[p2p-research] Fwd: [opennetcoalition] "Three strikes" in Europe, on Wednesday?

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jérémie ZIMMERMANN - La Quadrature du Net <jz at laquadrature.net>
Date: Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Subject: [opennetcoalition] "Three strikes" in Europe, on Wednesday?
To: opennetcoalition at laquadrature.net


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

La Quadrature du Net - For immediate release

Permanent link:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/three-strikes-in-europe-on-wednesday


"Three strikes" in Europe, on Wednesday?


*** Paris, November 2nd, 2009 - The negotiations on the Telecoms Package
might come to a close on Wednesday. The Council of the European Union is
still pushing for "three strikes" policies in Europe but is also
attempting to allow private corporations to restrict citizens' Internet
access. Will the European Parliament continue to hide behind a
disputable legal argumentation provided by the rapporteur Catherine
Trautmann, and accept the unacceptable for the future of Internet access
in Europe? ***

- ----

A campaign page [1] has been set up to allow everyone to contact Members
of the European Parliament and urge them to refuse any proposal from the
Council allowing "three strikes" policies in Europe, and to explicitly
protect EU citizens' freedom to access the Net.

- ----

The conciliation phase of the Telecoms Package could end on Wednesday,
after the next meeting of the Conciliation delegation for the European
Parliament and another interinstitutional "trialogue" meeting.

The new version of the compromise amendment presented by the Council of
the EU still allows for restrictions of Internet access such as "three
strikes" policies in Europe. Moreover, contrarily to the Parliament's
version, the Council's proposal also permits private corporations to
restrict Internet access [2], notably enabling entertainment industries
to pressure Internet service providers in order to police the Net.

"The Council's position demonstrates that its aim is to obtain a wording
compatible with 'three unproved alleged infringements and you are out of
the Internet' mass sanction policies. Some countries want to install
them by laws, others through privately operated mechanisms. The duty of
the Parliament delegation is to make sure that only a wording that makes
clear that the access to the Internet, a condition of freedom of
expression in today's world, cannot be restricted in such a manner."
comments Philippe Aigrain, strategy adviser for the citizen advocacy
group La Quadrature du Net.

Members of the delegation had on their desks all the elements [3] to
counter the arguments crafted by Mrs. Trautmann with the help of the
EP's legal services in order to drop the strong protection of citizens
voted twice by 88% of the Parliament. However, they decided to ignore
them and missed out on the possibility of rewording [4] the original
amendment 138 to improve its language while preserving its core principles.

"So far, the will of rapporteur Trautmann to quickly wrap up the
Telecoms Package was stronger than the Parliament's commitment to
protecting citizens. The legitimacy of the negotiators and of the
European Parliament as a whole is at stake. What will citizens think if
after having seen their representatives defending them on two occasions
before the elections, when they had everybody's attention, they now
witness the Parliament giving in to the Council in closed-door meetings,
by allowing 'three strikes' schemes and private police of the Net?" asks
Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net.




* Références *

1. Campaign page:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/URGENT_action_Parliament_about_to_authorize_European_three_strikes
2. The Council's wording limits the weak, neutralized protections that
it entails only to "measures taken by Member States" instead of "any
measures", which would include that of private parties. See our analysis
of the different versions of this dangerous wording:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/an-evolution-of-amendment-138
3. See our memo:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/improving-amendment-138-while-preserving-its-core-principles
4. See La Quadrature's proposed rewording:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/indisputable-wording-of-amendment-138



** About la Quadrature du Net **

La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) is citizen group informing about
legislative projects menacing civil liberties as well as economic and
social development in the digital age.

La Quadrature du Net informs citizens, public authorities,
organizations, corporations.

It works with everyone to elaborate balanced alternative solutions.

La Quadrature du Net is supported by French, european and international
NGOs including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Open Society
Institute and Privacy International.

List of supporting organisations :
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/they-support-squaring-net-la-quadrature-du-net



** Press contact and press room **

Jérémie Zimmermann, jz at laquadrature.net, +33 (0)615 940 675

http://www.laquadrature.net/en/press-room



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkru6n8ACgkQ1eTOPM/5+wv0kwCfeSRy7XLTqZOtF0/Hq9bfLd9C
ay0AnjsUQBm7EPOyXOPMcBpGpXhdPIkq
=MF/u
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
Opennetcoalition mailing list
Opennetcoalition at laquadrature.net
http://laquadrature.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opennetcoalition



-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20091103/96d95235/attachment.html>