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Bill: Internet Regulation Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Capitalist Party
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: September 2091
Description[?]:
| A bill to establish Trigunian law on internet regulation. We must allow the police to run investigations concerning illegal activities conducted on the internet. Particularly terrorism. While the internet is and shall remain free of all censorship and control. There are certain activities that shall be considered illegal regardless of the medium used in carrying out these activities. Sexual abuse of children, in any of its forms is not to be prermitted, condoned or ignored within the nation of Lodamun. Additionally theft of property, be it physical or intellectual is not to be permitted. Thus we have to provide the means by which any individual that performs either of these three crimes using the internet can be successfully prosecuted. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Internet regulations.
Old value:: The government has no position on who may use or what is published on the internet.
Current: The government allows anyone to use the internet but the police can run investigations concerning illegal activities conducted by using internet (child abuse, illegal filesharing, ...)
Proposed: The government allows anyone to use the internet but the police can run investigations concerning illegal activities conducted by using internet (child abuse, illegal filesharing, ...)
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 18:57:33, August 03, 2005 CET | From |  Liberty Party | To | Debating the Internet Regulation Act |
| Message | What exactly does 'the police can run investigations' mean? What powers exactly are you proposing to grant the state? |
| Date | 01:24:47, August 04, 2005 CET | From | Capitalist Party | To | Debating the Internet Regulation Act |
| Message | That they can keep a lookout for sites that allow illegal filesharing, child pornography and abuse and terrorists. |
| Date | 01:57:36, August 04, 2005 CET | From | Liberty Party | To | Debating the Internet Regulation Act |
| Message | Firstly, we cannot see how regulating the Internet affects the ability of law enforcement to 'keep a lookout'. The fact that the Internet is currently unregulated (i.e., the government cannot dictate what is acceptable content or who is an acceptable user) has no impact on the ability of the police or anyone else to use the Internet to 'keep a lookout' Turning to the specific content examples that you use: 'sites that allow illegal filesharing' - this is dangerously vague. Are you suggesting banning sites that offer, say, p2p applications. Some people would regard that p2p apps 'allow' illegal filesharing, but since they also have non-infringing uses, it would surely be excessive to target these sites. Moreover, the police already have the ability to use a search engine and search for 'mp3' or 'file-sharing' and then they can find whatever they are looking for - the presence or absence of regulations does not impact on this. child pornography and abuse - again, what exactly are you proposing that will facilitate the police to 'run investigations' to find this sort of data? In any event, all that increased regulation will do is to push these sites off of the unsecured web and onto anonymous & encrypted networks like Freenet (assuming this has not happened already - I cannot recall a recent news story where police found a tradition child porn website, and they used to be quite a regular news item a few years back). terrorists - same as for child porn, except with the additional free speech issue that there is a fine line between a terrorist website and a hardline political website. Anything that terrorists might say that is useful for law enforcement would never be said on an open website anyway, they are perfectly capable of using encrypted email or secure networks like Freenet. All in all, your proposals are vague and don't seem to provide any real-world solutions, and anything that goes beyond simple police browsing of the Internet on 'the lookout' for illegal sites is likely to have serious free speech implications. Realistically, there is very little to gain by changing the legal status of Internet regulations and an awful lot to lose. It is difficult to see what proposals can be advanced here that The Liberty Party could support. |
| Date | 16:52:04, August 05, 2005 CET | From | gadivapie Party | To | Debating the Internet Regulation Act |
| Message | Yeah. What he said. |
| Date | 16:53:29, August 05, 2005 CET | From | Radical Conservative Party | To | Debating the Internet Regulation Act |
| Message | This is an extremely difficult bill to vote upon. It is somewhat like the decision of crime or invasion of privacy. Though I support the idea, I believe that it is too extreme. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 196 | |||||
| no |
Total Seats: 107 | |||||
| abstain |
Total Seats: 252 |
| Random fact: Particracy has 464 player slots. |
| Random quote: "The proletarians of the world have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of all countries: unite!" - Karl Marx |