EU: More mass surveillance!

European Parliament: Parliament backs EU directive on use of Passenger Name Records (PNR) »

Youtube »

In the Twighlight Zone of Compassion

Having worked some years in the European Parliament, I will never be the same again. The way I view things around me has changed. I guess that is what happens to you, after falling through the looking glass.

Some things are just absurd. Like the cocktail party in solidarity with earth quake victims in Haiti. Or the three course french lunch to discuss what to do about the citizens of Europe being so fat. The cocktails opening an exhibition against drunk driving also fall into my mind.

Other things are totally freaking surreal. And on top of that list, I put the champagne reception against homelessness.

Members of the European Parliament are free to host exhibitions in the premisses. This is often used by corporations or special interests, wanting to show their work for the elected few.

Once in a while these exhibitions are used for different charities. In this case, to make a statement that homelessness is a serious problem. Fair enough. But the way it was done…

To start, some ten to twenty live sized metal cast sculptures of homeless people where placed in the exhibition area together with some posters informing about the problem.

Then, the exhibition was opened with lengthy speeches by a Member and a spokes person for some charity. Then - Champagne!

I will never be able to free my mind from this picture. Expensive suits and dresses, french hair work and an air of exclusive eau-de-toilettes, the guests hands grasping Champagne glassware and plates of cocktail canapés - mingling with the static, bronze cast less fortunate citizens.

Mind you, this was not a fund raising event. Nothing of substance was given to or done for the homeless. The whole point of this exercise was to show off an image of commitment and compassion, from a very high altitude.

The thing is, this kind of behaviour does not in any way strike the average Member as elitist, von oben, disturbing or even odd. This is what life is like in the political bubble.

An ordinary Member is never closer to an actual homeless people then when whizzing by them in a chauffeur driven black Parliament Mercedez-Benz.

This is the ruling political class. The band of the morally unkempt – from left to right, from north to south. The view of Very Important People in their glass tower.

I and my boss, Swedish Pirate MEP Christian Engström, watched this picture in disbelief on our way out of the Parliament - to pay for a pint or two by our selfs, in the real world.

On Place Luxembourg we found an actual homeless Belgian man. For a moment we considered escorting him in to the Parliament and take him to the event. But we soon recognized that it would not be appreciated...

[In Swedish»]

Book: The Case for Copyright Reform

Pirate MEP Christian Engström and Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge just presented their book The Case for Copyright Reform in the European Parlament.

On the web page www.copyrightreform.eu you can find it for free in various electronic formats (PDF, ePub, OD etc.). If you are on a mobile phone, you might want to go to the mobile-friendly minimalistic HTML-file, to start reading on your browser at once.

And if you are sitting by your computer, and have Flash installed, you can read it right here, right now:

Open publication - Free publishing

Do you prefer a book on paper? Order it at Lulu (ww) or Books on Demand (Scandinavia).

Something about... some stuff

On the agenda for the European Parliaments session in Strasbourg in March, I found this item...

The Quisthoudt-Rowohl report on Amendment of certain regulations relating to the common commercial policy as regards the procedures for the adoption of certain measures.

Transparent as porrige.

Pirate MEP Christian Engström on ACTA

Pirate MEP Christian Engström on ACTA in the European Parliament's committee on Legal Affairs, JURI. 20 December 2011. [Youtube] [Vimeo]

EDRi, ACTA & the Treaties

Act-on-ACTA: EDRi, ACTA & the Treaties from Henrik Alexandersson on Vimeo.

European Superstate Rising

A few clips from the "State of the Union"-debate in the European Parliament 28 September 2011. A bit scary, if you ask me...


[Direct link]


[Direct link]


[Direct link]

Freedom of expression online

A seminar in the European Parliament May 5:th 2011 hosted by Greens/EFA.

Part 1: Jörg Polakiewicz (Council of Europe), Erich Möchel (Austrian investigative journalist), Rafik Dammak (internet activist and blogger via Skype from Tunisia) & Caroline de Cock (N-square consulting).

Freedom of expression online, Part 1 by Henrik Alexandersson

Part 2: Petter Ericson (Telecomix), Gerard de Graaf (EC DG Information Society and Media), Susan Morgan (Global Network Initiative) & Smari McCarthy (Icelandic Modern Media Institute).

Freedom of expression online, Part 2 by Henrik Alexandersson

All is intresting. End of part one extra god. Part 2 = Hot, with interventions by Joe McNamee (EDRi).

Enjoy!

[Direct link] Downloadable. CC=0.

Document Freedom Day 2011

Document Freedom Day (European Parliament) from Henrik Alexandersson on Vimeo.

Seminar held on Document Freedom Day 2011 (30 April) in the European Parliament.

With Kaido Kikkas (Estonian IT College & Tallin University), Håkon Wium Lie (Opera Software) and Stefan Gradmann (Europeana & Humboldt-University in Berlin). Arranged by members of the Grens/EFA-group in the EP.

