Slashdot Mirror
UK Government Seeks New Web Censorship Powers
oldandcold writes "Given the recent coverage and controversy over Australia's forthcoming web censorship system, it is somewhat surprising (and worrying) that Clause 11 of the UK's proposed Digital Economy Bill seems to have gone by largely unnoticed. It amends the Communications Act 2003 to insert a new section 124H that could give the Secretary of State powers to order ISPs to block pretty much any website for pretty much any reason. Such orders would not require the scrutiny of parliament, or anyone else for that matter, because the Secretary of State would not be required to publish them."
Fucking bastards.
Hmm...so you may not even know you have been banned....the great Internet wall of Britain?
They could at least give the semblance of rights to their citizens by putting up monitoring software and only catching the offenders. Like they do with the traffic cameras.
The list probably won't include porn, so that's a good thing. However, it will probably include hate sites. This makes it a serious crackdown on the freedom of speech. It's exactly this kind of thoughtcrime persecution that our American founders fled from those 250 years ago.
Move to CHINA.
At least there you'll have access to Socialist Propaganda!
Ireland passed laws recently against uttering "blasphemy" and no one batted an eye...except on Twitter. A lot of this is getting swept under the rug, and it both shocks and appalls me.
Do not disturb. Already disturbed. http://www.teaaddictedgeek.com
And is that called a democracy? I think Britain is a very poor model of democracy, especially when compared to the rest of European countries. Do we still sound credible when we criticize China for internet censorship?
one man's constant is another man's variable.
Have they never heard of tunneling or proxies, are ISP's going to be liable for failing to prevent that? Pointless article about a pointless clause in a pointless bill by the pointless government of an increasingly pointless country.
Your statement is contradictory..
The list probably won't include porn, so that's a good thing. However, it will probably include hate sites. This makes it a serious crackdown on the freedom of speech. It's exactly this kind of thoughtcrime persecution that our American founders fled from those 250 years ago.
if americans had to flee from (and then rebel against) this persecution, how were they "cool" before? Are we going back to the days of stone henge?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Not required to publish? That's nothing. In the next planned amend the Secretary of State won't even have to know.
I love it. I really do.
And despite the fact that many would argue that any censorship is wrong, the distasteful part of these initiatives, the part that really cannot tolerate debate, is the lack of transparency.
I don't care for censorship, but I'm willing to listen if you say it's necessary. I'll probably tell you to screw, but I'll at least listen.
However, if you don't even bother to solicit opinion, or make yourself accountable to scrutiny, that's unacceptable, in a way that any normal, well adjusted individual would immediately recognize.
So all you get is screw, and no, I really won't listen, thanks, get out.
Why are so many posts with factual errors modded up?
We all know this kind of outrageous proposal won't fly, so what's the next "iteration" this will be compared to to make it look "reasonable"? The question is what are these people actually after?
It seems like this is yet another maneuver to "Frame" the debate around the upcoming ACTA clauses.
If enough of these outrageous ideas are being proposed, a simple removal of service for "egregious offenders" will look tame.
Remember, you have to boil the frog SLOWLY, and part of that involves acclimating the frog to heat before it goes in the pot!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
There, they want to censor everyone; the UK proposal would only be used against bad guys. :)
See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/001/10001.13-19.html#j164. The proposal also gives the Secretary of State the rights to a) decide the punishment for copyright infringement, and b) redefine what a copyright infringement is. Therefore, he can effectively jail, or worse, anyone he likes for no reason. Also, the law gives him the power to rewrite the law itself; there are some restrictions, but he can just rewrite it to remove them. In short, passing this proposal would give Lord Mandelson a complete dictatorship over the UK. (If you don't believe me, read it yourself; the only meaningful restriction is to have a draft of the changes approved by parliament, and it would be easy enough to slip in a removal of that restriction at the same time as another change.)
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
I'm usually sceptical about /. summaries and their accuracy, so I looked a little deeper into this one before commenting.
From the parliamentary document:
124H Obligations to limit internet access
20 (1) The Secretary of State may at any time by order impose a technical obligation on internet service providers if the Secretary of State considers it appropriate in view of—
(a) an assessment carried out or steps taken by OFCOM under section 124G; or
25 (b) any other consideration.
