On Thursday 25 Mar 2010, Terry Coles wrote:
> Whatever the truth, here is what Annette Brooke (LibDem for Mid Dorset and
> Poole North) said to me in response to my letter through the 38 Degrees
> site:
>
> "Thank you for your message calling for the Digital Economy Bill to receive
> proper parliamentary debate. Time is running out for the present
> Parliament and from today until Easter the Commons will be debating the
> Budget. I am watching the timetable for the Commons but at this stage
> it is not clear if the Bill will get a Second Reading in the Commons,
> although it is still possible. I am very concerned that the Bill should
> receive proper scrutiny and I will update you in due course.'"
>
> I received that yesterday, presumably before the date for the debate was
> set.
After the short note last week Annette Brooke sent a much much longer blanket
message that the disclaimer in the footer said was confidential to the
recipient (although it was BCCd to lots of people presumably).
In essence is says that the LibDems are going to pass the bill pretty much as
it is because there are lots of good things that are needed in it. To get the
good; they are going to swallow the bad. What this means of course is that
the bill has been framed to ensure that unpopular and unfair measures get
forced through because no-one wants to railroad the good stuff.
The message claimed that the LibDem amendments included some safeguards,
including the following requirements:
1. copyright infringers are notified by letter, without any risk of their
internet connection being affected, for at least a year
2. an evaluation of the effectiveness of such "soft measures" is undertaken
3. an evaluation of the need for, and likely effectiveness of, technical
measures has been completed
4. further consultation has taken place
5. proposed legislation is brought before parliament for decision, and
6. any process to disconnect users explicitly assumes their innocence until
they are proven guilty
I suspect that on their own the LibDems can't achieve much anyway, so it
remains to be seen how the bill works in practice.
--
Terry Coles
64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux
--
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