The European Parliament is about to take very important decisions that will affect the every day use of the internet by europeans: the Telecoms package will be adopted in second reading in April, while the approval of the Medina report, which recommends a very restrictive vision of the web, has been now postponed “sine die” thanks to awareness raised by massive citizen mobilization. The decision to postpone the report “sine die” is confirmed by the JURI committee, where the text was initially voted on the 20/1.
The Medina Report is a Commission’s report on the application of Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. It is advocating for Internet filtering, three-strikes approach, graduated response, and so on and has been proposed by Manuel Medina Ortega, of the PSE. The Telecoms Package, the Universal Services directive and e-Privacy directive, is a common regulatory framework for networks and services, access, interconnection and authorisation. According to many organizations and researchers the Telecoms package is posing serious threats to fundamental rights, privacy and civil liberties, by legalizing a european-wide “graduated response” against citizens and controlling peoples usage of the Internet, changing the very structure of the Internet at the expenses of people’s freedom. According to amendments pushed by AT&T, “network management practices” could be used to discriminate what content, services and applications users could access and use.
What is at stake is no less than Net Neutrality: will MEPs allow discrimination on the internet? To block the Telecoms package, join this initiative from a
citizens coalition and sign this paper.
More info on:
The Green Party website ; Libero Sapere ; La Quadrature du Net; IPTEGRITY
