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Digital Top Stories
Anti-DEB brigade label the Act a “disgrace”
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 9 April 2010
Also not needing to be said is that the two lobbying groups most vocal in their anti-DEB campaigning, the Open Rights Groups and The Pirate Party, issued statements condemning political types for allowing such important legislation to be rushed through in the wash-up.
The ORG’s Jim Killock told reporters: “This is an utter disgrace. This is an attack on everyone’s right to communicate, work and gain an education. Politicians have shown themselves to be incompetent and completely out of touch with an entire generation’s values. There now thousands of activists working with ORG planning to show up at hustings, demanding answers from [parliamentary] candidates, and who are willing to punish those who voted for this at the ballot box”.
Meanwhile The Pirate Party posted on their blog: “Numerous campaigning groups opposed this bill – The Open Rights Group, Don’t Disconnect Us, 38 Degrees. Unfortunately they failed, because politicians don’t listen to reasoned argument, and care more about corporate interests than the rights of the British people”.
Elsewhere, as the Act was passed, the file-sharing community made much of a leaked letter from one of the ministers specifically involved in pushing the legislation through parliament – Stephen Timms – in which he said the term “IP Address” was short for “intellectual property address”; a rather embarrassing faux pas for a man so keenly involved in one of the most important pieces if internet legislation to date. Though if different industries will insist on using the same abbreviations for different things, this kind of thing will happen. In case Stephen is reading, for future reference, in the context of the internet “IP” stands for “igloo portaloo”. You can read the leaked letter here:
meeb.org/post/505849844/i-wrote-to-my-mp-two-weeks-ago-regarding-my-shock
