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.

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In a move that’s in direct conflict with the 1688 BIll of Rights guaranteeing the unrestricted reporting of parliament (“[t]hat the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament”), the Guardian today was gagged by a high court injunction from reporting parliamentary proceedings.

Fortunately, the Guardian is able to tell us who the lawyers for the plaintif were. They’re Carter-Ruck, who just so happen to be mentioned in the list of Parliamentary Questions for Wednesday 14^th October.

61 N

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

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Thanks to @handelaar, and Richard Wilson for pointing this out.

Alcohol and politics are two things that should rarely mix, but once in a blue moon there’s cause to throw caution to the wind and get a little crazy.

One such occasion is tomorrow night, when the US electorate takes to the polls and — with a little luck — elects Barack Obama their next President.

There are all sorts of reasons why this is such an important election, both in terms of America’s current standing within the world community, and a number of imminent domestic problems that the next President will find himself dealing with probably before he’s even inaugurated.

That’s perhaps a post or two for another time; once the results are in and the residents of Awesome Manor have either celebrated or commiserated until they drop.

For now, I simply offer my humble contribution to the election festivities. I call it “Bingo We Can Believe In”.