Urgent: Tell Parliament what you think about your rights

The Joint parliamentary committee on  human rights are currently looking for submissions on human rights issues relating particularly to proposed legislation.  I came across it quite by chance - but it is a superb opportunity for interested citizens to get their views across - but you need to act now!

From the press release:
"The Joint Committee on Human Rights scrutinizes every Government Bill for its compatibility with human rights, including common law fundamental rights, the Convention rights protected by the Human Rights Act 1998 and the human rights contained in other international obligations of the UK. The Committee's scrutiny of Bills for compatibility with the requirements of human rights law includes consideration of whether the Bill presents an opportunity to enhance human rights in the UK. The Committee is actively seeking to encourage more input from civil society into its legislative scrutiny work.


Further to the Committee's press notice of 28 July 2009, on the Government's draft legislative programme for 2009-10, the Committee has now identified the following nine priority areas for scrutiny in 2010, based on the significance of the human rights issues involved and the likelihood of legislation being passed before the end of the parliamentary session. The Committee would welcome short submissions of up to 1500 words from interested parties by Monday 18 January."
(my highlight)

The areas for submission cover:

• lllegal File Sharing
• DNA & Fingerprints
• Domestic Violence
• Stop & Search
• Enforceable Entitlements for parents and pupils
• Mandatory Sex and Relationships education
• Reporting of family court proceedings
• Entitlement to personal care at home
• Asylum support and destitution

The press release includes more details on the rights implications of each of these topics.  It also says where to send your submission.  There is a mail address but you are also asked to send a signed hard copy (which hopefully can be accepted after the submission date).

Time is short, so if you have views on the above - and several of them have privacy issues and issues areound respect for your private life - then you need to set aside some time during the next few days to put down your views.

Resources to help formulate your submission:e.g on copyright policing

Open Rights Group on Digital Economy Bill
Liberty on the Digital Economy Bill
Latest News on the Digital Economy Bill

There are I'm sure others - I welcome constructive additions in the comments.

PLEASE SPREAD THIS TOPIC!

Updated:  now with the link to the press release!  Damn....  

Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party -  Putting privacy first.

Stand Up Diggers All... Every Human Has Rights

"From the men of property the orders came; they sent the hired men & troopers to wipe out the Digger's claim"

Tomorrow is Human Rights Day.... it's a time when all of us should reflect on the privilege we enjoy in the rights we have, and the struggle of people around the world to live their lives without those rights.  I write a lot about the rights if privacy, and of free speech and what is happening in the digital world that may impact on all of us in the future - but there are more basic rights being ignored and flouted all over the globe. 

Today I'd like to highlight just one case - not because it's the worst rights abuse I could find - but because it stands square in the cause that the diggers fought for three hundred and sixty years ago.  Today in Venezuela
people are fighting for their basic right to protest against the vested interests of the state and the landowners

"On the one hand, police officers, the prosecutors and judges, on the other, hired killers led by landowners and business sectors, plus shock troops allied with national, regional and local governments regardless their political orientation, all form the triangle of repression to the social fight."

What are each of us doing to defend their rights against those that would deny them?

Standards of justice - rights, wrongs and copyright infringement

Non-commercial copying of copyrighted maerial is a long established practice - covering everything from sharing recipes, photo copying course notes and taping material from the TV or radio.  What has changed in recent years is not that it happens - rather, that technology has made it easier to do -while at the same time technology makes it practical in many instances to see that it is happening.

What is legal - and how infringement is addressed - differ in different countries.  In Britain (as I understand it) it's still an infringement of copyright to copy your LPs onto tape - or your CDs onto your media server. As for making a compilation from your records collection to give to your girlfriend....  Hots coals and the lash await...

Enforcement is the proof of the pudding - putting individuals in the firing line for having shared copyrighted material.

This week has seen two interesting court cases in Sweden.  First a court in Södertorn decided that Telia Sonera were obliged to hand over details of who runs the Torrent search engine SweTorrents to Antipiratbyrån - a lobby and enforcement organisation for the media industry.  The judgement included in it's rationale both that SweTorrents had a large number of copyright works uploaded onto the site - and that  the site has been used to download material.  

Now it's hard for me to comment on whether providing a search engine counts as abetting copyright infringement under the letter of the current law....  but those aren't legal judgements - they are matters of fact.  It's a search engine.. there are no files on the site to download - and nor can you upload to the site...  so if that's the basis of the judgement it's a pretty dodgy one.  No surprise then that Rick Falkvinge pulls it apart in an article that argues that information politics and it's importance for economic development are too important to leave media industry lobbyists to set the agenda.

Another judgement came this week - this one from the Swedish High Court - saying that broadband operator Portlane is not required to shut off access for a tracker site, Opentorrent.   Here they stated 
"För att medverka till upphovsrättsintrång krävs mer av en mellanhand "än tillhandahållande av en internetaccess".
namely:
" in order to contribute to copyright infringement an intermediary needs to do more than provide an internet access".

This judgement is interesting to contrast with the the current proposals in the UK's proposed Digital Economy Bill which will put specific responsibilities onto operators for policing copyright.  And notwithstanding the lack of technical knowledge shown in the first case - both cases show considerably more interest in the individuals rights and a just process than we see in the UKs current legal and political arena .

Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

Watching you: Surveillance and the EU.

Open Europe has published a new report taking stock of how the EU is impacting our civil liberties....  Everyone should read it: "How the EU is watching you: the rise of Europe's surveillance state"

Quoting the Open Europe blog: "There are lots of juicy proposals in the pipeline including: a target to train a third of all police officers across the EU in a “common culture” of policing; the mass collection and sharing of personal data including DNA records into an EU-wide database; controversial surveillance techniques including ‘cyber patrols’; the creation of a fledgling ‘EU Home Office’ with powers to decide on cooperation on police, border, immigration and criminal justice issues; an EU “master plan” on information exchange; the transfer of criminal proceedings among EU member states; a three-fold increase in the number of controversial EU arrest warrants; access to other member states’ national tax databases; and EU laws on citizens’ right to internet access."


The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Also on: HAX & The Telegraph


Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Putting privacy first.

Immigrant abuse: Uncle Sam, shame on you

If you were living in a police state you might expect at anytime that knock on the door in the dead of night.. and to be dragged off without warning and without charge.. But you live in a democracy right? ...and we have the forces of the law to defend and protect our basic rights.

Not it seems if you live in the US.

Steve Lendman has a long and disturbing entry on how US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) - part of the Department of  Homeland Security - are routinely using police state tactics to detain immigrants in violation of their rights.  (It's that fourth amendment again)
Quoting from a report on how the raids are conducted...

"..a team of heavily armed ICE agents approaching a private residence in the pre-dawn hours, purportedly seeking an individual believed to have committed some civil immigration violation. Agents, armed only with administrative warrants, which do not grant them legal authority to enter private dwellings, then push their way in when residents answer the door, enter through unlocked doors or windows or, in some cases, physically break into homes.
All occupants are then seized and interrogated with no legal authority, and often "no target is apprehended..."
York City Cardozo School of Law Immigration Justice Clinic (IJC)
 
Around 320 000 are put into detention each year highlighting the scale that this abuse can encompass - and yes, they may be illegal immigrants, but as this video explains - they have rights too....