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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!
Rule 34 should apply here.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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.
In other news, Congress accidentally approves arts funding.
Did the parliament hold a tequila party that got out of hand?
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...
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.
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 can only be trusted with bribery and rape...
... 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 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.
They are fixing it.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
Exactly! They are only passing laws. If the Dutch are content with it, who cares?
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
Rule 34? That's not so weird. I mean a hot woman in wooden shoes (and not necessarily anything else) inspecting a dam, especially the base...are you telling me you wouldn't watch that? :D
Also Kristin Kreuk is part Dutch so I'm imagining her doing that right now...BRB, rapid localized swelling!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For certainly the law makers aren't. What else have they accidentally passed but without correction?
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.