Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
Newsnight had a brief slot last night with a debate between Bill Thompson (an “Internet Journalist”) and John Perry Barlow (someonein the EFF). The argument settled around the way certain countries are doing their best to control internet useage, not just in their own country but abroad too (take France and the auctionining of Nazi memerabolia, or the US and the DMCA, and others). JPB was of the opinion that the way to go was to try and stop the RIAA/MPAA changing the laws to suit their own needs, rather than getting the government even more involved. BT was of the oposite opinion. He feels that governments should intervene, and draw barriers around their country, so that for example the UK would not be able to access other countries parts of the internet.
While I can see the argument I think it’s badly flawed. The current culture of the internet is that anything is possible. To control the internet the governments would need to not only filter but also change the whole culture of people using the internet. For example it’s obviously not good enough to just make a law to say pirating copyright music is wrong. It always was, and still is. But many people continue to do it. Imagine taking this all a step further, and limiting which pages people can see, where they can do their shopping and so on. To go that far would need a whole change in culture, otherwise they’d end up having to lock the whole country up.
And besides I think that’s wrong. I think the government should sort themselves out properly so that they understand what they’re trying to deal with, and then go about policing their population when they catch them doing something wrong. At the moment most of the fuss is caused because they’re so inneffective at doing that.
This of course leads to the problem of spying. With computer technology it’s very very easy to just monitor everyone, and arrest them the moment they do something wrong. There’s an argument that says that’s the right thing to do, and that if you’re not doing anything wrong, then you’ve nothing to worry about. But by the same token there’s the view that it’s spying, and that people are quite open to breaking the law without even knowing they’ve done so.
Where do we go? I think it’s inevitable that monitoring will spread (AFAIK RIPA means that all this is monitored already, it’s just that it shouldn’t pop up a warning sign each time I do something wrong, instead someone has to suspect me first, then they can have the proof). But I think if it does we need to change the way courts work, the way sentancing works. People have been breaking laws for a long long time and getting away with it. I’d wager that a number of you reading this site break the speed limit on roads on a near daily basis (if you drive on a daily basis that is). How happy would you be if your every move was watched and you were prosecuted each time. Most people would lose their driving license within a few days. The problem is that the penalties set for a lot of things are set to pressume that you’ll almost never get caught.
So perhaps we need to either slowly introduce measures, change public conception, and maybe think about introducing softer penalties, more warnings. For example, wouldn’t it be more acceptable if the while speeding you recieved a verbal warning, telling you that you were speeding and warning you that if you continue transgressing, you’ll be prosecuted.
I’m talking about small stuff here, not murder or anything even close to that. And no, I don’t mean to say speeding is minor. But it’s a good example of something many many people do daily, and get away with.
Posted by Phil on August 23, 2002 07:39 AM | Categories: IT