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EU Presidency Calls For Massive Internet Filtering, Leaked Document Shows (edri.org)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A Council of the European Union document leaked by Statewatch on 30 August reveals that during the summer months, that Estonia (current EU Presidency) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance, and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. Standing firmly behind its belief that filtering the uploads is the way to go, the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission's original proposal, and pushing it further into the realms of illegality. According to the leaked document, the text suggests two options for each of the two most controversial proposals: the so-called "link tax" or ancillary copyright and the upload filter.

16 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. They're really going to need one now by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Funny

    They're really going to need a filter now or all kinds of people in the EU are going to be reading web comments about what a bunch of wankers these asshats are.

  2. New internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those of us in the tech sector need to be seriously talking about building a new layer of internet on top of the old one.

    Human expression and dignity is under assault by fascists cloaked in the sheepskin of virtue.

    Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, are now marching lockstep with the oppressive regimes of China and the EU.

    1. Re:New internet by MikeDataLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those of us in the tech sector need to be seriously talking about building a new layer of internet on top of the old one.

      Agreed. I have been thinking about this for some time. There's got to be some kind of Virtual Internet (maybe based on VPNs) that we can build over the top of the current Internet. One where all traffic is encrypted and the sources are untraceable. Similar to TOR, but without all of the hops.

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    2. Re:New internet by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Funny

      You are being fed a diet of propaganda designed to protect the 0.01% and their wealth at the expense of 99.01% of the people.

      SO, what about the other 0.98% who are neither the wealthy nor the people? That's what I want to know!

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  3. Pre-Code Internet by mapkinase · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's what they will call a brief period of 15 years.

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  4. Re:Brexit is the right decision. by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wait, the country that has one of the most aggressive pro-filtering stances outside of the Middle East is now a beacon of reason? ROFLMAO!

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  5. Fascism spreads by evolutionary · · Score: 5, Insightful

    there is only one reason for using China's system for control data/opinions shows: To guarantee the status quo and minimize or eliminate any threat to your current power structure. Unless the world wants their governments run like China, those that don't like it need to speak up, openly, now....because once it's in, it will be a lot harder to remove. (as per design)

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
  6. Re:EU by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since the presidency of the EU is not "big government", it's literally just a rotating position that gives countries an opportunity to propose an agenda. Estonia has pissed it's opportunity away by proposing something that seems to violate the human rights of EU citizens (the right to privacy in particular) and which has no hope of ever being adopted or even influencing the legislation.

    Before you complain about the EU, note that it has some of the strongest privacy protections in the world. They have been used to stop government spying, they have been used to force massive multinational companies like Google to respect individual privacy. And those are actual, written and enforced law, not some random proposal that has zero chance of ever being enacted.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. Re:Brexit is the right decision. by GLMDesigns · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No. Because what you said is foolishness.

    Yes. England invaded lots of places. So did Spain and Russia (as it expanded east) and China (as it expanded west) and the Zulus (as they expanded south) and the Chaldeans and the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Persians and the ... (you get the point).

    Ruining it and causing migration - here's where you're wrong. English colonialism is not the reason for Pakistani immigration.

    You might as well blame Karl Marx for Zimbabwe's collapse. It would be more relevant than the 80 years of British rule.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  8. Re:EU by barc0001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And the wingnut alarmists think that the next president will bring it in. It still has to go through the Commission, the council and then parliament. Which it won't. Several groups already have this in their crosshairs and are making noise about it. Not to mention ECHR - who literally yesterday gave a ruling that your employer has to notify you of monitoring of your work email - would torpedo it in an instant.

  9. Re:Brexit is the right decision. by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What about the UK invading almost every country on the planet and ruining it beyond repairs being the cause of all these immigrants in the first place? Never crossed your mind did it?

    Let me get this straight, the UK invaded the majority of the globe and is single highhandedly responsible for ruining the countries and by extension for all the migrants. Wow, either they have far more capability than I've ever credited them with or you really don't take responsibility for anything. I view immigration as a case of if your country sucks fix it. If you can't fix it then don't take your messed up ways with you and assimilate into wherever you go. Too bad immigration seems to be a case of "my country sucks so I'll take my messed up ways with me wherever I go and ruin those places too". As I've said many times, you can have nice things or mass immigration but you can't have both.

