[governance] Citizen safeguards striked out in EU Council

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

All,

  More troubles facing an Internet Bill of Rights...

  Some of our attending members reported and took notice
that no IGC input to the EC had been recieved...

See:

http://www.laquadrature.net/en/citizen-safeguards-striked-out-in-EU-council

Citizen safeguards striked out in EU Council


** Paris, November 27th 2008 atThe EU Council reached a political
agreement on the telecommunication reform (Telecoms Package) on
thursday, Nov. 27th. On one hand, crucial modifications to the text
finally doom Nicolas Sarkozy's project to impose graduated response to
the whole Europe. On the other hand, important safeguards to citizen's
fundamental rights and freedoms were deleted. The agreed text lowers the
protection of privacy in the EU, in the name of œsecurity. **


During last weeks, citizens from many European countries[1] raised
awareness of their ministers representatives in Council on the Telecoms
Package, by meeting them, sending letters, alerting the press, etc. This
intense activity undoubtedly helped modifying critical parts of the text
agreed by the ministers of the twenty-seven Member States.

The dispositions imposing the graduated response scheme in the
European Union (or œthree strikes and you're out) were neutralized in
the Council's version. This is a striking blow at the entertainment
industries who spent much effort[2] in promoting it.

But the agreed text contains major problems:

    * An unacceptable revision has been made to Art.6, par.6 of ePrivay
directive[3], allowing private operators to collect and process traffic
data and exonerate from current privacy rules. This exoneration is so
broad that it allows any web company to process any citizen's[4] data
for broad, undefined purposes and for a potentially infinite duration.
This is a frightening decline, openly ignoring the European Data
Protection Supervisor (EDPS)'s recommendations[5] that were followed by
the European Parliament.

    * The Bono/Cohn-Bendit/Roithova amendment 138 (Art.8, par.4 (ga) of
the Framework directive), restating an essential principle of protection
of fundamental rights and freedom in European law, has been removed.
Deletion of amendment 138, on the vague pretext that the wording was too
broad, is in opposition with the democratic expression of 88% of the
Members of European Parliament (MEPs) and the European Commission. It
clearly shows from the Council a disturbing lack of political courage in
protecting citizens' fundamental rights and Freedom.

    * The dispositions related to œcooperation in the promotion of
lawful content (Art.33 par.2a of Universal Service directive), still
included in the text, must be deleted as well as the related recital
(12c). These texts were pushed by the French cinema lobby to introduce
the graduated response. Their vague wording could still be used by
national governments to violate fundamental rights of their citizens
until a European court remind them the law. This is exactly what France
aims to do in few weeks with its graduated response law.

It is not tolerable that the Council deleted crucial implementations
of fundamental principles. The Council lets Nicolas Sarkozy free to
violate French citizen's rights with his national project of 'graduated
response'. The Commissioner, Viviane Reding, has been quite alone not to
share this Pilate's position. The Commission even recalled today[6] that
this project is a freedom-killer explained Gearald Sédrati-Dinet,
analyst for La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net).

The Council's agreement failed to protect fundamental rights by
deleting two important safeguards. Let's hope the European Parliament
will fight against industry lobbies during the second reading and
finally clean up the whole package. No compromise must be made in
preserving the right to a due process and privacy in the digital
environnement.? concluded Jeremie Zimmermann, co-founder
and coordinator of La Quadrature.

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 284k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln
"YES WE CAN!"  Barack ( Berry ) Obama

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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