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Monday, April 2, 2012

postheadericon Tighter privacy laws would only serve the rich and powerful | John Kampfner

The report on the parliamentary discussion of the privacy of the importance of freedom of expression, but the measures proposed are against this

bad practice tends to get in the way of good intentions. At a meeting at Foreign Ministry a few weeks, I gently reminded decent-minded mandarins who had a problem: the role of Britain to promote Internet freedom, and freedom of expression in general , has been undermined by the departments themselves. Problems with protesters last summer? Well, go after the messengers of BlackBerry, David Cameron, he suggested, until it was pointed out that this was exactly the kind of thing that the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes tried to do during the Arab Spring .

Now, parliamentarians from Britain, bravado in his family have developed a new wheeze: why does not the search engines to move from a network drive and remove the giant - not only their research, but the Internet itself - material which is considered an invasion of privacy

"Google and other search engines should take steps to ensure that their sites are not used as vehicles for violation of the law, and should develop and use this technology," says report released today by the House of Lords and Commons Joint Committee on Privacy and precautions. Translate these words in Russian or Mandarin and can imagine the outcry.

Only if these high-tech companies not arrogant about our MPs and peers have recommended that if they refuse to voluntarily censor, who should be forced to do so by law.

Our parliamentarians traditionally insular, at least the foresight to recognize that this "proactive monitoring ... perhaps not compatible "with the EU directive on electronic commerce, but what the heck, why why not give it a go?

The government is likely to thank the committee for its deliberations, and then give them a wide margin. In any case, everyone is waiting in the investigation of Lord Justice Leveson hacking this fall. The question that was in January in the hands of quality control leading Leveson was more difficult, and informed, the greatness of the commission. I noticed, in their testimony before Parliament in November, for their ignorance of the digital world. A few MPs who understands the issues, the Liberal Democrats Martin Horwood, Twitter just after the session on "shameful coarse" and "internet ignorance" of their "colleagues". Google (which, to declare an interest, I saw part-time in free speech) and is consistent with the "removal" requests from national authorities. However, if the content is legal in another state, is still visible in this country. These applications are now displayed in a "transparency report" regularly. What Google does not do is engage in fishing expeditions giants in their overall quality of censorship of taste, decency, legality and privacy.


The UK needs a regulatory system more professional and thorough. You need executives and managers, to be held more accountable for their actions. But this country has some of the most restrictive laws in the democratic world, especially when it comes to defamation and surveillance.

This report is full of statements about the importance of freedom of expression. MPs and peers talk a good talk, but do not understand that - even if improvements are made to standards - the only people who benefit from an offensive are the rich and powerful. Hungary's awful new press law, with its laws on licensing measures and others that some witnesses argued Leveson. Look at France, where generations of politicians have called for privacy to escape the surveillance of their financial crimes.
Ask yourself, our media do not know too much or too little about what is done in our name? No wonder our politicians, then try to tame these wild beasts.


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