Response to Signing of SOPA Ireland SI
The Government have announced that Richard Bruton has signed Sean Sherlock’s SOPA Ireland Ministerial Order into law. We can expect the music industry to immediately start seeking injunctions against ISPs to block access to parts of the internet.
This is a very bad decision.
It is a very bad decision because it will not solve the legal problem of uncertainty which the government say they want to address with this law. They have introduced a law which is likely to be successfully challenged and in the meantime will create nothing but further uncertainty.
It is a bad decision because the law is being enacted without a vote of the Oireachtas. This law will potentially impact on the freedoms to do business and to free expression of every company and citizen in the country. The need for primary legislation has never been clearer.
The legislature has been treated with double contempt – firstly by being denied a chance to scrutinise and vote on the law and secondly by the Government’s staging of a debate where the opposition made honest efforts to constructively engage with the law, only to be told in the final seconds that nothing they had said was going to make any difference anyway.
It is a bad decision because there was an alternative wording of a Statutory Instrument proposed by Catherine Murphy TD and Stephen Donnelly TD which the Minister accepted met all his own policy requirements arising from the AG’s advice, made explicit the rights affirmed by the ECJ caselaw and allowed two years for primary legislation to be drafted. But despite all this, he wilfully stuck to his own flawed legislation. This is not intelligent or modern governance.
It is a bad decision because it ignores the unanimous concerns of Irish internet experts. From the Irish Internet Service Providers’ Association (whose members include Google), to Blacknight Hosting, to ALTO, all have said that the Statutory Instrument is not appropriate. Only yesterday Google spoke out against Internet censorship.
Most importantly, it is a disgraceful decision, not because an unprecedented 80,419 people mobilised in the space of a few days and told Ministers Bruton and Sherlock that they were wrong to take this action.
It is a shameful decision because the Government knows that those 80,419 people were right, and have done the wrong thing anyway.
Disgraceful decision
At times I wonder why people are still living in Ireland >_>.
This is just another example of how out of touch the government really is with the people of this country. When presented with the fact that over 80,000 people, not to mention large corporations who bring jobs to the country, objected to this with valid concern they ignore the information and do as they wish.
I wonder if this decision will have a negative effect on the reforendum the government so eagerly states will pass through to law in the coming days (the government expects that when the people give their opinion its ignored, but when they have to vote on something the government wants they will trust the decision makers and vote the way the government wants…I dont think so)
He’ll suffer for this next election. Not that’ll do us any good.
I’m appalled by the lack of democratic process in this decision, it seems ridiculous that in this day and age, having fought so hard for internal governance, that our representatives point blank refuse to hear the wishes of their people.
[...] Read the full statement on stopsopaireland.com [...]
I don’t know that you can call it living here anymore, existing is more like it, and things will get a lot worse before they get better
Stupid stupid decision!
[...] “We can expect the music industry to immediately start seeking injunctions against ISPs to block access to parts of the internet,” Stop SOPA Ireland writes. [...]
What now. Curfew?
Another nail in Ireland’s coffin ….. its a sad day for all.
[...] Response To Signing Of Sopa (StopSopaIreland) For better or for worse, this is now known at home and abroad as “Ireland’s SOPA”. SOPA was despised among big tech multinationals in the US, who are Ireland’s main hope for inward investment at the moment. Last night [Tuesday], the chief executive of Google, which employs over 2,000 people in Dublin, described moves such as the US version of Sopa as “worrying”. “We need to act now to avoid the rise of this digital caste system,” said Eric Schmidt at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. [...]
Remind me to never move to Ireland. I wouldn’t even begin to consider wanting to live there now, knowing this.
Knowing what ? That a junior Minister has simply restated something that was already there? Slight over reaction buddy. Probably best you don’t move to Ireland. Or any other EU country seeing as injunctions are available in every other member state.
Oh, I’m not surprised, what with the great success we had stopping the blasphemy law.
Anyway, with a little luck they may not have enough toner left to print the amendment.
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[...] “This law will potentially impact on the freedoms to do business and to free expression of every company and citizen in the country,” said the group in a blog post. [...]
Allot of us are talking about options on reddit being that heres seems quiet thought I would say. http://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/
Closed all element’s of community contribution to both my site’s today. A crying shame and indeed most likely to kill both of them.
All for the want of some inteligent legislation. Too much to ask I suppose..
The country screws itself over yet again!
I wouldn’t be surprised if Google upped sticks and left over this.