Tactic: European net freedom lobbyists unite to fight new internet bill

Written by Simon Columbus on August 12, 2008 – 11:08 pm -

La Quadrature du NetDescription: The Telecoms Package is a proposal from the EU Commission to reform the EU’s regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services with a view to completing the internal market for electronic communications. It is seen by net freedom activists as a serious threat. Especially some of the amendments brought in related to intellectual property rights would lead to monitoring and blocking of websites and peer-to-peer exchanges by ISPs, permitting ISPs to sanction users by suspending or terminating internet access.
The proposal was due to be voted on by the responsible committees on July 7, followed by the vote of the European parliament as a whole on September 2. Not long before the committees’ votes hundreds of amendments to the package made it impossible to overlook it, which bore the huge risk that members of the parliament would vote for a bill the consequences of which they could not foresee.

Tools Being Used: Blogs, Wiki

How These Tools Are Being Used: On July 1, netzpolitik.org from Germany, La Quadrature du Net from France and the British Open Rights Group published a press release on their respective blogs announcing their actions to stop the Telecoms Package or have it changed in a way that it would not inflict net freedom any longer.
The involved groups subsequently organized the action mainly using a wiki, frequently posting updates on their respective blogs or websites to communicate the progress to the public.

What Are They Doing: Especially before July 7, the work mainly consisted of mobilizing an opposition by contacting members of the European parliament and their respective assistants to inform them about the dangers of the Telecoms Package and to convince them to drop or reject the amendments related to intellectual property rights. The organizations’ tactic included inviting volunteers via their open wiki - and “advertising” that trough blogs - to participate in this effort, which made a broad action possible.

Outcome: The action was successfully publicized in many blogs and subsequently turned massive (mainstream) media attention on the Telecoms Package. As an outcome, many - but not all - amendments inflicting or endangering net freedom were dropped by the committees. Additionally, the members of the parliament decided to postpone their own vote for three further weeks. That means, the decision will now be made between September 22 and 25. Read more »


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