EU Paves the Way For Three-Strikes Cut-Off Policy 272
Mark.JUK writes "The European Parliament has surrendered to pressure from Member States (especially France) by abandoning amendment 138, a provision adopted on two occasions by an 88% majority of the plenary assembly, and which aimed to protect citizens' right to Internet access. The move paves the way for an EU wide policy supporting arbitrary restrictions of Internet access. Under the original text any restriction of an individual could only be taken following a prior judicial ruling. The new update has completely removed this, meaning that governments now have legal grounds to force Internet providers (ISPs) into disconnecting their customers from the Internet (i.e. such as when 'suspected' of illegal p2p file sharing)."
this will be a problem in the future. (Score:5, Insightful)
This will adversely affect small businesses - why should someone's business be made unviable cos they can't stop their kids downloading a few bits and pieces.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times.
Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally (Score:5, Insightful)
Shadenfreude (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever I see stories of other countries governments and corporations (or is there a difference anymore?) trampling over citizens' rights even worse than is done here in the States, it just gives me this warm glowing feeling inside for some reason.
Human Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
EU Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
...a provision adopted on two occasions by an 88% majority of the plenary assembly, and which aimed to protect citizens' right to Internet access.
European democracy, defined: 88% Majority beaten by %0.001 business owners.
88% What the hell?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shadenfreude (Score:1, Insightful)
It should give you a sinking feeling. The copyright extension in the 1980's was a response to the Universal Copyright Convention's and Berne Convention's recommendations. The U.S. government follows suit with other countries when laws are in the best interest of the big businesses with the most lobbying dollars.
Re:Unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is access to the Internet is not any of elementary human rights or constitution-granted freedoms.
The government may regulate, restrict and forbid access to it in any arbitrary way just like they may regulate sales of tobacco or speed limits on roads. They don't need a court sentence, they don't even need suspicion. They are allowed to pass a bill that says you need a special government-issued permit to access the Internet and any government clerk may revoke it on discretionary basis, and they aren't breaking any fundamental laws, because there weren't any laws granting you access to the Internet in the first place.
Turnabout is fair play (Score:5, Insightful)
The French President's already demonstrated the vulnerabilities. If they want to put in 3-strikes disconnection based on accusations alone, target the people who approve of it. They've almost certainly done something that'll justify at least an accusation. Once they've got 3 of them, make a huge stink about the law they insisted be passed and demand that they be subject to it.
Old Shin'a'in proverb: "If the enemy is in range, so are you.".
Re:Apply it on MPs and Ministers first (Score:5, Insightful)
New rule, passed the next day:
'Internet access for MPs and Ministers cannot be interfered with.'
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times.
That sound you hear is thousands of bus drivers screaming "DON'T GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS!!!"
Re:Oh great! (Score:5, Insightful)
What good are rights when the government can strip them from you whenever it deems necessary?
I don't know which is better: The EU openly taking away your supposed rights or the US taking away your rights and lying about it?
Probably the latter because people love being lied to.
Re:88% What the hell?! (Score:1, Insightful)
If older prestige European countries are able to railroad the EU this way then what is the point for other less-prestigious members to stay?
"Hey... That's a pretty nice economy you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it." /sad but true
Re:Unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is access to the Internet is not any of elementary human rights or constitution-granted freedoms. The government may regulate, restrict and forbid access to it in any arbitrary way just like they may regulate sales of tobacco or speed limits on roads. They don't need a court sentence, they don't even need suspicion. They are allowed to pass a bill that says you need a special government-issued permit to access the Internet and any government clerk may revoke it on discretionary basis, and they aren't breaking any fundamental laws, because there weren't any laws granting you access to the Internet in the first place.
... because arbitrary power with no due process and little or no burden of proof on the accuser has always worked out so well in the past.
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unconstitutional (Score:3, Insightful)
"access to the Internet is not any of elementary human rights or constitution-granted freedoms."
The air is an information medium with no legal rights attached to it as well. When do they start telling us we can't speak, see, or breathe. When internet becomes defacto standard of communication then it becomes part of "human rights or constitution-granted freedom" by definition change. Otherwise laws couldn't be used other than for what they are stated for.
Wrong kind of punishment (Score:2, Insightful)
Ignoring the fact that they are punishing people before it is even proven they did anything wrong, why are they taking away internet access?
For most crimes that I know of, you pay a fine or spend some time in jail. Are they taking away internet access because that is what was used to commit their "crime"?
If that's the case, they should chop off your legs the third time you illegally cross a street.
Call for boycott (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a public call for a worldwide boycott of all products coming out the entertainment industry, be it movies, music, tv programs, computer games of all sorts and whatever else.
this boycott shall continue until they all close shop.
Damn Republicans! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nevermind, it's OK then.
Re:Ideally (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile in real life, governments the world over are in the pockets of the media industry and their slavish public can't take it in the arse fast enough. Sarkozy is just a politician who's more openly "available" for influence than others, but there's plenty more worms in the EU woodwork. The number of politicians I've seen parroting, word for word, the latest anti-customer campaign about how piracy eats up 92% of the global GDP or some such bullshit makes you lose all faith in humani... sorry, in sentient life the world over.
"I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a percentage."
Re:Damn French... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, using the example of the US Federal Government shows that idea can only work for so long. Now there's absolutely no part of life that the US Feds won't interfere with.
Re:Damn French... (Score:3, Insightful)
> If the individual countries in Europe decided to keep their sovereignty...
