Chilean Congress does the CDA thing

A lengthy submission, but I find it rather fascinating to look at how other countries handle the internet. Someday people will write books about this, but for now, the pattern seems to be that as soon as public use of the net reaches a certain point, sensational journalism kicks in, the public (most of whom have no direct experience with the internet) rises up in outrage, and the first net-regulation laws get passed.

Miguel Farah writes "Chile has been connected to the Internet since 1992, and during all this time, it's been working mostly free of external regulations. All the time since then, though, those of us who've been on the net have feared that the day would come when our Congress would try to regulate it by law. Aw, hell... eventually it had to happen, and has happened now.

There's a "bulletin" (a project of law) that's just been formally appointed, and now it has to be conducted through the whole process, which may take as short as three months and as long as six years (this is because our Congress has a knack for treat non-urgent, non-political laws with great inefficiency timewise (the canonical example is the infamous "Sports law" that promotes sports, that's been on the edge of approval for more than four years, even though it's generally felt it's important to have it approved at once).

This project is, in my opinion (please note that I'm an engineer, not a lawyer), extremely poor: it's filled with generalities and has more holes than a Gruyéere cheese. It is pretty obvious that the intentions of those who wrote the bulletin simply wanted to write down the word "Internet" in a law, following the urge to regulate everything that is typical in our country's lawyers.

I quote the bulletin here, as is, and below provide a translation.

-----ACTUAL BULLETIN---------8

 "

Comments

Local judges decide what's moral?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the text of this, it would seem that a local judge has the authority to decide what's considered to be in violation of the law-- or, in other words, what is and isn't considered to be moral.

If this is the case, then I would like to know if one judge's ruling is enough to set precedent... in other words, if a conservative judge in a conservative area considers www.newgrounds.com to be immoral, will that set a precedent under which *all* judges in Chile have to consider it immoral? I don't know enough about the laws.

I don't know about the political climate in Chile. I don't know the way the laws work. But from the looks of it, I'd be hoping for the government to do that whole "put-it-on-the-back-burner-for-six-years" thing.

Suggestion(s)

[Reject]

Oi vey. Did all that REALLY need to be posted on the front page? I mean, wouldn't a "read more" link suffice?

Anyways, what are the usual venues for challenging (proposed) laws in Chile? Is there a way? Considering I don't know the "normal" ways of protesting there, may I suggest you try a largeish media campaign? (And no, a single non-frontpage article on /. doesn't count) Just raise public awareness of this, in particular make sure everyone who uses the net there knows about it. I doubt this article will help much, since most /. readers are American, and I doubt the government there really cares about non-citizens. You need to attack this _locally_ and make sure _local_ citizens know about the law and it's effects.

These are my uninspired suggestions, at least.

--
Reject