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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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

[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: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".

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: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.