"Sovereignty"? Didn't I recently read about discussions in Brussels of how to remove a certain head of state because he had the effrontry not to do as he was told and sign the Lisbon treaty?
Re:Ah, that nice French law... (Score:5, Insightful)
It worked great at first. It's just gotten bad lately.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
Personally I think the tree is looking very withered these days.
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're talking about immunity from prosecution. This isn't prosecution ... it's a lynching.
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:5, Insightful)
One would think this idea also violated the EU's Charter of Rights:
Article 11 - "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers." "The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected."
One could also argue that blocking the internet interferes with Article 14 - "Everyone has the right to education and to have access to vocational and continuing training." Think of the children! They will be cut off from access to online education.
And Articles 47 "Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article." - and 48 - "Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law."
The Three-Strike law is clearly unconstitutional within the EU's dominion.
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
France is just the beginning, an experiment. Believe me, RIAA is watching this closely and setting lobbying cash aside for similar laws for YOU.
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:1, Insightful)
So you say that we will need more police?
Not at all. Outsourcing police powers to private enterprises is quite profitable -especially when no judiciary oversight is required.
Re:The slashdot summer is very missleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Ha, what do you expect, when contributors from Europe are for the most part British europhobes, fed from their tender age by MurdochMedia.
Indeed, what the text says is "a judge can order disconnection, given cause", and this got interpreted as "Big Corporations Have The Right To Arbitrarily Disconnect You, And This Right Was Given To Them By The Evil EU/Big Gvt."
Of course, the second version sells, wayyy better.
Re:Unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ah, that nice French law... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you and Timothy McVeigh...
Do you really think the US worked better when only landowning whites were allowed to vote, slavery was legal, and the second president signed the alien and sedition acts?
I guess that's all a small price to pay for not getting your internet cut off...
Re:Damn French... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that the US Federal Government needs to be able to over-ride State laws in some cases, for example, to protect interstate commerce. What needs to happen is a "scope reduction", not a "power reduction." The Feds should still be able to override State laws, but they should be prevented from making any laws *not* relating to interstate commerce, foreign policy, or defense.
The other thing that bugs me is people trying to amend the Constitution without amending the Constitution-- for example, the lawmakers trying to add extreme restrictions on gun ownership without doing things the proper way and repealing the Second Amendment. If you want gun control, fine-- but you have to repeal the amendment first! You can't shoehorn it in alongside!
Re:Oh great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at Barak Obama. I've yet to see him significantly and fundamentally reform government, or otherwise to make either the USA or the world a better place. Yet, look at the devotion.
It's Barack, and this isn't devotion, it's people actually liking him. If you want devotion, look at the tards naming every damn thing they can find after Reagan.
Re:this will be a problem in the future. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:cultural protectionism (Score:1, Insightful)
[troll]
there is no such thing as an American culture therefore there is nothing we should be protected against :muhaha (yeah I am french)
Quoted from "In the Beginning was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson :
"The only real problem is that anyone who has no culture, other than this global monoculture, is completely screwed. Anyone who grows up watching TV, never sees any religion or philosophy, is raised in an atmosphere of moral relativism, learns about civics from watching bimbo eruptions on network TV news, and attends a university where postmodernists vie to outdo each other in demolishing traditional notions of truth and quality, is going to come out into the world as one pretty feckless human being. And--again--perhaps the goal of all this is to make us feckless so we won't nuke each other.
On the other hand, if you are raised within some specific culture, you end up with a basic set of tools that you can use to think about and understand the world. You might use those tools to reject the culture you were raised in, but at least you've got some tools."
[/troll]
back on the story I dont see a link between the bs your spouting and the amendment being dropped
just for the fun of it: (troll hat back on)
"in europe, there is another potent issue that does not exist in the usa: cultural irrelevancy. the french have been fighting to retain french culture for decades: funding french arts, fighting the emergence of english words into french usage, etc" hello ? who doesnt support its own economy ? do you think we still would be first touristic destination if we dropped our cultural identity ? and for what ?(cultural irrelevancy my ass, as if culture could ever be irrelevant) and please we do not need to fight to retain our culture, it sustain itself on its own pretty good imo
"now everyone speaks english in the world" seriously ?? are you that stupid ?? or do you suffer from the common misconception world == USA ?
"how the hell are you suppose to preserve danish and belgian culture in the face of the english onslaught?" you are kidding me right ? Crap on TV is just that: crap, not an ONSLAUGHT. And no , nobody speaks english in belgium (as a first language anyway) and danish speak well danish ..
"from the point of view of french national pride" we may be pridefull but at least we dont need buy off Nobel committees to get Nobel prizes :D. As if a warmonger state like the usa could ever get it..
You are totally misinformed (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two principles at work here. 1. EU decides more and more over time and the member states gradually lose power. 2. The individuals right to internet access.
This is a good decision just because it leaves power with the member states. It doesn't matter for the functioning of the EU what laws the individual member states have in this area, therefore no EU-law should be written about it. If a law within the EU is against someone human rights, there is a separate way of correcting that, in the confusingly named in the Council of Europe that has the The European Court of Human Rights. This court is not part of the EU system even if their charter of human rights is referred to in the EU-treaties.
The European Court of Human Rights is a court that convict the 47 member states (among them France and UK) when they have written a law that infringes on the citizens human rights. The laws related from France and UK are most likely to be struck down by The European Court of Human Rights. Therefore the Member States are doing the right thing when not interfering in this area.