The joint-venture of the NGOs “La Quadrature du Net” with help of “FFII” (=Foundation for a free informational Infrastructure; Europe) and “AK Vorrat” (=Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung; Germany) and netzpolitik.org has updated their voting recommendations for the plenary vote on the “Telecoms Package” on September 24th 2008 at 11:30AM at the European Parliament in Brussels. A visual art installation about digital surveillance and a press meeting will be held in front of the European Parliament before the vote (see details below).
The joint-venture of NGOs is concerned that if voted, several amendments to the Telecoms Package which were adopted during commissions would lower the level of data protection in Europe. They also consider that they may enable Member States to replace the judicial authority by an administrative one in order to fight file sharing. Furthermore they are concerned with some amendments which pave the way for the graduated response (or “three strikes and you’re out”).
“Some progress was made, but the re-writing of the amendments resulted in a vague, loose text, which introduced concepts that were unknown to European law and which were taken directly from the proposals of the French cinema lobby (like the ‘cooperation’ between ISPs and producers)”, Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net, points out.
Ricardo Cristof Remmert-Fontes from FFII e.V. and AK Vorrat adds: “In our opinion, the European Parliament must eliminate this risk, which could question both the principle of proportionality and the separation of power, but which could also weaken the acceptability of those measures which are necessary to fight crime.”
This is why we ask the MEPs to vote for Amendment 138 to the Trautmann report, tabled by a wide spectrum of MEPs (Guy Bono, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Zuzana Roithova, Michel Rocard, Marielle de Sarnez, Christofer Fjellner, Rebecca Harms, Marco Cappato, Jean-Luc Benahmias and others).
Amendment 138 states that the national regulation authorities will ensure that no restriction concerning freedom of expression and information of a citizen is taken without a prior decision of the judicial authority, except in cases of ‘force majeure’, threats to security or national criminal law.
Amendment 138 is a guarantee that a bill like the french one about graduated response will not be adopted in Europe. This amendment is in the line with the Bono amendment resolution adopted in April by the European Parliament.
La Quadrature will carefully watch, record and promote analysis of the votes on its Political Memory website.
At 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 24. September, a visual art installation about Internet surveillance will be displayed and a press meeting will be held, Place du Luxembourg, on the way to the Parliament (left of the “infodoc” building). Call Jérémie Zimmermann, +33 615 940 675 for more information. Our political analysts will be available for quotes and interviews.
Further ressources:
- Letter to the MEPs:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/images/f/fe/Lettre-mep-3.pdf - Commented list of Amendments with recommendations:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package_Plenary_Voting_List - Votings recommendations:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package_Plenary_Amendments - Mobilization page:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package_Vote_Sept24_Mobilization - Political Memory – reach your MEPs directly and keep track of what they are doing:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory
Press contact:
- Christophe Espern (FR, EN), Tel. +33-698174599, ce_AT_laquadrature.net
- Jeremie Zimmermann (FR, EN), Tel. +33-615940675, jz_AT_laquadrature.net
- Ricardo Cristof Remmert-Fontes (DE, EN), +49-170-2487266, rcrf_AT_vorratsdatenspeicherung.de
- Markus Beckedahl (DE, EN), +49-177-7503541, markus_AT_netzpolitik.org