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...

[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...

[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.

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: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.