The "any other consideration" part is what would concern me. Yup, this looks like the real deal. Gives the SoS a lot of power with little oversight.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Australia !!!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Just think, there are people who want to hand over regulation of internet traffic to the government under the name of "net neutrality," yet here we have a government proving that it would happily censor content. Imagine what would happen once lobbyists convinced bribed politicians to regulate things like torrent traffic in order to prevent "economic terrorism."
They will need a bureaucracy to maintain the list of banned sites, and to insure all the various ISPs are informed of it. Then it only takes one to leak the list (or maybe two, if they try to track which list is leaked by inserting a tracking entry), and we can then all freely explore what problems it has and how ineffective it really is, and enjoy the Streisand effect on it all. And of course, they'll ultimately try to block WikiLeaks and that'll go over like a lead balloon, as it's a popular enough site that they won't be able to keep that under wraps in any event.
A couple of days ago NPR had an interview with some government security guy who was arguing for banning the Islamic terrorist's sites. As if that would do any good-- don't these guys have any idea how the internet works? Even if you can ban some specific DNS names or IP addresses, it'll get proxied all over hell and/or the very worst that would happen is they would translate the sites into something apparently benign but with coded content, so it won't really have much effect on their ability to communicate...
Seems to me, that if you translate your content into something that appears to support a wedge issue that the powers that be are overly fond of, say, anti-abortion or pro-life (or one of each), they can't block it with out a lot of stink about censorship and will find a bunch of rabid conservatives or liberals all ready to rise up and fight for the cause. And how hard would it be to produce a custom browser that can assemble the uncoded content from a couple of such sites, and perhaps using redundant sites and a ready ability to update the sitelist info? It may not be necessary to go anywhere near that far, but it shows that there is no way that content can be blocked on the internet-- just get over it already...
Hopefully they won't censor those pictures I snapped of CmdrTaco's micropenis when he was at the glory hole last night.
Just think, there are people who want to hand over regulation of internet traffic to the government under the name of "net neutrality," yet here we have a government proving that it would happily censor content. Imagine what would happen once lobbyists convinced bribed politicians to regulate things like torrent traffic in order to prevent "economic terrorism."
the concept of net neutrality is to legislate specifically to PREVENT abuses like the one this politician is trying to perpetrate.
Note: he still has to go through the legislature, but ISP's already do this unilaterally whenever they think they can get away with it, and in the US Comcast is suing agains the FCC to keep them from preventing Comcast from butchering traffic.
Hard-right libertarians don't seem to understand: This is not the pre-industrial era anymore! Royalty no longer controls the economy. Corporations are now SEPARATE from but EQUAL in power to the government, and the only way to keep the little guy from being crushed is to use each to put the other in check. (part of this is intelligent regulation)
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
To maintain some semblance of freedom of communication,
we will probably have to try to standardize on a thin layer over current
net protocols which provides:
1. Encryption of transmitted data routinely
2. Encryption on disk of data
3. Distribution of any particular "page" of data into many
redundant encrypted fragments around the world that know how
to coalesce on demand.
4. Automatic mobility of such data fragments, such that they
migrate, and seek newer and more reliable storage for themselves.
5. DHTs for finding stuff
6. Onion routing (at least a few hops standard)
That ought to do for starters.
Make it available as a trivially easy install on multiple platforms
which can use standard web protocols as a base transport
layer.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
the Interlink ala V for Vendetta. It still amazes me that the people of Great Britain allow their government to use the works of George Orwell as instruction manuals.
I am shocked, shocked I say, to learn that the United Kingdom is going to continue it's policy of invading the privacy of every single person inside their border. From cameras used to trace every car's position, to arresting men for being too violent when capturing the thug that kidnapped their wife & children.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I'm not so sure about that one. I mean, they keep getting the news all wrong, do you really want them to route your information?
I'm really concerned about Britain. News seems to come in on a weekly or bi-weekly basis of new policing, security and other contractions of freedom.
At this rate it will only take 5 years or so before the British people are all housed in Barracks "for their own good" and working on prison factories! And we all know what comes next!
