I Am Seb

Dear Meg Hillier,

As a con­stitu­ent whose career and major­ity of per­sonal com­mu­nic­a­tions are con­duc­ted across the inter­net, I’m very wor­ried that the Government is plan­ning to rush the Digital Economy Bill into law without a full Parliamentary debate.

The Bill con­tains meas­ures that favour the pro­tec­tion of com­mer­cial interests at the expense of an indi­vidual citizen’s rights — spe­cific­ally meas­ures that allow copy­right hold­ers to issue requests to limit or even ter­min­ate the inter­net con­nec­tions of private indi­vidu­als based only on the belief of the copy­right holder that the indi­vidual has infringed their copy­right. In effect, this cre­ates a situ­ation out­side the bounds of a fair and just soci­ety where a per­son can be pun­ished by the with­drawal of a ser­vice that the UN is pro­pos­ing be con­sidered a basic human right.

In the digital age it’s only fair that copy­right hold­ers have greater recourse when their rights are infringed — but the meas­ures in the Bill are a step too far. Millions of UK cit­izens depend on the inter­net for the abil­ity to con­duct their daily lives, their jobs, and for access to essen­tial ser­vices. Restricting or with­draw­ing access to inter­net ser­vices is a dis­pro­por­tion­ate response, espe­cially without the safe­guard of a fair legal process.

Whereas a rights holder can impose pen­al­ties on an indi­vidual without the bur­den of proof and with almost no imped­i­ment of cost, the only recourse for an indi­vidual so restric­ted is through the courts — a massive, and clearly asym­met­rical bur­den. The EU has adop­ted the pos­i­tion that any pun­it­ive meas­ures affect­ing inter­net access by mem­ber states “must respect the fun­da­mental rights and freedoms of cit­izens”. In par­tic­u­lar, it the EU requires that cit­izens are entitled to a “fair and impar­tial pro­ced­ure” before any meas­ures can be taken to limit their inter­net access.

Industry experts, inter­net ser­vice pro­viders (like Talk Talk and BT) and huge inter­net com­pan­ies like Google and Yahoo are all oppos­ing the bill — yet the Government seems intent on for­cing it through without a real debate.

As a con­stitu­ent I am writ­ing to you today to ask you to do all you can to ensure the Government doesn’t just rush the bill through and deny us our demo­cratic right to scru­tiny and debate. As a life-long labour sup­porter whose career would be ended without inter­net access, I see no way that I can con­tinute to vote Labour if the Bill passes unaltered.

Yours faith­fully,

Sebastian Potter