Dutch Legislature Accidentally Votes For Internet Filtering

tulcod writes "The Dutch government has accidentally passed an exception to a law on net neutrality, (Google translation of original in Dutch) enabling ISPs to filter internet traffic based on 'ideological motives.' The PvdA (labor party) accidentally voted for this exception to the Telecomwet (telecommunications law), which, on its own, does not allow such filtering. PvdA intends to repair their mistake."

Only passing laws

[dotgain]

Stop taking it so seriously.

Does it bother the freaky deaky Dutch?

[mschaffer]

Exactly! They are only passing laws. If the Dutch are content with it, who cares?

I can't read Dutch...

[Sparx139]

But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[Yo Grark]

Have you met most of congress?

- Yo Grark

Re:

[AK Marc]

Most of Congress's incompetence is feigned to hide the overt corruption, they don't accidentally pass something, they just claim they did and then don't try to reverse it. At least here they said "oops" and are planning on reversing their accident.

But again, how can you accidentally vote it through? "All those in favor of opposing the anti-net neutrality prevention exemption act say 'eh?'"

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[antifoidulus]

Actually, their ignorance is real, the motivations behind said ignorance are of course malicious. Senators purposely don't read the legislation, they rely on their aides to do it for them(and of course their aides run it by their big donors to get 'input' on the law). Then if their aides say yes they vote for the thing. If they get called out on a certain provision later, they will claim, honestly, that they hadn't read that particular provision. And since the American electorate doesn't punish politicians for ignorance(see Sarah Palin and to a lesser extent George Bush), all is forgiven.

Thats one thing I never understood about humans, esp. Americans, the result of the action doesn't seem to be nearly as important as the motive. See the outrage and panic over "terrorists", when more Americans die in car crashes EVERY MONTH as died on September 11th. Americans don't seem to care about that because very few people who cause car crashes actually intended to crash......

Re:

[yuhong]

It also certainly don't help that reading bills which are basically diffs and manually matching it against a copy of the law don't help (as one who read a bill once). I read a suggestion to use a version control system for the law, with it's machine-readable diffs, which would make the job much easier.

Re:

[antifoidulus]

I doubt that would help much, it may for a while until the writers of said legislation wise up and get more creative with the language of the bills.

Re:

[yuhong]

Of course, I'd fix the campaign donation problem first, but...

Re:

[Zencyde]

I've thought about the version control, too. Modern government really should be leveraging ideas from other fields. Particularly ones that have been bred and grown in its inception. Computer science and much of engineering should be looked into for ideas that can be reapplied. Official legal discussion forums would be cool so the government could get a vibe on what's popular, for instance. I imagine like normal forums, it would primarily be full of legal buffs.

Re:

[Richy_T]

sharkdot.org?

Re:

[mjwalshe]

Actually that's how it works read Citrine or any of the other authorities - parliamentary based systems have had dif's as you put it before computers where ever built.Having said that it depends on how business is managed and governments can try and pull fast ones.
last week I was at a meeting where on of the candidates for the last speakers election in the UK commented about how union conferences where much better at democracy as the government can quickly put business up at short notice.

Re:

[AK Marc]

/. should just come clean and rename "Overrated" to "I disagree"

I've seen similar statements repeated. However, I haven't heard a good response for what to do with someone if, say, you've already moderated and don't want to undo the other good moderation you've done and someone posts "2+2=5". You could post "2+2=4, and here are cites" but you'd undo the moderation already done. Or you could mod them down because they are wrong. Not "I disagree with your opinion" but factually wrong. Does it matter if someone else already replied with the correct answer with cites?

Re:

[bluefoxlucid]

And sadly, when people try to fix it, they make it worse. They put in road humps, lower speed limits, and otherwise screw up traffic, making traffic more dense and increasing the chances of crashing.

Bicyclists often cite studies of death rates and note that death in crashes over 40mph is sharply higher ... it's asymptotic with a point of inflection there. The chance of death under about 40mph when hit by a car is relatively low, and under 30mph is even lower, but just over 40mph it's suddenly EXTREMELY HIGH.

