One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Plato
Feb 172013
Oct 292012
Last month, I blogged about the Clean IT Project. The aim of this project is to examine the question “if we can reduce the impact of the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes, without affecting our online freedom”, however a look at a leaked document revealed that the project got somewhat derailed. The leaked document seemed to propose Big Brother-like restrictions and dragnet-style monitoring of all European subjects citizens. Continue reading »
Oct 052012
Another day, another worrying proposal from the Dutch government. As we await the formation of a new cabinet, Dutch minister of Security and Justice, Ivo Opstelten is seeking to change Dutch law to make it mandatory for suspects of certain crimes to hand over their decryption keys so that law enforcement officers can have access to their private data. Failure to comply would constitute a criminal offence. Continue reading »
Jul 102012
Not one week after the crushing defeat suffered by ACTA in the European Parliament, comes another trade agreement fresh on its heels. This time, it is called CETA (Canada-EU Trade Agreement), a trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. Rather worryingly, certain provisions of the CETA text seem to be copied and pasted from the ACTA text. Is the European Commission already trying to sneak ACTA in under the radar? Continue reading »
Jul 042012
In what can only be called a crushing defeat, the European Parliament decided today, around 1 PM to say “No” to ACTA! With a vote count of 478 against to 39 for ACTA, we can finally say that this insidious treaty is now dead. Continue reading »
Jul 022012
Despite (or maybe thanks to) rumours that the EPP Group in the EU Parliament was going to try some last minute trickery to get ACTA off the agenda for this coming Wednesday, this latest threat has failed to materialize. This means that the countdown to the vote on ACTA in the European Parliament is still running. July 4, 2012 is still the date this final vote is taking place. Is it a coincidence that July 4 is also Independence Day? Continue reading »