More snooping and punishing
In a ridiculous new law proposal, the Australian government wants to make ISPs (internet service providers) spy on every packet passing through their customers’ internet connections (mirror) to find out who’s committing the dreadful sin of copyright infringement; and then hand over all the details to the copyright holders.
Now, if you make the ISPs work more, they will charge their customers more. If this law gets through, customers will have to pay up for the privilege of losing any notion of online privacy. In our Western world, where everything and everyone is connected to the internet, unacceptable doesn’t even come close to describe this proposal.
The same war on online “piracy” continues in the UK: the (unelected) Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, wants to put draconian measures in place to criminalise filesharers (mirror).
These include fines up to £50,000 and cutting off customers’ internet access (mirror), which is very reminiscent of the French HADOPI law proposal.
Peter Mandelson came up with this intelligent plan after having had dinner with billionaire record producer David Geffen (mirror), whilst on holiday with the Rothschild family at their Greek villa.
A born-rich man like Mandelson, who moves in such proletarian circles, of course knows exactly what the people want and need. And he’s obviously aware of all the alternative ideas that are floating around with regards to copyright law.
Our Italian brethren have in their turn proposed a new law which would force everyone who puts their opinions online to publish a “right to reply” (mirror) from any person or entity who takes offense to that opinion – on penalty of a €10,000 fine.
Francesco Pizzetti, the Italian Data Protection Authority president, has said that this law “probably” won’t apply to bloggers or other private individuals; but mainly to the online press. However, unless this is specified in the letter of the law (which it won’t), no one is going to be free from prosecution.
It won’t kill the internet (for now), as some people have claimed, but it will be yet another step in the direction of total internet control and the death of free speech online – the only place where a shred of freedom remains.