Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Legislature Accidentally Votes For Internet Filtering
tulcod writes "The Dutch government has accidentally passed an exception to a law on net neutrality, (Google translation of original in Dutch) enabling ISPs to filter internet traffic based on 'ideological motives.' The PvdA (labor party) accidentally voted for this exception to the Telecomwet (telecommunications law), which, on its own, does not allow such filtering. PvdA intends to repair their mistake."
Stop taking it so seriously.
But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
What do you expect from a nation of clog wearing dike tenders!
/. i accidentally the whole thing
what do now
Congress doesn't even know what they are voting for, America is the dumbest....oh wait this happen in the Netherlands...n/m.
not too hard actually. All legislation is voted about in a big session where all members are present. they quickly succeed each other and are only called by the name of who made it. Also it was not the actual law but only one of many extensions to the law
This is your parliament.
This is your parliament on pot. Sizzle sizzle sizzle.
Any question?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
there are a few basic skills that should be present in any person leading a country.
reading, and counting should be a given.
also situational awareness to apply these l337 skills is a must for any politician.
and no, you cant say, sorry we didnt vote the way we should have because we were too stoned at the time.
this just goes to show what you get when you vote for liberinarian neocon republiciods
In other news, Congress accidentally approves arts funding.
Did the parliament hold a tequila party that got out of hand?
They will fix it then, I assume. Otherwise I won't believe it was an accident.
Relative to most other nations of the world, Holland is relatively well-run, and the Dutch are as capable of fixing such problems as anyone else.
Could the Dutch have an advantage that is somewhat a geographic accident, in that since the Middle Ages they have benefited from having an excellent source of Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D from herring? But the Dutch may have contributed to their own fortune by preparing and consuming herring in a manner that preserves nutrients. Note that under the section in Wikipedia describing pickled herring are listed several Northern European countries that are doing well and other groups with noted individuals of exceptional intelligence.
After reading the article and watching the video: what seemed to have happened is that the Labour party voted in favor by accident (some sort of mix up apparently), this was recognized immediately and the further procedure was halted until the error could be repaired. So nothing to see here, move along...
Is this a joke?
It's comforting to know that the USA is not the only government in the world with completely inept lawmakers.
( we're going to ignore the fact that we, the public, continue to give them our blessings to be complete and utter morons by virtue of our votes )
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Here in the Netherlands, there currently are a few (right-wing Christian) ISPs that filter internet access at the request of their clients. Some of these ISPs do this by providing filtering software that the customer can install locally, others do the filtering on proxy servers at the ISP. The net neutrality law makes the second option illegal, despite this filtering being done at the client's request.
The amendment in question would repair this, allowing clients to request a filter. Some parties (PvdA, GL) see this amendment as a loophole. I don't see how, though.
The shocking part of this news is not hat Labour accidntally voted for, it's that the (supposedly) _libereral_ VVD voted for the motion on purpose, thus selling out it's principles to the (theocratic, anti-liberal) SGP, who's votes they need since the VVD runs a minority cabinet.
THAT is the shocking news. Not some cockup.
I got the impression that it could not be corrected after the vote was taken and the president of the House declared the amendement to be accepted. I also understand that according to the procedures, there is no way to redo the vote. The only way to correct the mistake is to stop the bill in the Senate or create a new bill that would correct the mistake.
The procedure was also not immediately halted. According to the regulations it is not possible to halt a voting for this kind of reason. There was some discussion among the representatives of the different parties. The Laybor party was not asking the procedure to be halted, but requisted for a break to have a private meeting with the members of the party. Some of the parties stated that it was very exceptional to request for such a break during voting. Other parties argued that such a break had been allowed on a previous occasion. Finally the president of the House decided to grand a break and delay the voting to continue today.
In my opinion, all that needs to be added to the amendment to fix the loopholes is a clause that says that any customer must be able to toggle the filter at any time without any additional costs. This prevents ISPs from offering filtered subscriptions at a reduced price.
completely inept lawmakers.
Its the PVDA, not the entire government.
Its also the PVDA had the latest government disintegrate, by stepping out of the government. It basicly sayed "we are not working anymore" to all its voters. Its mindboggling.
They never had my vote and now they'll never wil. They are almost as ridiculous as the PVV is, biggest difference is the PVDA acts ridiculous by accident.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
They did not 'pass an exception to a law'. They accidentally voted for an amendment to a /proposed law/, the law itself still has to be voted on. That vote is now postponed to give the PvdA a chance to rectify their mistake. This definitely has no impact on the actual law, it will just postpone the final vote a little bit.
For those people wondering how this can happen: they have to vote for/against a lot of amendments and other small things in pretty rapid succession. One single person usually registers the vote for the entire party, so that it is not necessary to do a real count for every single vote. Apparently, most people don't pay attention all the time, and so some mistakes happen. Search, and you'll find more examples of this.
they can only be trusted with bribery and rape...
Typical of the labor party to screw up the only part of their political views i agree on.
The supposedly liberal large party VVD actually *wants* the filtering.
Politics never cease to amaze me in this country.
... riders get added at the last minute all the time, resulting in stuff getting passed that has nothing to do with the original bill. Don't know how the Dutch government works, but I could see this happening if it's similar. Nice tactic by the legislatures to try and sneak things in. Not saying this is what happened. Could just have been overlooked.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I like this post http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq
I just read the law in question (Dutch citizen here), and it is not half as ignorant as it is portrayed to be.
