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."

Comments

Bastards.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking bastards.

Web sites on Double Secret Probation

[dyfet]

Hmm...so you may not even know you have been banned....the great Internet wall of Britain?

Re:Web sites on Double Secret Probation

[the_womble]

The man who will make the decisions is

1) Has been forced to resign twice
2) Does not hold any elected office
3) Popularly known as "the Prince of Darkness"

No, the last is not a joke - google for "mandelson prince".

Don't worry, I've got a plan...

[Monkeedude1212]

Move to CHINA.

At least there you'll have access to Socialist Propaganda!

You mean like Ireland's blasphemy laws?

[Kyrene]

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.

Re:You mean like Ireland's blasphemy laws?

[jocabergs]

A law against blasphemy... Blasphemy I say, this will not stand!!!

Re:You mean like Ireland's blasphemy laws?

[MBGMorden]

It's ok - the US is screwed up in lots of places too. In the state of SC you cannot legally hold public office if you don't believe in a supreme being. It doesn't state any specific one (so whether you're Muslim/Christian/Hindu/etc you're covered), but if you're an admitted atheist you can't legally hold office.

It's one of those old laws, but still. Heck though nobody observed the law anymore, interracial marriage in South Carolina was technically illegal until 1998. And the vote to repeal it (again, in 1998)? Yeah, it did pass, but 38% voted AGAINST repealing the law.

I'm convinced that the world as a whole may just be too messed up to recover from.

Re:You mean like Ireland's blasphemy laws?

[Myrimos]

The article from which it looks like you drew your facts is here. Also quoted therein:

"Atheists are now eligible to run for any office in South Carolina, which means the provision against atheists is unenforceable."

The only defense I can offer for over a third of the South Carolina legislature voting not to overturn their anti-miscegenation laws is that, since the legislation was elected democratically, perhaps the constituents of South Carolina have exactly the kind of government they deserve.

Democracy ?

[bibekpaudel]

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?

Re:Democracy ?

[Monkeedude1212]

What are you talking about? Britain is totally still a Monarchy. The news won't shut up about Queen Elizabeth this and Prince Henry that.

I mean they don't even have a constitution, just a handful of scattered laws and judgements that would take ages to find if the need arises. How can you possibly be expected to fight for your democratic rights if you can't use the internet to look up which document it's even filed under?

In the infaliable United States Democracy (in which I do not reside) - those people have their democratic rights MEMORIZED, printed off, laminated, and FRAMED above their mantlepiece.

Re:Democracy ?

[bibekpaudel]

Why? Where's your comparison with these other European countries?

Well, for one, here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index UK ranks 21st overall, and there are 13 European countries above it. The rankings are from a UK based organization.

Re:Democracy ?

[jameskojiro]

" In the infaliable United States Democracy (in which I do not reside) - those people have their democratic rights MEMORIZED, printed off, laminated, and FRAMED above their mantlepiece. "

If only every citizen in the United States did this then the United States would be a somewhat decent country.

Re:Democracy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how we're listed as a full democracy in the UK on that list.

How can a first past the post system like ours possibly be a full democracy, it's barely a democracy at all, realistically we're a dictatorship with the difference between our dictatorship and others being that the minority that installs ours elects him in rather than installs him through violence.

To put into context what I mean, from the electoral reform society 19 million votes by UK voters had absolutely no effect on being able to drive British policy because they were cast in a safe seat area against the safe seat, this in a population of 60 million.

This is coupled with the whip system where the party elite can push the party members to vote a certain way on a certain issue or kick them out the party lowering their chances of election and possibly destroying their career as a politician unless they're one of the few that manage to make it as an independent, or unless an opposing party takes them.

So last election, Labour gained effective 100% of power with the party line being dictated by those in cabinet and pushed using the whip system. They were elected with only 35% of vote, whilst the two opposition parties gained 32% and 22% of the popular vote, this means Labour will have had 100% of control of the UK despite only 35% of the UK supporting them and a clear 55% voting against them.

Really, the only things that differentiate us from the likes of China and Cuba etc. is that:
- The dictatorship can be changed every 5 years if a new minority becomes the largest minority, but rarely ever a majority
- The dictatorship is not installed violently
- Our country is relatively modern and peaceful and the human rights record hasn't deteriorated to their level, yet

But however you cut it, to those of us in the majority who do not support the government in power at the time, the effect is the same, we have laws dictated to us by people we neither like nor support. We're told this system is okay though because we get a local elected representative that we wouldn't get under proportional representation. Quite what use a local represenative that you didn't vote for and doesn't share your views is I've yet to understand however.

