a chief method of commerce in our time... then perhaps Brtain should consider sponsoring these pirates instead, and riding their coattails to a new era of economic dominance? And maybe Dark Lord Mandy should consider dating one of the pirates?
OK, it's a bad analogy. But I haven't seen Bad Analogy Guy in a while, so I'm doing my best to fill in.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Straw and Blunkett were amateur blunderers. They made the mistake of going through the motions of doing consultations and producing detailed legislative plans, which really hampered them.
Mandelson has spotted that instead of bothering with this tiresome "laws" nonsense, he can just churn out two or three absolutely bonkers dictats per week. The sheer volume of administrative evil makes it hard to oppose him; by the time you've mounted a defence to any of his plots, he's busy announcing the next one.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Yes, but at times the House of Lords is the only thing standing between the House of Commons (the elected one) and some truly asinine, knee-jerk legislation.
By being unelected and essentially in the job for life, they don't have to worry about pandering to the populist cause of the moment and can (theoretically) take a more level-headed view on things.
Why do you think NuLabour has spent so much time and effort slowly chipping away at the Lords? They're tired of being forced to introduce less batshit insane laws...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
All I know is she couldn't be stupider than say, Reagan, or Bush
Sarah Palin accepts your challenge.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
That's the thing the politicans don't understand.
We celebrate Bonfire night not because he failed to blow up parliament but because he had the idea.
We're all just waiting for the next guy to come along and pull it off
Yeah, 'cause you Yanks can sure show 'em a thing or two with your handguns against squads of armored SWAT teams with grenades and automatic weapons, helicopter support, and the latest in anti-riot gear. Worked well at WACO. Good luck with that.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
You are starting from a false assumption; that the election will result in a change of government. Don't get me wrong, the Tories are certain to win - but there will be no real change in government.
Consider that The Sun, owned by News International, has publicly changed its allegiance from Labour to Tory, indicating that the Tories are now in Murdoch's pocket; given that we know well the views News International have about the Internet, do you not think the next government will continue the same anti-freedom policies and abuse the laws that Mandelson is proposing?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The answer is not to ignore the judiciary, penalise innocent people and throw away the principles embodied in the Magna Carta.
The answer is to encourage copyright holders to leverage the reduced distribution costs and easier access to their markets, and to reduce copyright terms to something that benefits society.
If Mandelson is still in power in June I'm going to end up getting arrested :(
If the government wants to oppress the people to the point where they'd fight back, the armed forces would get involved. Either the armed forces will be on the side of the government, in which case the people are fucked regardless of how many guns they have, or they're on the side of the people, in which case the peoples' guns are not needed. They might split down the middle, but then the guns in private ownership will be like a fly trying to take sides in a fight between two bull elephants. Guns in private hands don't do anything but make people targets. No overweight accountant on his roof with a rifle is going to cause problems for an apache attack helicopter, or a tank, or even a humvee with some soldiers in it. I'm sure guns make people feel safer, but they won't help. Explosives, on the other hand, would make a difference. And anyone anywhere can make those. IEDs are what cause issues for people forcefully oppressing a populace, not shooters. It's easy to identify someone with a gun, kill them, and remove the gun from circulation. It's impossible to stop people from making explosives. I know it's tempting to think that as soon as the balloon goes up, everyone will scarper into the forest and go all John Rambo, but that's a dream. In reality the crack-down would be brutal, and those with guns who made a stand would die very quickly, very violently, while causing very little collateral damage to the oppressors. The sensible folks will keep their heads down, appear to cooperate, but in secret create, distribute, and use explosives against well-chosen targets.
> all the branch davidians died in the end
Like I said.
If the goal is to win "points" as tough guys, home-made militia can get a song written about them.
If the goal is to overthrow a fascist ruling class this fails.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
The way this government brings in unpleasant legislation follows certain patterns, and I would bet that this plan by Vold^WMandelson is going to fit the model.
What they do is come up with what the goals they want to achieve in private. They know what they come up with, no matter how "good" or "bad", it will come under attack from groups with vested interests and political opposition, and what they want will inevitably get scaled back.
So they come up with their plan, and come up with a version 3 times worse than they want. They leak the extra bad idea to the press (or to a blog this time), and the press and internet go nuts in reaction to the plan. But the politicians can hide behind the fact it was leaked and deny that is their plan at all.
The vitriol generated tells them which parts of the plan will not fly, and which they can deal with with some spin. They announce their revised plan (now at 2x what they want), roll things back a bit (to 1 times) as a token lip service to democracy, and then go on to implement what they wanted in the first place.
We've seen it before, and we'll see it again: this system works for getting unpopular legislation on the books.
Car analogies break down.