Europe’s telecoms ministers have chosen to ignore the wishes of the European Parliament and have removed Amendment 138 from the Telecoms Package at their EU Telecoms Ministers meeting yesterday.
The amendment, passed by the Parliament at the end of September by an 88 per cent majority, set out to foot-trip moves to impose variants of ‘three strikes’ laws across Europe (seeTelecomTV coverage on ‘telecoms package’).
The amendment to the package reinforced basic rights of due process and mandated court involvement for any individual Internet disconnection. In effect it said that ISPs can’t just cut people off willy-nilly, but would have to get a court order to do it.
Now, according to French Internet rights group, La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) the excision was made « on the vague pretext that the wording was too broad ».
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