grasuth.com

So The Digital Economy Bill was rushed through the house of commons last night.  The fact that it was rushed through wasn't remarkable in itself. That's the mode of parliament at the moment as the government try to tidy up a bit before the elections, to satisfy the party bosses egos "we really did something"  and appease the business interests and lobbyists that are looking for a outcome before the election.  Given the size and scale of government, I'd expect things to get rushed towards the end and be a bit about appeasement of donations and stuff like that.  Which doesn't mean I like it, I just expect it.

So, in some ways, passing the DEBill wasn't remarkable at all.  But in other ways, it marks a change.   Some people (us digital natives) with no direct experience of parliamentary process got to see the process at its worst.   The commons looks old, opaque, traditional, flawed and broken.  It looks like mob rule where good ideas get eaten to feed party bosses egos.  Yep, that's about right in my estimation.  It became clear that it wasn't a debate at all, but a railroading exercise.   What would you expect from this government?

I've been political enough in my life to not be surprised or outraged by parliamentary process. It is a great big old traditional system, built a couple of ages ago.   But bad law is bad law. And the DEBill is bad law.  I spent my time  in student politics fighting hard to avoid prevent overly broad, stupid, weak, vague and confusing laws from being made.  And here's a perfect example of how to do it wrong.

Well, the new government will go and make regulations and so forth and work out how to administer this mess of laws and will come up with something unworkable and foolish, I bet.   And that will make lots of newspaper headlines when the wrong person, family in need, etc get disconnected.  And then when the music industry dies or transforms into something new as it must, these provisions will quietly disappear.  So, i'm not so worried, especially taking the long view.  It won't result in any reduction in illegal file sharing, it will simply drive VPN technologies into the hands of more people, including those that will use encryption to harm others (like potential terrorists).

For those of us digital natives, we've now got a rallying point to change how lawmaking and consultation works.  We've seen it done badly, now let's work out a modern, better way.  I think it's time to put the tweet board in the commons.

And let's not forget the Tom Watson and the other brave MPs that tried to vote down the bill under great pressure to conform.  Cheers to you lot.  We noticed. And we owe you.  And how good it is to feel represented.

Join the Open Rights Group and engage in the debate.  The ORG forum is the place to work out what local (MP) actions can be taken.