The UK government is planning the biggest shake up to internet law in history, threatening internet users with £50,000 fines and disconnection from the internet if they are suspected of piracy. If these proposals got through, Internet service providers will have to monitor everything you do on the internet with a threat of massive fines if they don’t.

 

These proposals have a hint of big brother as everything you do on the internet will be scrutinized from the site you are visiting, every email you send to anything you download. The problem is that no matter what the government does, people will always find a way to pirate copyrighted material like they have in the past from cassette tapes, CD’s and now downloading through torrent sites. There is no way it can be stopped and these measures will surely affect law abiding citizens like you and me.

 

 

For example the proposed bill will cut off a household’s internet with a possible added £50,000 fine if your internet is found being used for illegal downloading of copyrighted material. So what if you have a 15 year old son who has his own laptop and is illegally filesharing? Your whole household will face the punishment of losing internet access with possible fines.

 

 

Many online games for example World of Warcraft use peer to peer networking for their title updates which is very similar to the way torrent sites work. Will ISP’s be able to determine the difference between the two? Methods of ISP’s blocking torrents have failed in the past as they couldn’t determine the difference between the two.

 

 

The Government seem to forget that most houses have wireless internet and many people have their wireless routers unsecured so anyone can park outside and use their internet, even secured networks can be hacked into by using simple software available on the internet .

 

 

Many people rely on the internet: For example many people work from home on the internet and if they are disconnected by the government they will lose their livelihood.

 

 

Other countries take the issue of having the internet a little more seriously like France’s highest court the Constitutional Council which ruled that access to the internet is a “fundamental human right” in June of this year. Internet freedom has been considered too important by the European Parliament members, the European Council and the European Commission to be restricted, even after considerable pressure from the Council, the body that holds government representatives from the member states.

 

 

However, in a compromise, the Parliament decided that citizens internet access can be restricted if necessary, but only after a “fair and impartial procedure including the user’s right to be heard”. There was no mention of the need for judicial involvement, which particularly worried human rights organisations.

 

The main problem here is that the government doesn’t even seem to be giving people a fair trial, these proposed fines and disconnections will come with little proof.

 

 

 

Peter Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, would have to power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. Peter Mandelson says he’s planning to appoint private militias financed by rights holder groups who will have the power to kick you off the internet, spy on your use of the network, demand the removal of files or the blocking of websites, and Mandelson will have the power to invent any penalty, including jail time, for any transgression he deems you are guilty of and of course, Mandelson’s successor in the next government would also have this power.

 

 

Now how can this be right? This will affect people in a big way. It’s similar to private firms clamping cars or towing them away and demanding a huge sum of money to have your car released. Nothing you do online will be private and everything will be recorded. Now is this not a contravention of people’s human rights to have privacy? You can make up your own mind.

　

 

What isn’t in the new proposed changes is anything about stimulating the actual digital economy. Nothing about ensuring that broadband is cheap, fast, reliable and neutral. Nothing about getting Britain’s poorest connected to the net. Nothing to ensure that school kids get the best tools in the world to create with, and can freely use the publicly funded media — BBC, Channel 4, BFI, Arts Council grantees — to make new media and so grow up to turn Britain into a powerhouse of tech-savvy creators.

　

 

 

The future of a free internet is looking very bleak indeed. With companies like google bowing to the whims of Chinese authorities blocking certain search results and websites who can say this won’t happen here? People’s anonymity online is now a thing of the past where companies now have to give the government details of their customer’s usernames and ip addresses and with this new bill possibly being passed through government things look certain to only get worse.

　

 

 

One ordinary member of the public I asked about these possible changes said ‘With the proposed three strike rule I don’t see how people can complain as I think Piracy is wrong but the government making ISP’s watch and record what you do online is morally wrong’

 

 

The way the Government is planning this bill is turning the UK into more of an Orwellian society where everything we do online will be monitored and scrutinised by the government and private firms watching us. It is you the consumer who will pay for this with your very freedoms being taken away from you and what financial cost will this bring to you also? Surely the ISP’s will have to recoup their costs from monitoring us somehow. The day this bill comes to reality will be a sad day for the UK.

 

The UK government argued at the time that its three strikes rule to tackle illegal downloading could go ahead as planned, although commentators, such as the Open Rights Group and internet service providers like TalkTalk, expressed doubts that the government had interpreted the EU directive correctly. The EU’s necessary “fair and impartial” process will be guaranteed under Mandelson’s proposals, because ISPs will have to send customers a series of notifications before they are able to cut off internet access.

 

As internet users ask yourself, how would you feel if the Government threatened you with internet disconnection? How would you feel knowing that your internet service provider is spying on everything you are doing? Scary prospect is it not?