Pirates sail into Germany
On Sunday there is a general election in Germany. Readers may be interested to see that the fastest growing party in Germany is the Pirate Party. Although they are unlikely to win sufficent vites ot enter Parliament, the Pirate Party is sunceeding in promoting a debate over civil rights and restrictive copyright laws.
Wikipedia describes the party’s programme as follows. “The party opposes the dismantlement of civil rights in telephony and on the Internet, in particular the European data retention policies and Germany’s new Internet censorship law called Zugangserschwerungsgesetz. It also opposes artificial monopolies and various measures of surveillance of citizens.
The party favors the civil right to information privacy and reforms of copyright, education, computer science and genetic patents.
It promotes in particular an enhanced transparency of government by implementing open source governance and providing for APIs to allow for electronic inspection and control of government operations by the citizen.[3]
The party opposes the dismantlement of civil rights in telephony and on the Internet, in particular the European data retention policies and Germany’s new Internet censorship law called Zugangserschwerungsgesetz. It also opposes artificial monopolies and various measures of surveillance of citizens.
The party favors the civil right to information privacy and reforms of copyright, education, computer science and genetic patents.
It promotes in particular an enhanced transparency of government by implementing open source governance and providing for APIs to allow for electronic inspection and control of government operations by the citizen.”[3]
The Reuters newsblog quotes Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, who “said the traditional parties’ failure to properly understand the internet may have put wind in the Pirates’ sails. “The large parties have treated the issue as if the only people using the internet are old men with lewd ideas who want to look at pornographic images or practice paedophilia,” Neugebauer said in a recent TV interview. ”If the Pirate Party manages to make clear in society the conflict which they presently represent … then they definitely have the potential to get above the five percent hurdle,” he added.”
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