Simply put, the Act imposes disproportionate, collective punishment and does not follow the principle of innocent until proven guilty, contravening the Magna Carta, which in 1215 stated that, as a basic human right, no person may be punished without a fair trial.

In summary, the Digital Economy Act is a massive insult to our civil liberties and I, and many others, believe that the Government should repeal it in its entirety in the upcoming Freedom Bill as a matter of urgency, with the less objectionable clauses being redrafted and discussed democratically in the Houses of Parliament to pave the way for a proper digital economy which does not punish innocent people.

If you also support the repeal of the Digital Economy Act, please consider registering with YourFreedom, the Government’s initiative to get everyday people involved in restoring and defending freedom and civil liberties, and rating my suggestion to repeal the Act.

The way I see it, the people who have my medical details already have them, and the people who don’t, don’t need them. I feel it’s safer to opt out at this stage, where I’m not certain even the NHS know how private my data will be, than to have to deal with the fall-out later – at least, if it does turn out to be a good thing, then I can opt back in with much less hassle than demanding that my data be deleted.

Should your panic button not have been pressed by Elizabeth Dove’s story alone, Emma Byrne wrote today about the problems with Summary Care Records and privacy for the Open Rights Group blog, and the post is well worth a read.

Additionally, Power2010 is calling for a halt on the Summary Care Records scheme itself until a full review is conducted, and has a tool for writing to your MP asking for them to support the cause; below is my own letter, adapted from their suggested text, which I sent to Nick Raynsford today.

Mr Raynsford,

As I mentioned in my email yesterday, the new Government has now committed to scrapping the ID card scheme, the National Identity Register and the ContactPoint database, which to my mind is a great thing; however, Connecting for Health is currently pushing for the uploading of patient medical records to the Summary Care Record scheme. It is the belief of myself and many others that this presents a serious threat to medical confidentiality.

Evidence has been provided by two independent studies from University College London that the SCR scheme delivers few of the claimed benefits, and another body is due to report its findings in the next six weeks.

I would like you to ask the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, to put a stop on the Summary Care Record scheme, pending a full enquiry into whether or not it is really useful, and how secure personal data that is uploaded will be.

Thank you.

They also state the intention to scrap the identity card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database – and they work fast: the Home Office page about identity cards is currently displaying a 404 error.

The list continues with:

• outlawing finger-printing of school children without parental permission
• extending the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency
• adopting the Scottish approach of not retaining the DNA of innocent people
• protecting our human right to a trial by jury when accused
• restoring and protecting the right to non-violent protest
• reviewing libel laws with the intention of protecting freedom of speech
• safeguarding against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation, such as police officers using Section 44 against photographers
• regulating the use of CCTV more
• an end to the storage of Internet and email records without good reason
• preventing the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
• ending the detention of children for immigration purposes

This sort of thing makes a civil liberties and human rights campaigner like myself very happy.

It is not, of course, the end of the road, and does not mean that people like me will not need to campaign anymore, because of course, we need to ensure that this sort of thing keeps happening and that the Government doesn’t take steps backwards – but, regardless, it is a Very Positive Thing.

Many are showing reluctance to get too excited about this and reserving judgment until the details of the proposed Bill become public, and perhaps they are right to with obvious omissions such as repealing the Digital Economy Act, making the NHS Summary Care Records scheme opt-in instead of opt-out and several other things, as pointed out by Richard King.
Still, I’m willing to stick my neck out here and say that I think the fact that the Bill has even been proposed is fantastic news after 13 years of a Labour Government systematically destroying civil liberties and rights – and, of course, we have something to celebrate in the death of identity cards.

• Register to vote. Make sure you do this by April 20th 2010.
• Join the Open Rights Group! They are a digital rights advocacy group who aim to “preserve and promote your rights in the digital age”.
• Join Democracy Club, a group of volunteers dedicating time to holding electoral candidates to account.
• Thank and/or campaign for the 32 MPs standing in the General Election who voted against the Bill.
• If your MP voted for the Digital Economy Bill, write to them and ask them why.
• Check out how your MP voted before you cast your ballot.
• Join ORG’s campaign meetings on Thursday evenings, either in person or by dialling into the conference call. (You will be welcomed regardless of whether you’re a member or not, whatever your political affiliation, as long as you want to fight this legislation.