  10. Re:Brexit is the right decision. by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's a revolutionary idea: perhaps moral blame is not heritable? Maybe, just maybe, the grandson is not to blame for the sins of the grandfather.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  11. Re:Sooner it goes, the better by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Brexit isn't sounding so bad now, is it....?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  12. Re:Brexit is the right decision. by nukenerd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What about the UK invading almost every country on the planet and ruining it beyond repairs being the cause of all these immigrants in the first place?

    What BS.

    Britain colonised some places and these ended up being some of the best places to live (eg North America, Australia, NZ). Other places they did not colonise (in the sense of settling large numbers of people there) but administered (eg India, African nations, parts of the Middle East); some of these latter are hell-holes today. But they were hell-holes before - that is why Britain stepped in and administrated them. Britain would start with trading posts, but when trade stopped because of warring between different tribes inland, the British would go in and bang heads together to stop it. This led to taking over high-level internal policing and administration. In these cases the local native rulers were usually allowed to retain their positions under British protection. This was a different approach from some other European colonial powers (notably France) which tried to stamp out the local cultures.

    Eg gradually most (not all) of India became administrated in that way, including the building of infrastructure such as railways, ports, and government buildings often superior to those back home. While many British administrators and engineers and their families lived for long periods in India, they were not settlers like in North America and would always be talking of the day they would go back home. In fact settling was only done where the natives were clearly primitive (usually stone age in culture) and the climate was temperate.

    It was Britain withdrawing from some of these countries that was a disaster for them. India was a blood-bath in the late 1940's (but recovered eventually), and some of the old African colonies still are. The reason the UK is sought by immigrants is that Britain had given these ex-colonies a taste of how life could be better than in a shit hole, and of course the English language which remained the official one in many of these ex-colonies.

  13. Re:Ah, Estonia - the country of SS by dunkelfalke · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bullshit. These marches honour WaffenSS veterans explicitly. Also those who happily participated in the Holocaust.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  14. Re:Sooner it goes, the better by Kiuas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The EU is France, Germany, and the UK, plus a bunch of troublesome leeches

    Eh, no. And no again

    Germany, France and the UK (in that order) are the 3 largest economies in the Union by far, but combined their GDP currently makes up around 51,2 % of that of the whole union. The UK by itself represents around 14,4 % of the total economy, France is 16 % and Germany is 20 %.

    The remaining 24 countries are miniscule in size compared to these 3, but in total are roughly as big as these three. After the UK leaves, the shares will change so that Germany will grow to be around 24 % of the whole economy, while France's share goes up to around 19. This means that the other remaining EU countries together actually dwarf Germany and France in size.

    Secondly, there are currently 10 member states that pay into the union more than they take out of it. In addition to Germany, France and the UK these include the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Italy and Ireland (granted Ireland and Italy pretty much break even so their contribution is not major). Spain (5th largest economy in the union after Italy) also pretty much breaks even although they still currently receive slightly more than they pay in.

    The instant one of them leaves, the EU is dead, and Europe will go back to doing what it does best - warring with itself.

    What? The EU, for all its numerous flaws is still a succesful economic zone with a total GDP second only to the US once the UK leaves, so thinking that France or Germany would want to leave/shatter the union when it has benefited them the most as the biggest economies in the zone, or that 1 of them leaving would automatically trigger the collapse of the whole union and/or massive war is misguided. Especially now with the situation of Russia being what it is, there are very few leaders on a national level that would even want to leave, because reverting back to a bunch of solitary nation states is both economically damaging and is also essentially equal to surrending massive amounts of influence and control over to Russia, US and China, which from a purely game theory point of view of (geo)politics is a dumb as fuck move (for both the smaller states who will then be at the mercy of these larger players, as well as the big economies like France and Germany whose global influence/power would be greatly diminished if the Union stopped existing). This is something that both France and Germany understand well.

    Think of it is this way: after the UK goes, the choice faced by Germany and France will be the following: they can either continue as the 2 major rulers of the 2nd largest economy in the world 7 times the size of Russia, or they can choose to return to a situation in which they control only their own economies that are roughly equal to that of Russia and are massive dwarfed by the US and China thereby essentially sidelining themselves from the big league of the world economies,

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead