Britain’s new Internet law — as bad as everyone’s been saying, and worse. Much, much worse.
Reposted from Boing Boing.
The British government has brought down its long-awaited Digital Economy Bill, and it’s perfectly useless and terrible. It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the “three-strikes” rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial), as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new, even dumber rating system (why is it acceptable for the government to declare that some forms of artwork have to be mandatorily labelled as to their suitability for kids? And why is it only some media? Why not paintings? Why not novels? Why not modern dance or ballet or opera?).
So it’s bad. £50,000 fines if someone in your house is accused of filesharing. A duty on ISPs to spy on all their customers in case they find something that would help the record or film industry sue them (ISPs who refuse to cooperate can be fined £250,000).
But that’s just for starters. The real meat is in the story we broke yesterday: Peter Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, would have to power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. And he says he’s planning to appoint private militias financed by rightsholder 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.
What isn’t in there? Anything about stimulating the actual digital economy. Nothing about ensuring that broadband is cheap, fast and neutral. Nothing about getting Britain’s poorest connected to the net. Nothing about ensuring that copyright rules get out of the way of entrepreneurship and the freedom to create new things. Nothing to ensure that schoolkids 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.
Lobby organisation The Open Rights Group is urging people to contact their MP to oppose the plans.
A Warning Against A New Descent Into Darkness
In this short film from the final episode of Carl Sagans Cosmos the presenter shows how religious and political ignorance dragged the world into the dark ages. It could happen again so easily. (more…)
Hubble Does It Again
One thing that really sickens me is that, despite all the wonders discovered by science over the last two centuries, scientific research is only funded if it looks like it could turn a profit. (more…)
ZOMG Scientists Do It Again
According to that unholiest of evolutionist magazines, National Geographic, a team of Japanese “scientists” have cloned a mouse from the cells of dead mice that have been frozen for 16 years! How long one must ask until these mad men resurrect something far more dangerous than a little mouse???!?
These people need to be reigned in and their ‘experiments’ halted or we all know what will happen next!!!!
Science? You have failed us. FACT!

Thank You "Science"!!
When Youtube Imitates XKCD

And now Youtube features a button that makes Stephen Hawking read your comment back to you so that you can see what a fucking moron you are! WAHEY!
Happy Birthday GNU!!
Happy Birthday to the GNU operating system.
Here Steven Fry wishes GNU a happy birthday and introduces those who don’t know to the world of free software.
Jeff Hoon Takes Political Lessons From Lois Griffin
In a recent debate on Newsnight Transport Seceratary Geoff Hoon admitted that he was willing to go a long way in curtailing peoples civil liberties in order to fight ‘terrorism’. This despite the fact that terrorist attacks in this country over the last ten years have been comparitively few and far between.
Truth be told is that the new plans which were being discussed are not part of the fight against ‘terror’ but just a further step down the path towards a society of totla surveillance.
The plans in question are to allow the security services to moniter e-mails and other forms of electronic communication with impunity. Mr Hoon said during the debate that
“If they are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don’t have the power to deal with that, then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people.”
By simply extending that logic it is obvious that since terrorists use money then the security services need to be able to monitor all our financial transactions, since they also live in houses then all our houses need to be surveilled.
The full story can be found here and we can see where Mr Hoon gets his debating style from below.

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