As a result, cyclists tend to like lower speed limits because we have too many inattentive drivers. Bike lanes make the problem worse by some magic; so do bike paths that cross the road at poin

Re:

[AK Marc]

About 2% of traffic fatalities are cycles. Why not address the massive 98% first, and the 2% where it makes sense? Oh yeah, my original point of humans having very poor risk analysis was made by someone trying (and failing) to show that my risk analysis was poor.

Speed kills.

No, speed differential kills. You may have made a good argument for banning bicycles from all roads with speed limits above 35 mph, but nothing else. I'm in 100% agreement with you. Speed differential kills, so we should ban bicycles from roads

Re:

[bluefoxlucid]

We really need to improve the school system in Alaska; your reading comprehension is horrible.

Re:

[AK Marc]

It's like the essays in elementary school where we are supposed to find the theme. The theme of yours was "I'm a bicyclist, and I want to maximize my safety with out regard to damage to the economy, convenience, and safety of those around me."

If that's not the case, why are you discussing "traffic fatalities" from the perspective of a group involved with 2% of fatalities and using that 2% as the basis to tell the other 98% what they should be doing without regard to whether it will help or hurt those othe

Re:

[bluefoxlucid]

And yet you missed an entire paragraph containing a bunch of rhetoric questions preceded by a crucial sentence:

The problem, however, isn't one of speed; tell me why cars are hitting bicycles in the first place.

As well as 80% of the content of the essay, which lead in with an opening point about how bicyclists want to shrink speed limits as much as possible, and then continued on to discuss other, more complete options that improve the general transit system in a more balanced way rather than simply impeding motor traffic for the sake of cyclists who think they own the road. The closing statement about

Re:

[AK Marc]

Cars hit bikes because bikes are unexpected. Whether they are unexpected because they are lane-splitting, riding on the shoulder/crosswalk when it suits them, and in regular lanes when it suits them, claiming all the rights (and none of the responsibilities) of cars, or because the cars are always at fault is something that I'm sure you'll let us know. And you missed my point which cyclists seem to think is like apartheid so I avoided stating it directly, the solution is elimination of multi-use roadways,

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

People often vote for parties rather than the individual concerned, which is an unfortunately flaw in many democracies. You get one vote which counts both for your local candidate and the national government.

People also vote against the candidate they don't want, rather than for the one they think would be best. I have done that in the past, voted for someone I didn't particularly like because that was the best way to keep the guy I really didn't like out. In the UK we had the chance to fix that by bringing

Re:

[gmack]

In BC Canada they tossed something very similar to AV even through the person bringing it was very popular at the time. At some point AV/STV/whatever proponents need to realize that the average voter just doesn't like the idea because it's too complicated.

Less confusing would be if the lead candidate gets less than 50 percent of the vote there is a runoff vote later.

Re:

[samjam]

In our case it is because the "no to av" were a bunch of liars; I'll give you an example:

They claimed that "Australia uses AV and they want to get rid of it"

The fact was that Australia had a form of AV that required the voter to rank ALL candidates, which was annoying. The Australians wanted to move to the UK-proposed style of AV where you had the choice of ranking other candidates but were not required to do so.

To interpret and present "Australia prefers UK-style AV" as "Australia wants to get rid of AV" i

Re:

[CrackedButter]

Don't forget those in the NO camp said the AV system in Australia meant it was mandatory to vote. When that wasn't the case, it was just a separate rule in Australia for voting. It didn't mean voting would become mandatory here as well.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Ranking candidates by preference with 1, 2, 3 is "too complicated"?

Re:

[jonescb]

You're supposed to vote for the party. No matter who the candidate is, they will vote based on the party's platform more than 95% of the time. If you agree with that party's positions, it's a safe bet to vote for whoever they put up as a candidate.

If you truly don't like the candidate, vote against him in the primaries when they're selecting their candidate.
Even Mr. Non-partisan Maverick John McCain voted with the Republicans something like 95% of the time.

Don't ever vote based on your opinion of the indi

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

You misunderstand. I am talking about MPs, I think you mean the president. We have one vote come the general election which is used to decide who our local MP is, which party gets overall control and forms a government and by extension which leader becomes PM.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Take a look at the volume of legislation that congress passes. When you're passing something like 500 pages of laws per day, there's no way any of them can have actually read it (although, somehow, you are expected to because ignorance of the law is not a defence). I'd love it if someone slipped a sentence in to a law that said that anyone who voted for it was to be summarily executed, with the only valid defence being that they could list every law that they had voted for. It would probably pass without

Re:

[kilfarsnar]

I find the fact that legislators vote on bills they haven't read to be absolutely absurd. If there is not time to read it before it is voted on, then the vote needs to be delayed. There is no excuse for voting on something you haven't read.