Well I'm exaggerating here, but for a point. I really hope everyone in Britain notices this trend and starts making some changes in their government now while they still can!
I agree. Inch by inch, Britain sinks into the muck of totalitarianism. All for the common good.
I would honestly get up and protest over this one, it's just a step too far towards the police state they want. If it comes to that point, I'd definitely want to be doing something real (not just signing petitions).
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
... being as I live in the UK. But frankly, why bother?
My local MP is a Labour MP, and (like many Labour MPs) has never voted against anything dreamt up by the party leadership in her life. They could put forward a bill which puts under 18's to death by torture for jaywalking and she'd probably vote for it.
The only silver lining is that this parliament will be cut short by a general election next year, which with any luck will get shot of Labour for a nice long time.
"World" Wide Web? Sounds like it's going to be more like "SWitzerland" Wide Web!
What gets me is that Labour still keep chanting "Beware the Conservatives, they're the bogeyman. Evil. They'll take your rights away and make you miserable.".
All the while, they're taking your rights away. There's a whole load of stuff going down that just makes me wince (the whole register you need to be on if you have contact with anyone's kids more than once a week, otherwise you end up with a huge fine and jail time just as an example)...
This government we now have has been the most abusive, totalitarian nightmare that I can remember (and I'm 40, so can actually remember a fair bit)..
Ubiquitous Anonymous Encrypted Networking.
"Make it so!"
Whining on Slashdot won't change anything, but if enough people complain to their MPs it might just change things. Goodness knows enough of them are going to loose their seats at the next election. They might just do something wild and wonderful, and stop this absurd amendment to the bill.
Gotta go. There's a letter to write.
If mandatory national Internet filtering hits the UK, how many UK residents will move abroad?
I'm a natural-born US citizen living in the USA, and I have been "itching" for a reason to move abroad for quite some time. I've said that one thing that would prompt me to move would be the implementation of national Internet filtering.
Australia is already out for obvious reasons...and it looks like the UK could be out too.
I have two main living criteria: I have to speak the language of the land [I currently speak English and Spanish], and it has to be a developed country, i.e., I should not have to live in a South Africa-esque security village.
That leaves me with Canada, Ireland, and Spain.
What gets me is that Labour still keep chanting "Beware the Conservatives, they're the bogeyman. Evil. They'll take your rights away and make you miserable.".
Which is quite true, after all they are British too...
It's in the genes man!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The whole downward spiral reminds me of a Dr. Who episode in which aliens have taken over politicians and are using them for horrible purposes! Don't those idiots see what they are doing?
I really hope things change and start getting better soon.
I agree. Inch by inch, Britain sinks into the muck of totalitarianism. All for the common good.
I've found a method that shuts up those closet fascists who are willing to give away everyone's privacy etc. is to remind them that millions of people gave up their lives in the last century to protect the freedoms we have in the UK, and that what they are advocating is an insult to their memory.
It is utterly emotionally loaded, and even has a sub-text of war is good, meaning that authoritarians simply don't know what to say.
The most closed minded will still stick to their guns of censorship, submitting to authority, prohibition, etc., but it could work to change the views of a few.
Car analogies break down.
Let them have their little law if it makes them feel better then let's see them try and enforce it. The first time they try it will become a cause célèbre via Twitter etc and they'll become a laughing stock with more people reading the banned site than would otherwise.
E.g. see what happened over the Trafigura Super-injunction.
Freenet was fuc/orked by a Christian fundamentalist, splitting the community, and following down questionable technological paths (small world darknet) which failed in the real world.
Somebody needs to take it over and fix it. Where the hell is 1.0?
My MP received a telephone call followed up by an email from me 3-4 weeks ago on this matter.
The Open Rights Group (at http://www.openrightsgroup.org/) have promoted a campaign for their members and supporters to raise this not only to MPs but also to members of the House of Lords.
This is yet another draconian and easily abused piece of legislation that is declared as addressing something that isn't an issue, in a manner that allows its use for other purposes while failing to address the underlying issue in the first place.
I'm fucked off about it, but frankly there's not a whole lot more I can peacably do.
