WIKIORG parliamentary and policy update/2012-w50
< ORG parliamentary and policy updateUpdates for the week staring 2012-12-10
Official Meetings
Jim Killock met with Ed Vaizey MP on Wednesday at a "round table" with Consumer Focus, Which? and Big Brother Watch. ORG's demands centred around ensuring due process for anyone deemed to be infringing copyright by intermediaries including payment providers and advertisers. Additionally, we called for transparency over court injunctions and the lists of blocked domains and IP addresses, including for The Pirate Bay and Newzbin. ORG has made the same call directly to ISPs and the BPI; and are gathering partners for a website to analyse and publish the injunctions.
Jim spoke this Tuesday about the Communications Data Bill to a meeting of Compass' "Progressive Alliance" - a group of Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative and other politicians who want to see 'progressive' politics advance in the UK. He made a call for Labour and progressives in opposition to look again at their relationship with civil liberties.
MP visits
ORG supporters are visiting their MPs about the Comms Data Bill, with a lobby day organised for Monday. Please let us know if you are visiting your MP.
Consultations
Department for Education - Consultation on Parental Internet Controls
The Government's response to the Department for Education consultation has been published. The conculsions are broadly in line with ORG's views.
Adult content filtering regulation
Committees
Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill
The Committee published its report on Tuesday 11th, and was greatly critical of the Home Office both in the drafting of the bill and the justifications given for it.
We have produced a short briefing on the Joint Committee report, which draws out the key points.
We have also produced more analysis on how the Committee's report demonstrates Home Office failings, with a call for a fundamental review of surveillance law.
Intelligence and Security Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill
The ISC also reported on the draft Communications Data Bill. While the report is classified, the conclusions where made public. The ISC was also critical of the drafting of Clause 1 and the inadequate explanations of the Home Office as to the scope of the issue and the proposed nature of implemetation.
Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Defamation Bill
The JCHR published their report on the Defamation Bill on Wednesday 12th. Among it's recommendations was that the threshold action by website operators in Clause 5 be raised to "unlawful" to help prevent "chilling effects" where lawful statements are removed from the public domain.
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Culture, Media and Sport Committee on "Support for the creative industries"
On Tuesday 18th December the CMS committee will be taking evidence from representatives of the internet companies and the music industry on topics including social media and copyright enforcement.
A transcript of the oral evidence session on December 4th is now available. The following gave evidence: Geoff Taylor, Jo Dipple, Andy Heath, Alison Wenham, Fran Healy and Stephen Budd
Government Bills
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Subject to Lords committee stage this week
Lords Hansard text for 12 Dec 201212 Dec 2012 (pt 0001)
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
International Developments
WCIT Dubai
The UN ITU conference in Dubai has concluded with no agreements on regulation of the Internet. Several countries including US, UK, Australia and Canada and several other European nations have refused to sign the final agreement.
World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012
Legal cases
Golden Eye International
ORG intervened in the Court of Appeal hearing on Monday, arguing for the judges to uphold the original decision not to release data relating to around 6,000 IP addresses of O2 and Be Broadband customers. We now await the decision of the judges.
For more background, see our previous blog post announcing our intention to intervene.
Pirate Bay block
The block on promobay.org was lifted by the BPI last week following pressure from Open Rights Group. In a related move, the BPI have indicated they will look to take the Pirate Party UK to court, over its hosting of a proxy enabling access to the Pirate Bay. PPUK have indicated that they will not comply.
ORG Media coverage
ORG's legal intervention, our work on the Comms Data Bill and our campaign against default filtering received significant coverage this week.
- 2012-12-12 - TechWeekEurope - Jimmy Wales: Theresa May Blanked Me On Snooper’s Charter Protests
- Author: Tom Brewster
- 2012-12-12 - V3 - MPs savage Home Office's snooping charter
- Author: Gareth Morgan
- 2012-12-12 - Information Age - Comms Data Bill "cannot proceed", says Clegg
- 2012-12-11 - Computer Active - Nick Clegg vows to block progress of 'snooper's charter'
- Author: Dinah Greek
- 2012-12-11 - CBR Online BPI to sue Pirate Party UK over Pirate Bay proxy service
- 2012-12-10 - TechWeek Europe - Pirate Party UK To Be Sued By Music Copyright Holders
- Author: Max Smolaks
- 2012-12-10 - Computer Active - ORG faces Golden Eye in court battle to protect names of O2 and Be customers
- Author: Dinah Greek
- 2012-12-07 - TechEye - Richard O'Dwyer welcomes end of extradition case
- Author: Matthew Finnegan
- 2012-12-07 - Daily Mail -Four in 10 parents say their children have been exposed to internet porn
- Author: Daniel Martin