It looks like a good intentioned idea is likely to impact anyone using the internet in Canada as its scope is so wide many are likely to fall foul of it, more worrying is the implied censorship and political control system that comes with it, politicians will be deciding what to add to it next if its allowed to become law.
http://www.slyck.com/story1459.htmlOn the heels of the rumoured Copyright bill and the surveillance bill comes another bill that aims to 'clean up the internet', though some critics argue that the language in the bill is too broad and loose.
The bill, entitled the 'Clean Internet Act', was tabled by Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) Joy Smith on April 18th. According to Joy Smith's press release, "The Clean Internet Act goes further than the current legislation on Internet usage by requiring Internet service providers to co-operate in minimizing the use of the Internet for the purposes of violence and racial hatred toward women and child pornography. Internet providers will be required to take all reasonable steps to prevent to these types of material from being accessed and withhold service from persons who have been convicted by an offence under this Act within the previous seven years."
That sounds not so bad so far, until they decide that your favoured interest material should be on their list ..
So what about the bill itself? The bill suggests a number of things. One portion states, "No Internet service provider shall knowingly permit the use of its service [...] to advocate, promote or incite violence against women or hatred against any identifiable group or to facilitate participation in unlawful sexual activity involving any person under eighteen years of age."
So wrapped inside the bill here is the easter egg, "hatred against any identifiable group", this small but significant wording can be used to justify the take down of any website that does not agree with the governments current definition, and that definition could change many times as and when it suits them.
No one wants the mindless amongst the ranks of internet user to gain the upper hand but by penalising all users with broadly worded catch-all terminology is the freedom of expression being removed for political reasons, after all I regularly declare the RIAA/MPAA extortionists to be theives and akin to the Mafia, under this legislation its possible I may fall foul of the law and be forced to say they are nice folks, when its clear they are not.
There already exists current legislation to deal with those urging others to break the law in the normal criminal and sexual crimes sphere, and all this legislation is really proposing is to make it possible to force the ISP to close down anyone the government are not happy with or become liable themselves, web censorship then folks. Under current law the ISP not responsible for your activities and nor should it be.
I deeply am concerned that the abuse of children and violent acts against women is being used in this case as a dramatic method to shout down any opposition against something that is another name for web censorship, I hope I have made it clear that I do not support the physical abuse of anyone, I am merely concerned this legislation is not specific enough to safeguard our freedom to express ourselves, the word "hate" after all is something like the Grokster "incitement" , it has many meanings to many different people and thats really the problem.