A bit on the long side, but very interesting for everyone who wants to look around the corner, when it comes to Information Society, IT and the Internet. Open Standards and a broad Public Domain can help expand access to culture and information.

CC=0

(Self)censorship and freedom of speech

Here you will find some extracts from the seminar on (self)censorship and freedom of speech, that the liberal group in the European Parliament held last week. Among others – the artist Lars Vilks and the spokesperson for Wikileaks Julian Assange.

Traffic roundabout dog... There is some sort of Swedish context, I promise. ;-)

How do the Artists get Paid? Part 2.

Rasmus Fleischer in the European Parliament, May 12, 2010 from Henrik Alexandersson on Vimeo.

In the never ending discussion "How do the Artists get Paid?" today we turn to Rasmus Fleischer – caught on tape just before addressing the European Parliaments Workinggroup on Copyright.

[Also on Youtube] [CC0]

Lecture: How do the Artists get Paid?

Here you can find documentation from the seminar "How can Europes Creators get a Fair Deal in the Digital World?" in the European Parliament.

Read, see and listen to Professor Roger Wallis and Dr Lars-Erik Eriksson:

Sound file (MP3, 28,7 MB)
PowerPoint-slides
HR pictures, CC0 (JPEG, ZIP, 32,8 MB)
Video at Vimeo
Bambuser stream

Enjoy!

Realated: Christian Engström

Podcast: PNR

PNR, Passenger Name Records, is information about you and your travels that is stored the moment you buy e.g. an airline ticket.

In this podcast I talk to Edward Hasbrouck and Erik Josefsson about how PNR works and about the implications when it comes to privacy. This spring, European Parliament will decide how PNR is to be used in the future.

The MP3-file for this podcast. XML/RSS for my earlier podcasts (mostly in Swedish).

Edward Hasbroucks blog | Erik Josefssons blog

Cuba Blog Event

This is my live blogging from the March 4:th Cuban Blog event in the European Paliament...

Right now we are establishing a working phone line with Cuba.

Cuban bloggers Yoani Sánches, Claudia Cadelo, Orlando Luis Lazo, Reinaldo Escobar, Miriam Ceyla, Iván García, Laritza Diversent, Eugenio Leal, Dimas Castellanos.

In the European Paliament: Franziska Brantner MEP, Christian Engström MEP, Manuel Desdin, Benoît Hervieu, Susan Dennisson and many others.

More info / Press Release.
Also read Grégoy Engels live blogging from this event on Inotes.de.
Update: Also see Cubiyanqui.

Demo-Crazy

The European Parliament is working on a resolution on the Stockholm Programme. (So this is, thanks God, not legislation. But it is important anyhow.)

The Stockholm Programme points out how to work when it comes to judicial procedures, criminal trials, migration and everything that is connected with surveillance and Big Brotherism. This will be synced with the roll out of the new EU Treaty, The Lisbon Treaty.

The papers for this afternoons vote in the joint meeting with the JURI, LIBE and AFCO committees where distributed in the very last minute. There are almost 500 amendments and lots of compromise amendments. Some members did get the papers less than three hours before the meeting. Some papers did not reach the members at all. So most of the parlamentarians have not had a chance to more than glance at the documents. There have been no analysis, no prior discussion and no possibility for cross party border talks.

This is simply ridiculous.

Naturally, some members object. So at the beginning of this afternoons meeting they wanted to postpone the vote.

Then there was an objection to the suggestion to discuss this at all. (It´s Thursday. All members have planes home to catch.)

So it was decided not to discuss to postpone the vote, as it would take to long.

Then the voting on the amendments to the Stockholm Programme started - without anyone knowing what they really are doing.

Brands and counterfeit vs. file sharing

In the EU, the word "piracy" is often used both for counterfeit goods and for file sharing. Naturally, this is a deliberate way to confuse the discussion.

The Pirate Party has no problems with brands, as they give consumers important information. And we are against counterfeit of goods. Counterfeit infringes on the brand. And counterfeit goods are usually poorer and sometimes plain dangerous. People have the right to know what goods they are buying and who the producer is.

The Pirate Party is also pro non commercial file sharing between private individuals.

From our standpoint, everything becomes strange and wrong when the EU tries to confuse counterfeit with file sharing. E.g. in a communication from the EU Commission, practically all the text is about counterfeit - but still everything boils down to measures to prevent file sharing. The Commission ought to know better.

Swedish Pirate MEP, Christian Engström, spent this morning in the European Parliaments committee on legal affairs to try to get people to grasp this.

This is also an important distinction when it comes to the ACTA trade agreement - that also tries to bundle counterfeit with file sharing.

[In Swedish]

EU Telecoms Package: We might have won...

Press Release from the Swedish Pirate Party

EU negotiations on Telecoms Package completed

Earlier this night there was an agreement in the negotiations on the EU Telecoms Package.

