If we can’t stop this, it’s beginning of the end for the net in Britain
That’s what Cory Doctorow suggests when reporting the news that Mandelson is seeking to use a back door to grant himself powers that grant him yet more powers to do just about anything in the interest of protecting Copyright.
It’s terrifying stuff that, if he’s successful, will cripple Britain’s technological progress. I use a programme called, “Drop Box” and it allows me to transfer files from my MacBook to my PC using the Internet. I don’t want such files to be publicly available because they’re my own personal private files. But Mandelson wants these services to disable privacy modes so that Movie Studios can check I’m not stealing from them. Forcing us to make the contents of our online storage public is just one of the powers Mandelson wants to gift himself, unchallenged. In addition to other powers he could have if he gets his way is the ability to demand ISPs turn over their records and of course the infamous threat to ban households from the internet if they’re suspected of copyright infringement.
It’s all in the name of Copyright theft – otherwise known as ‘Mandelson’s extremely rich friends’. It’s crony capitalism, favouritism and economic and social planning all rolled into one horrible, toxic bomb.
Whether or not Mandelson could actually succeed in wiping out Copyright theft on the internet is academic (he can’t, as it happens, no matter what he tries). What he can do is condemn Britain to a sort of internet dark age where technology is held back if it’s a threat to the vested interests Mandelson represents.
He wants access to these powers without debate or scrutiny, and that he wants to be able to wield the powers without debate or scrutiny. He MUST be stopped, This MUST not be allowed. Your Twitter Hashtag to go mental on is #webwar. I will (hopefully) have a piece on CiF tomorrow morning about this too.
The Guardian covers the story from the point of view of what the Tories could do with these same powers. If that’s what it takes to stop it, that’s fine – but in and of itself – what he’s already planning to do with it – are more than bad enough to be utterly terrifying.