As a non Brit that has lived in London for the past 8 years please don't neglect to take into account the British talent for getting really worked up over trivial things. Not that I don't think we should get worked up over things... just not things like one school in Buttfuckinhamshire banning the Christmas play and hence ending Christmas for all time.
IngSoc is now free from crimethink.
Is there ANY country that one could move to that has no civil liberties or human rights violations?
Many of the things that western governments are doing in the name of fighting terrorists/child porn/drugs/criminals/etc are just as evil as the likes of the GESTAPO, STASI, KGB or any of the other major secret police organizations of the 20th century's great dictatorships.
don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the pirate party
(seriously, http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/)
This isn't a power to block a specific web site, it's a power to block a particular subscriber. So they can stop me from accessing certain internet sites, but the power doesn't let them just block everyone. I suppose they could define a web site as a "subscriber" and cut them off, but it would have to be in the UK, and then they'd learn the name "Streisand" pretty quickly.
while the public is watching the economy collapse the magician sets up his next trick
For the record, this clause didn't go completely unnoticed; it was spotted by the UK Pirate Party in their draft analysis (disclaimer: yes, I wrote most of that).
The entire clause reads:
124H Obligations to limit internet access
(1) The Secretary of State may at any time by order impose a technical obligation on internet service providers if the Secretary of State considers it appropriate in view of—
(a) an assessment carried out or steps taken by OFCOM under section 124G; or
(b) any other consideration.
(2) An order under this section must specify the date from which the technical obligation is to have effect, or provide for it to be specified.
(3) The order may also specify—
(a) the criteria for taking the technical measure concerned against a subscriber;
(b) the steps to be taken as part of the measure and when they are to be taken.”
A "technical obligation" is defined in the previous clause as an obligation on an ISP to impose a "technical measure" on a subscriber. The "technical measures" are also defined as something that limits the speed, blocks content, disconnects the user completely or "limits the service provided to a subscriber in another way". So yes, this clause would give a Secretary of State complete power over any internet connection in the UK.
This clause is probably the worst in the entire bill, and considering some of the other parts, that's saying something
I am sure that despite all of their attempts to rid the internet of all human activity, Google.com will still come up, even if all or your search queries yield 0 results.
-Oz
It got to the point a while ago that I realised any time the authorities want to send you down, you're going down - it doesn't matter what the actual laws are. The new laws they're passing are largely irrelevant - the legal sytem is already so convoluted and incomprehesible that the average man has no idea at any time what laws he may be breaking, and any new law that enters the books only strengthens the hand of the authorities and weakens the hand of the public. Stories like this, depressingly, have ceased to be surprising.
What gets me is that Labour still keep chanting "Beware the Conservatives, they're the bogeyman. Evil.
Sleight of hand. They distract you with something silly and then slip the bastardry by with not a squeak of protest. The MSM colludes in this trick all the time.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I have been waiting for something like this to happen and I truly believe if we don't do something about it we will live in an age when freedom of information is just a fairy tale.
For years I have been interested and involved in the Freenet Project. Not because it is particularly fast but because it is particularly secure.
Please visit http://freenetproject.org/
and make up your own minds. The more nodes created the faster it becomes and the more copies of documents, websites, images are prevented from arbitrary censorship.
Give a voice to the voiceless and remember the more you loose control the harder it will be to regain it when the crunch comes.
S'nuff said.
Rooster - A friend. "Anyone's friend in particular or just generally well disposed to people?"
Mandelson at it again. He certainly took a lot of notes when he met Geffen, didn't he?
Do something about it: write to your MP: http://www.writetothem.com/ will allow you to enter your postcode, finds your MP, sets up a blank fax template to them and will allow you to fax the finished letter to them for free.
It is happening in the U.S. as well. They are going after our land, our water, our electricity, our health and our wallets. Freedom seems to be an outdated idea in our world today.
The Thing is.
"More seriously though: they should be listened to because then you can point out the flaws in their position."
My point was that their position is flawed in its face.
You can listen beyond an obviously flawed premise, I'm not diplomatic enough to waste time pretending I give a crap what people who are obviously wrong are arguing about.
I guess I consider my time more valuable than you do yours.
Why are so many posts with factual errors modded up?
I'd like to point out Freenet to the UK people here. That is all.
'nuff said.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.