First of all, it is notable that the European Parliament delegation stod up and managed to maintain support for the principle that Member States should not be allowed to disconnect people from the internet without prior judicial procedure. This is more than most people expected when the meetings began Wednesday evening.

"It is a plesant surprise that the European Parliament stod firm on this principle. This is a direct result of the hard work by thousands upon thousands of Internet users. They have contacted their politicians, networked on blogs and raised media attention on this issue. Without them, there would have been no progress on this in political circles" Cristian Engström, Swedish Pirate MEP, says.

Until the very last minutes of the negotiations in the EP delegation, there was a discussion about Member States possibility to cut people of from the Internet without prior judicial procedure. This will only be possible in situations of extreme national emergency (European Convention, article 15). There hould be no possibility to use this legal framework to disconnect e.g. file sharers from the net.

If a Member State wants to cut citizens of from the net in other cases (like in France), this must be under strict rules respecting citizens rights. The judicial procedure shall be prior to the measures taken. It should respect the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. This must be done with respect for general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection, due process and the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned. All measures must respect the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

"I think it would have been very difficult to get a text with a wider protection of citizens rights. It is possible that the text now at hand is more far reaching in this respect than any other that have been discussed. But still, I must stress that we think it is wrong for governments to cut people of from the Internet at all" Christian Engström concludes.

The European Parliament will confirm this agreement in a vote at its' November session.

More information:

The final text is to be found on Christian Engströms blog.

There you can also find the different proposals and posts about the negotiation process this autumn.

More information:

Christian Engström (PP), MEP, The Swedish Pirate Party
+46 706 633 780

Rick Falkvinge (PP), leader of the Swedish Pirate Party
+46 708 303 600

Henrik Alexandersson at MEP Engströms office in the EP
+32 484 088 770 (mobile) or +32 228 47368

[In Swedish]

(Please excuse any misspellings and / or half-baked language, as this is translated at 4.30 in the morning from a material that is partly in legal English written by people from many different countries.)

EU Telecoms Package: The week ahead

Tomorrow evening (Wednesday) there will be a new round of negotiations on the EU Telecoms Package. First there will be a meeting with the European Parliaments delegation to the Conciliation Committee. Later on, we will probably have a full Conciliation Committee meeting (27 from the EP + 27 from the Council + Commissioner Reding + Swedish Minister of Infra Structure, Åsa Torstensson).

I have a feeling they want to wrap things up tomorrow. But there is no reason to stress this through or to take desissions without proper analysis. According to the rules we have until the end of December for this process.

Our (Swedish Pirate Party and the Green Grp.) position is that the core values of  the famous amendment 138 shall be kept. (Not allowing Member States to cut people off from the Internet with less than prior ruling in a Court of Law.)

For every suggestion or compromise presented, we must ask: Will it open up for Hadopi laws (like in France) or Mendelson-measures (like the ones proposed in the UK)? If they do, we cannot accept them,

And a central point is the fight about the word "prior" - that the Council seems to refuse to accept.

The Councils lates proposal for a compromise (that is a bit dogy and that not include the word "prior") can be read on Pirate MEP Christian Engströms blog. Please do and give him feedback.

(Here in the EP interest from the media is rapidly increasing. Wednesday will be hysterical. The meetings will start at 7 p.m. and might continue into the night. I and Christian will try to keep you updated as much and as soon as possible.)

[In Swedish]

The Democratic Deficit revisited

A few weeks ago the European Parliament voted on the Telecoms Package.

At the last minute the EP managed to stop parts (created by the copyright lobby) of the package aimed to filter the internet and to close down internet access (without judicial process) for people engaged in e.g. file sharing. So far, so good.

Now, it turns out, the European Commission seems to have removed all references to this EP-decision in its working papers – preparing the Telecoms Package for a second reading in the EP or an OK in the Council. This we where not supposed to know. But the document leaked out...

It is not to bold to guess that this is the work of the French EU presidency and its friends in the copyright lobby. They simply will not take no for an answer. Not even a clear no from the EP.

(Personally, I am pro copyright. But I will not accept mass survilance, limitations in citizens rights or give up the freedom of the internet. And I think it is a really bad idea to use laws to save an outdated business model.)

Read more and find the relevant links at icmpecho.com.»

One Europe, One Culture, One History?

The European Parliament last week adopted the report »Sharper focus needed on European cultural heritage«, written by Portugese MEP Vasco Graça Moura (EPP-ED).

Now, what does »sharper focus« mean? Well, the EP Press Release is a little... diplomatic.

But if you read the report you will find that it says that we have one European culture, that we should adopt one cultural agenda and that there should be one curriculum on European history in schools.

In the words of Sweet Virgin Mary: Come again!?!

I don't even dare to think what this translates into in German...

The report was adopted by the EP with 533 MEPs voting in favor and 68 against. 22 did not vote at all.


(This report has stirred up a rather lively discussion on my Swedish blog.)