E-minister defends snooping law

[Arturo]

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Hola Ian,



El d=EDa 28/09/2000, a las 12:53, escribiste:


> E-minister defends snooping law
> http://www.vnunet.com/News/1111590

> By Steven Mathieson in Brighton
> [26 Sep 2000]

> Ecommerce minister Patricia Hewitt has defended the UK government's
> unpopular Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act as a price
> worth paying to fight child pornography. "Some of you will disagree
> with the conclusions I've reached," she told a fringe meeting at
> the Labour Party conference in Brighton on Tuesday. "We shouldn't
> kid ourselves that this will solve hardcore crime on the internet,
> but we shouldn't just throw up our hands."

  When will they just stop using child pornography / terrorism / drug
trafficking to justify any coercitive measure=3F  I once read RIP and
nowhere did I read anything about child porno.  They want to protect
children=3F  Fine.  Just make it clear in the law ... and call it Fight
Against Paedophiles Bill.  But of course, that would defeat the
we-have-to-police-it purpose.


> "I'm not prepared as a parent and a civil libertarian to do that,"
> she told the meeting, which was run by web decency watchdog the
> Internet Watch Foundation.

  I=B4m a father, and still I=B4m not prepared to yield so much power to
a
government.

> "The internet has changed the scale of [paedophiles'] operations,"
> she said. "We know of at least one paedophile club, the admission
> to which - and this puts Gary Glitter in the shade - is 10,000
> images."

  It was also changed when photographic equipment became easily
available to the masses.  Are we to restrict/control the sale and use
of
Canon cameras on the grounds that it might be use for paedophiles=3F

> But Hewitt said that technology could let people make their own
> choices on censorship

which is exactly the place where censorship should be enforced.

> "We have to look at how we empower consumers to make their own
> decisions," she added.

  There were a time when we were citizens.  Now we are merely
consumers.
 RIP to human rights, indeed.






- --
Salu2.  Arturo Quirantes

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