Britain has a thin veil that allows it to pretend to be a democracy, but it's democratic in so far as you get to tick a box and stick it in the ballot box, the chance of you being one of the people whose tick actually counts for anything though is, well, going by the last election, only 35%. To me, if my vote is consistently meaningless because I do not support the dominant party in my area, then I absolutely do not live in a democracy, I live in a dictatorship.

Re:Democracy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Britain is totally still a Monarchy. The news won't shut up about Queen Elizabeth this and Prince Henry that.

I mean they don't even have a constitution, just a handful of scattered laws and judgements that would take ages to find if the need arises. How can you possibly be expected to fight for your democratic rights if you can't use the internet to look up which document it's even filed under?

In the infaliable United States Democracy (in which I do not reside) - those people have their democratic rights MEMORIZED, printed off, laminated, and FRAMED above their mantlepiece.

You clearly don't know british history or political system. The UK is a constitutional monarchy which means that parliament is required for any laws to be put into place. It has been this way since the English civil war in which the monarch was overthrown, but eventually brought back but with reduced powers, hence why during the queens speech on the opening of parliament, ceremonies such as closing the house of commons door on black rod (the queens messenger) takes place to symbolise that the power really resides with parliament and more specifically house of commons. Not the house of lords or the queen. Mandleson is trying to bypass parliament by passing a law through parliament that will effectively give it less power and more to the secretary of state. Im just hoping some of the labour back benchers will not listen to the part whips and rebel against this act.

Re:Democracy ?

[u38cg]

The British Constitution is pretty damned simple, in fact. Go too far and we'll chop your head off. Don't believe it? We've done it before.

Not required to publish

[Thanshin]

Not required to publish? That's nothing. In the next planned amend the Secretary of State won't even have to know.

I love transparency!

[Blappo]

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.

Re:I love transparency!

[Yvan256]

I love transparency! I love it. I really do.

I bet you like PNGs a lot.

Re:I love transparency!

[SanguineV]

But while you are listening to them rant about saving the children from paedophile-terrorist-aliens the nice men in white coats can circle around behind them and catch them more easily!

More seriously though: they should be listened to because then you can point out the flaws in their position. I have spoken to a number of "[c]ensorship advocates" who simply didn't understand the implications and were more than happy to change their position when spoken to reasonably. Of course some will be beyond reason or be pushing some other agenda, but not all are beyond hope and if you refuse to engage them, isolate them and let them only hear the extreme perspective you lose any chance to convert them... In a democratic system this is a losing strategy as you need to convince/convert the majority to your view.

Re:What technical obligation to ISPs?

[phoenix321]

We are running out of countries to route our traffic through, quickly.

Well, lets adapt Niemoller for a second:

When they came for China, I chose a proxy in Australia to route around.
When they came for Australia, I chose a proxy in the UK to route around.
When they came for the UK, I chose a proxy in the USA to route around.
When they came for the USA, there was no country left to route through and all my complaints were met with 404s.

So What are they REALLY after? ACTA?

[plasmacutter]

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!

Re:What happened to you, UK? You used to be cool

[AliasMarlowe]

The UK used to be cool?
When was this, when it was occupied by the Romans?

Much more recently than that. During the Little Ice Age, when the Thames froze over. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/The_Frozen_Thames_1677.jpg Since then, it's been a progressive loss of cool and loss of reason, reaching to today's hideous macchiavelian antics.

Re:What happened to you, UK? You used to be cool

[phoenix321]

Non-man-made climate change is a myth by the oil industry. London was only cold because mankind didn't burn much coal back then and it was great. Let's spend some trillions to go return to that.

This isn't even the worst part of the proposal

[ais523]

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.)

Re:This isn't even the worst part of the proposal

[Nuskrad]

Read a bit more closely, he can't create or modify criminal offences, so throwing people in jail is out of the question, and any SI under that section has to be put to public consultation (which will probably be ignored as a matter of routine of course) and voted on by both houses of Parliament. It is a worrying power, since it allows a controversial area of law to be changed with a lot less scrutiny, but don't overstate the matter.