If you have any further suggestions, please add them in the comments.

The Digital Economy Bill received it’s second reading in Parliament yesterday, and will be further discussed later on this evening. It’s been ten weeks since I first wrote to my MP, Nick Raynsford, asking how he felt on the issue, and have so far received two replies, both of which have evaded the question. I’ve already written about the first of these; the second letter, received yesterday, told me that he was sorry he hadn’t been able to meet me at one of his surgeries and also that I was dissatisfied with his original letter, and that he would not sign Early Day Motion 1223 as he does not consider EDMs in general a sensible method of highlighting concerns.

Of course, my not being in London for his surgeries is, if anybody’s, my fault; however, his office refused me an appointment at Westminster because they don’t require constituents to travel to Parliament to meet Mr Raynsford. I pointed out several times that I was quite happy to come to his offices, but still I was met with refusal.

I spoke to someone from his office today about the second reading and continued debate tonight, asking why he was not in Commons last night and again, for his opinion on the Bill. I was told that he actually was in the Commons for last night’s debate, though a fellow constituent in #openrightsgroup on IRC tells me that they recognise him, and didn’t see him on the parliamentlive.tv video and so whilst he might have been there, he seriously doubts it.

I also told them that I was quite keen to hear Mr Raynsford’s opinion of the Bill as human rights, which I believe the Bill affects, is an important issue to me and affects how I vote. The member of staff told me, in not so many words, that he didn’t believe me, due to my candidacy in local elections as a Liberal Democrat, and whilst it’s true that I do not feel much desire to vote Labour locally or nationally at this stage, I am always open to having my mind changed. There’s also the crucial point that I am not standing against Mr Raynsford as a PPC: I am standing as a local councillor, and there’s a pretty big difference between the two. You’d think (hope?) that someone working for an MP would know that kind of thing…

You never know, one day before I have to cast my vote, I might just get to hear how Mr Raynsford feels about punishing people without a fair trial. I won’t be holding my breath, though.

As it stands now, the Bill, if passed into law, will allow disconnection, web blocking and could see the death of open wifi.

Come along to the ORG demo on Wednesday 24th March at 17:30 and protest against disconnection without trial and censorship on the Internet.

We’ll have placards; just bring some black tape to gag or blindfold yourself, and invite your friends!

Disconnection is a collective punishment.  It is unacceptable, unfair and disproportionate.

The demo will be at Old Palace Yard (opposite Parliament, next to Westminster Abbey).
Tell us you are coming by requesting a “ticket” on Eventbrite so that we can contact you if necessary – you don’t need to bring your ticket with you.

If you can’t make it to London, why not set up your own demo?  Choose a prominent place in your home town; if possible, a local party HQ or MP constituency office, and let us know and we’ll advertise it on our website.

http://bit.ly/disconnection
Facebook Event: Stop Disconnection Demo

This means that as well as the everyday consumer, businesses and educational institutions will be responsible for activities of subscribers. Several official bodies, including the FSB and JANET (the network to which all educational and research institutions are connected), have asked the Government what they’re going to do about this but the response so far seems to be that as you can block copyright infringing activities, any subscriber neglecting to do so will be responsible for the actions of their users: in other words, “use a firewall”.

We still believe that this Bill fails to address the actual problem, and public confidence in the justice system will continue to fail. Please: write to your MP, and as ever, if you need any help with doing so, contact me.

These events came about after we realised that some people talking to their MPs weren’t getting anywhere because they were pushing against the copyright infringement side of the Bill, and we wanted to explain that they’d be better off fighting the due process side of the argument: that is, that disconnecting people without fair trial and allowing the secretary of business to amend copyright law as he saw fit was disproportionate and unfair.