First of all, it gives the end user and NO ONE ELSE the possibility to have their own, and no one else's IP traffic filtered for stuff they do not want to see. Second of all, the end user has to take action (contact their ISP) to get this to happen, and to specify what they want filtered. Third of all, it excludes filtering which is aimed at leading to financial gain for ISP's: the "I'll filter out your local greengrocer because Walmart pays me to" kind of crap everyone is -rightly- afraid of.
A loophole to disable net neutrality? I don't see how. Being opt-in, it is less invasive than the law that requires nudie magazines to be stacked above the field of vision of minors at the newsstands.
In fact, you could say this is a law that helps the (fundamentalist Christian, 'cause they're who started this) technophobes/modernophobes to get their content filtered before it hits the browser, opt-in and by your personal specifications. Adblocking and parental filter, ISP-side.
Whether or not one should exclude part of the world's reality from one's possible field of vision is, of course, a different and academic discussion because everyone tries to ignore what they do not want to see. I, for one, am really glad I can use adblocking&co. But I'll make my own choices on what to block and what not, thankyouverymuch, and I don't trust any ISP to do that along the rules I set for them.
Of course, a political party voting for something they did not read is ridiculous. But Dutch politicians -especially the Social Democrats- have a history of doing just that, and in general try to twist the truth so that it seems they had no other choice. This time round, at least they admitted to their stupidity. But in the words of their political leader Job Cohen: "We are all amateurs". Also, the fundamentalist Christians have a habit of hiding horrible proposals in seemingly innocent wordings somewhere in little add-ons in laws concerning a totally different subject, in the hope no-one notices. Apparently, that works -even when the law in question deals with a similar subject.
It's nice to see it's not just the U.S. congress who vote on bills without actually knowing the content or what the outcome of a "for" or "against" vote actually does.
I've found the titles of bills have little or nothing to do with the actual content of the bill is, but it usually makes good political fodder when a congressman votes against the "Sweet, cute bunny rabbit bill" and pundits will point at him and say "HE HATES BUNNY RABBITS" even though the bill contained legislation for building a giant swimming pool in a senators back yard and moving a major portion of the Federal Government into another senator's state.
Exactly! They are only passing laws. If the Dutch are content with it, who cares?
I think I accidentally the law.
Imagine how difficult it would be to reverse the vote, if they had "accidentally" voted themselves a pay increase or immunity from expense audits...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
For certainly the law makers aren't. What else have they accidentally passed but without correction?
1) The vote was on an amendment to a *proposed* law and a later vote will determine whether the law itself is accepted.
2) The main content of the law will get us net-neutrality, hurray
3) Because of this mistake, we will be guaranteed net-neutrality at a slightly later point. The vote on the law has been postponed until mistake can be undone by a counter-amendedment.
This "oopsie" is just a small fail in a long history of epic fails. In the last 100 years the Dutch socialists have destroyed education and healthcare, have initiated massive blue collar immigration without thinking one second of the consequences if you don't do anything about integration resulting, besides increased crime, in considerable emigration of highly educated white collar knowledge workers. Furthermore Dutch socialists have subsidized ridiculous initiatives with ridiculous amounts of taxpayer money as long as it furthered their socialist cause and retained or expanded votes, spent money like there was no tomorrow (thanks for the staggering debt...) and generally lined their own pockets forcefully paid for by hard working people with a real job. The fact that politicians know next to nothing about the in-ter-nets is shameful and labor should have consulted with experts on the subject before casting their vote and making their even more stupid mistake of voting for the wrong bill. Thank $deity these socialist idiots lost the elections and are no longer part of the government. As usual the mess the Dutch socialists left can now be cleaned up by the new centre-right government which has to come up with $12 billion worth of spending cuts (about 2% of estimated 2011 GNP). This was Dutch Rant radio. Thanks for listening & have a great day!
I think they should leave the amendment in. The amendment allows for an _opt-in_ internet filter from your provider. I think many parents would not mind a some kind of a filter for their children. Without this amendment it is not legal for a provider to offer it.
Of course the proponents of this law will mostly use it to filter based on their religion but as long as they only do it to their own connections it's fine by me.
There is a bit of a loophole here, but only a tiny one. The amendment requires that unfiltered access should be available at the same price. Unfortunately that also works the other way, providers will not be allowed to charge extra for a filter so the bill will have to divided over all customers.
It's those damn hanging chads again... they'll be the death of us!
Dragging Bush and Palin into this discussion to lambast them isn't only irrelevant, it makes you sound like another hate-filled leftist crackpot. People in your twisted partisan mindset are too busy worshiping at the creepy altar of Obama, whose "fundamental transformation" is turning America into a totalitarian state. Your collective intelligence is best represented by "socialism is great; just smoke this and forget the details." Read up on FCC Chairmain Julius Genachowski, who unilaterally and illegally pushed through his net neutrality scheme even after it was rejected by Congress (run by the Democrats) last fall. He and many in Obama's shadow government of unelected czars are Maoists and radical 1960s dinosaurs. Europe is censoring the web the way Canada, New Zealand and other supposed free countries are being manipulated to. Censorship isn't coming from the right, as you pathologically paranoid morons always scream about. It's from your side: a bunch of sissy Marxist control freaks and multicultural crackpots who grew up indoctrinated with failed leftist ideologies. As to stupidity, liberals have a lock on it.