Re:This isn't even the worst part of the proposal

[ais523]

There's only a requirement to put a draft to the vote; I'm not entirely convinced it wouldn't be possible to slip in changes between an approved draft and the actual change. Also, even if the criminal offence requirement turns out to be unavoidable, (5) is dynamite:

(5) The power may be exercised so as to—
(a) confer a power or right or impose a duty on any person;
(b) modify or remove a power, right or duty of any person;
(c) require a person to pay fees.

The ability to impose arbitrary duties on anyone?

Re:This isn't even the worst part of the proposal

[deepershade]

It wouldn't give Mandelson any power, as he's not an elected member of parliament, he cannot enact or enforce any law.
He's been forced to resign once and fired for fraud. After that he was effectively banned from standing as a member of parliament. As such, he was given a job in europe. But Brown being a corrupt douche wanted him back, and so gave him the lordship and hence a seat in the House of Lords. That enabled brown to hire him as business secretary, but he still has no power, merely taking an advisery role.
He still has influence and as such is still a danger and a threat to the peoples of this nation, but legally, he has no power.

As for the bill. I wouldn't worry too much. Parliament is out for xmas and will be back late jan early feb, after which the conservatives and lib dems are going to use every opportunity to show up labour. This bill would be a nice bit of ammo, thats if it even gets read. Rumour is that the gov is going to call an early election, march, april time. The moment the election is called, parliament is dissolved and the nation goes into a state of purdah, meaning nothing happens. No laws get passed, changed, everything stays as is til the election is won.
And because this proposal is a labour one, when the cons win (and they will), they're never going to be seen stealing a labour policy, because thats exactly what labour have been doing to the cons since Blair was first elected.

The offending piece:

[fiannaFailMan]

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.

Re:Huh?

[sexconker]

Americans fled from Europe in general, not just England.

Also, UK != England != Great Britain != British Isles.

Re:Very different situation than Australia

[idontgno]

Well, that's a difference that makes no difference. A nation made up entirely of transported convicts and ne'er-do-wells is, by definition, all bad guys.

Re:What happened to you, UK? You used to be cool

[hondo77]

It was pretty cool until Lemmy moved to Hollywood.

Stop mischaracterizing net neutrality.

[plasmacutter]

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)

I am shocked

[gurps_npc]

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.

Re:We need a distributed fragmented encrypted laye

[Yvan256]

6. Onion routing (at least a few hops standard)

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?

Re:What technical obligation to ISPs?

[Yvan256]

The best thing is, Japanese routers have lots of tentacles to connect to other routers.

Re:Might as well just rename it

[Spad]

It's not like we're "allowing" it. We've got an unelected Prime Minister who appointed an unelected (and twice resigned) megalomaniac as Secretary of State (amongst other things) and a population who are largely technically illiterate and apathetic about everything that doesn't involve the X-Factor.

In short, we're buggered until at least May (when the next lot will at least have to pretend to do what they promised during the elections for 6 months or so).

Re:Another Brick in the Wall

[gink1]

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!

Re:What happened to you, UK? You used to be cool

[Nathrael]

Australia?

I should complain

[jimicus]

... 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.

Re:Another Brick in the Wall

[malkavian]

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)..

Re:What technical obligation to ISPs?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The Internet Genie is being put back in the bottle. As it became a medium of the masses, governments finally turned their attentions towards what used to be a tolerated eccentricity of academics and computer geeks. When Aunt Tillie began watching YouTube videos, censorship of the new medium was never going to be far behind.

The vast majority of people in democratic countries wholeheartedly support censorship. You don't even have to pull the terrorism of paedophilia cards. Hell, just mentioning anorexia sites will be enough to get 50% of people to express views along the lines of "They should be shut down." Thrown in bomb making and "extreme" pornography you'll get another good 25%. Piracy will net you another 10% more. Now; break out the child molesters and you can say goodbye to an uncensored net by the end of the week.

We live in democracies. That means we are subject to the will of the majority. And if the majority say the net should be censored, then that's what is going to happen, and that is what is happening.

Re:Another Brick in the Wall

[internewt]

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.

This hasn't gone unnoticed

[Cederic]

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.

Not entirely unnoticed

[Grumbleduke]

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