right to reply

[waider]

Declan McCullagh sounds off on the Council of Europe's proposal for legislation requiring websites and the like to give a right of reply. It's an interesting proposal, but McCullagh is down on it on the grounds that it's rehashing the CDA fun and games of 1996ish. What amuses me about the article, though, is the references to Europe not having a First Amendment (Dude. Can't you just say "constitutionally-protected freedom of speech"?) which is, well, partly because we don't have a consitution here in Europe just yet, and as he points out himself the Council of Europe is more an advisory body than a legislative one in that its proposals do not actually have to be complied with. I'm also amused by the reference to the "cybercrime" proposal and its bolstering of "police and the national security goons who make up the world's eavesdrop establishment." Remind me again who runs Echelon, the world's biggest eavesdrop establishment? And what was that PATRIOT act doing, if not bolstering the same group(s) of people?

In short, dear Declan, please remove the rose-tinted shades. If your column had an enforced right-of-reply, I'd request that this be linked/added.

Note, I'm not saying I'm particularly in favour of the legislation myself, but the alternative is to resort to use of the libel laws. Which may be no bad thing, seeing as we're not yet a litigation-happy society here in the Old World.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

so basically, your argument boils down to "McCullagh is wrong because he lives in a country that allegedly snoops on its citizens worse than anyone in Europe". Even assuming that's true, that's a pretty weak argument. Try again.

(oh, I'm sorry, he's not wrong, per se, you're just "amused" (aka the cheap cynic's version of being pissed off).)

[waider.livejournal.com]

Strong words for someone not willing to put their name to them.

Lemme see if I can help you out:

• The note at the end of my post points out that I'm not saying I consider the legislation a good idea, i.e. I agree with McCullagh on this point.


• I am not particularly pissed off with him; when I say "amused" I mean "amused". If I were pissed off, I'd say I was pissed off. You may review past journal entries to confirm this. I realise this is a subtle and devious use of English, but hey.


• When a person argues for or against something based on false premises that are, in reality, exactly opposed to the thing they are arguing for or against, they are indulging in either hypocrisy or "looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses". I'm favouring the latter view here. The PATRIOT act is just the most recent in a long line of legislation designed to control the individual despite the first amendment and friends. As the insufficiently popular tshirt says, "which part of "shall make no law" don't you understand?".


• I am a very expensive cynic.


• It's debatable whether the US snoops on its citizens less than Europe, since you're talking about a single country with a single government vs. a whole collection of individually-governed countries. It's likely but unprovable that the US is at the relative forefront of this sort of snooping (by "relative" I mean I'm not considering China, for example), particularly with the whole War On Terror™ shtick. That's not really the point, though.


• The point I was trying to make about Echelon is that it's largely a US creation, and the data it gathers is funneled back to the US. It is the most likely candidate for the world's biggest eavesdropping establishment. The likelihood of Europe having something to match it that we're not talking about is limited by such things as the historically recent fragmentation of Europe, the inability of neighbour states to get on with each other, mutual suspicion, and a severe lack of hardware in orbit due to the fact that we keep blowing up the rockets at launch.

In summary: I think McCullagh's argument, such as it is, is weak and naïve, largely through it being based on the false premise that constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of speech actually makes a damn bit of difference to what happens in the legislation. If it did, the PATRIOT act wouldn't have been passed. Nor would the CDA, for that matter; even if it's since been tossed out, it should never have been passed in the first place. I agree with his point that it's not a great idea as far as legislation goes. On the other hand, I think allowing people to defend themselves in a way that is linked with the original attack might forestall a few libel cases, but they're not hugely popular in this part of the world anyway due to something or other to do with the burden of proof that I can't recall.