Internet users, it's time for mouseclick activism! - Main contents

Source: J. (Judith) Sargentini i, published on Tuesday, February 23 2010.

Gisteren sprak ik tijdens het Piratendebat over een Internet Bill of Rights deze column uit. Natuurlijk ook leuk om te lezen.

The Dutch government has collapsed. We're heading for elections. In the run-up to the ballot, the internet will be an important campaign tool. Perhaps, for the first time, the internet will also be an important campaign issue. Parties will have to speak out whether or not they want to make downloading (from illegal sources) a crime.

Last year, GroenLinks MP Naïma Azough tabled a motion asking the government not to criminalize downloaders. Our motion was defeated by a large majority. Since then, however, positions have started to shift.

More politicians understand that downloading cannot be stopped without a massive intrusion of the privacy of all internet users. Even those who do not feel strongly about the right to share and copy should set their priorities straight: protecting the current business model of the entertainment industry can never be more important than the fundamental rights of citizens and consumers.

At the moment, the parties who have said that they oppose criminalizing downloaders (GroenLinks, D66, PvdD, PVV, TROTS and, since January, PvdA) have a majority in the opinion polls. It’s a small majority, however (81 seats according to De Hond). And it includes both the ‘Freedom Party’ of islam-basher Geert Wilders and the Party for the Animals. I’m quite sure that, when it comes down to negotiating a new government, either of these parties will gladly trade away digital rights. In return for a tax on headscarves or a ban on fish bowls, for instance.

We’d better not rely on these strange bedfellows. So let’s fortify the virtual majority in The Hague against a ban on downloading. Let’s build a strong majority at the ballot box.

Internet users, it’s time for mouseclick activism!

Whiz kids, nerds, geeks and pirates - unite!

The outcome of the Dutch elections is relevant for Europe too. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a minister of Justice who tells her colleagues in Brussels that the data retention directive was a mistake?

Last month, we interrogated the new European Commissioners in the European Parliament. At least two of them, two women on key posts, are known to have a certain commitment to fundamental rights. Both Cecilia Malmström and Viviane Reding might be our allies, when the data retention directive comes up for review at the end of this year.

Neelie Kroes too, I hope, might be an ally. Though I’m not sure yet about our new commissioner for the Digital Agenda. She has earned herself a reputation as a champion of consumer rights. Now it’s time for her to stand up for fundamental rights on the internet.

Apart from the Council of Ministers and the European Commission, there is of course the European Parliament. Even though, at the moment, it’s dominated by right-wing parties, it still places value on fundamental rights. Moreover, the Treaty of Lisbon has strengthened the powers of the Parliament. It has boosted its self-confidence.

Recently, Liberals and Greens - and Pirates, of course - managed to get a majority against the so-called SWIFT agreement with the United States. To my great relief, the European Parliament threw out this treaty. It said no to the massive transfer of bank data to Washington.

This was a great victory for privacy and data protection. The vote showed that the European Parliament is neither a mock parliament nor a meek parliament. It gave me a taste for more of these confrontations. They make European politics so much more relevant and interesting for citizens. They help build a truly European public sphere.

One of the next items on our hitlist is ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which is negotiated in secret between Washington, Brussels and some other capitals. Many fear that this treaty will prescribe shutting off internet users, or filtering data traffic, in order to protect copyright. I share this concern.

But I also know that, of all the European institutions, the European Parliament is the most sensitive to pressure from below. It was a massive outcry by whiz kids which brought down the software patents directive in 2005. The concerns voiced by ordinary citizens helped us torpedo the SWIFT agreement in 2010. If you promise some help, I dare say: what we can do to SWIFT, we can do to ACTA.