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."

Comments

I can't read Dutch...

[Sparx139]

But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[Yo Grark]

Have you met most of congress?

- Yo Grark

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[AK Marc]

Most of Congress's incompetence is feigned to hide the overt corruption, they don't accidentally pass something, they just claim they did and then don't try to reverse it. At least here they said "oops" and are planning on reversing their accident.

But again, how can you accidentally vote it through? "All those in favor of opposing the anti-net neutrality prevention exemption act say 'eh?'"

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[antifoidulus]

Actually, their ignorance is real, the motivations behind said ignorance are of course malicious. Senators purposely don't read the legislation, they rely on their aides to do it for them(and of course their aides run it by their big donors to get 'input' on the law). Then if their aides say yes they vote for the thing. If they get called out on a certain provision later, they will claim, honestly, that they hadn't read that particular provision. And since the American electorate doesn't punish politicians for ignorance(see Sarah Palin and to a lesser extent George Bush), all is forgiven.

Thats one thing I never understood about humans, esp. Americans, the result of the action doesn't seem to be nearly as important as the motive. See the outrage and panic over "terrorists", when more Americans die in car crashes EVERY MONTH as died on September 11th. Americans don't seem to care about that because very few people who cause car crashes actually intended to crash......

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[phantomfive]

Best happening of that, that I know of, was Rhode Island passing a law to make it easier to prosecute street walkers, accidentally made the actual act of prostitution legal. True story. Don't do it on the street, but if you do it inside a brothel, you're ok (although this loophole was recently closed after a few decades).

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[mwvdlee]

Looking at the video is was more like "All those in favor of #55? Okay. All those in favor of #56? Okay. All those in favor of #57? Okay. Wait, no, we didn't mean to vote for that last one, please reverse it".
It's still pretty stupid though.

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[fearlezz]

But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?
They were running down a list.
"Who agrees to point 1, please raise your hands. Okay. Who agrees to point 2, please raise your hands." Somewhere around item 8, the labour party mistakenly thought they were agreeing to another point. And just one second after the chairwoman had counted, the party corrected. But then it was too late, because "rules are rules".

However, the article above is a little misleading. The law proposed does not allow every single ISP to block whatever THEY like for "network maintenance reasons". It allows people with certain beliefs to use specialized providers like www.filternet.nl to keep them away from pornography and other things that their religious beliefs forbid. So it's not a type of censorship that this law could allow, but this law is supposed to enable end users to say "please filter my internet to keep my conscience clear". The choice of the end user him-/herself.

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[Zencyde]

I've thought about the version control, too. Modern government really should be leveraging ideas from other fields. Particularly ones that have been bred and grown in its inception. Computer science and much of engineering should be looked into for ideas that can be reapplied. Official legal discussion forums would be cool so the government could get a vibe on what's popular, for instance. I imagine like normal forums, it would primarily be full of legal buffs.

Sound like something from The Onion

[EricJ2190]

In other news, Congress accidentally approves arts funding.

How do you legislate by accident?

[Arancaytar]

Did the parliament hold a tequila party that got out of hand?

Dutch advantage of herring?

[joneshenry]

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.

Re:Dutch advantage of herring?

[SigILL]

Also, since the middle ages we've been under pretty much constant thread of the sea washing away our country. The waterschappen (water boards), which are responsible for keeping our feet (and sometimes our heads) dry, are the oldest democratic institutions here, some dating back to the 13th century.

The geography of the Netherlands is so that you cannot keep just your bit of land dry. Thus on occasion even lords and cities that were otherwise formally at war had to cooperate to keep the dykes maintained and the water out. This has created a deep democratic tradition and a strong respect for engineering in the Dutch civic mind. For example, the Deltawet, the system of laws describing how the major dykes are to be maintained, isn't based on some ideology or pork-barrel system as it would be in some other countries, but on statistical models and sound engineering.

Does the current state of knowledge tell us that the dykes are too low? Shucks, we'll have to heighten them then. Well, lets get started, otherwise it won't get done before the storm season is upon us again. And don't worry about the cost much, these things usually pay for themselves in one night.

tl;dr: We have to have good governance. Otherwise, the dykes fail and we die. Literally.

Re:This is...

[Matje]

ha ha.

Have a look at the drug use statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_lifetime_cannabis_use_by_country) and tell me whose country has a problem with cannabis use...

Why?

[hackertourist]

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.

Re:Why?

[will_die]

That that is why you have a bunch of people in the USA not wanting a net neutrality law.
In addition to services like this ISP is providing, my current ISP does email filtering for SPAM. According to the various bills being proposed that would be illegal.

Idiotic mistake, but little consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

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.