Re:

[CrimsonAvenger]

And since the American electorate doesn't punish politicians for ignorance(see Sarah Palin and to a lesser extent George Bush), all is forgiven.

"âoeBut we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." -- Nancy Pelosi.

Much better reference for your point....

Re:

[acoustix]

Palin & Bush were in the legislature? Wow! I did not know that.

Methinks you're trying too hard. It's almost like you're trying to rewrite history....like Palin.

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[mwvdlee]

Looking at the video is was more like "All those in favor of #55? Okay. All those in favor of #56? Okay. All those in favor of #57? Okay. Wait, no, we didn't mean to vote for that last one, please reverse it".
It's still pretty stupid though.

Re:

[remmy1978]

It did go something like that. As votes go, this one was a bit more disorganised than what we are used to...

That said, I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. The Netherlands is one of the first countries in the world where net neutrality is becoming a law. This after telecom companies speculated that they wanted to charge extra for certain types of traffic (Skype, What's app, etc.) as they were starting to see their income fall when people would use those tools on their smartphones inste

Re:

[mwvdlee]

I don't see anything wrong with that proposal. If a customer wants to have a filter for "Oh, think about the children!" reasons, let them. It's for a niche market and niche ISP's that want this. It doesn't make it possible to circumvent net neutrality for commercial reasons.

It depends on the definition of "ideological". If your religion is "capitalism", then requiring content providers to pay you for transmission of signal is perfectly "ideological".

Re:

[remmy1978]

I don't see anything wrong with that proposal. If a customer wants to have a filter for "Oh, think about the children!" reasons, let them. It's for a niche market and niche ISP's that want this. It doesn't make it possible to circumvent net neutrality for commercial reasons.

It depends on the definition of "ideological". If your religion is "capitalism", then requiring content providers to pay you for transmission of signal is perfectly "ideological".

Then the customer still has to request it first... I know I won't request such a thing...

Some votes are tricky

[AliasMarlowe]

Imagine how difficult it would be to reverse the vote, if they had "accidentally" voted themselves a pay increase or immunity from expense audits...

Re:

[FrootLoops]

I imagine most of congress hasn't met most of congress. Slightly over half of congress is 268 people. If they all just shook hands, there would be 35,778 handshakes.

Re:

[scheveningen]

The dutch house of commons, or whatever it should be called in english, is actually a bit short on experience. At the last elections, the average experience of the new house was a mere 3.8 years!
(dutch pdf alert) http://www.tweedekamer.nl/images/artikel_ND_24_juni_118-215706.pdf [tweedekamer.nl]

Re:

[phantomfive]

Best happening of that, that I know of, was Rhode Island passing a law to make it easier to prosecute street walkers, accidentally made the actual act of prostitution legal. True story. Don't do it on the street, but if you do it inside a brothel, you're ok (although this loophole was recently closed after a few decades).

Re:

[TheGratefulNet]

in the US, if you have sex for money, its illegal.

unless you film it.

then its ok.

(profit??)

Re:

[agendi]

The cheque from the lobby group clears after the vote so you have to go back and "un-oopsie".

Re:

[syousef]

But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?

The same way they usually accidentally get a girl pregnant. Only what they usually do to the girl, they do to the citizens, and instead of paying they get paid for it.

Re:I can't read Dutch...

[fearlezz]

But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?
They were running down a list.
"Who agrees to point 1, please raise your hands. Okay. Who agrees to point 2, please raise your hands." Somewhere around item 8, the labour party mistakenly thought they were agreeing to another point. And just one second after the chairwoman had counted, the party corrected. But then it was too late, because "rules are rules".

However, the article above is a little misleading. The law proposed does not allow every single ISP to block whatever THEY like for "network maintenance reasons". It allows people with certain beliefs to use specialized providers like www.filternet.nl to keep them away from pornography and other things that their religious beliefs forbid. So it's not a type of censorship that this law could allow, but this law is supposed to enable end users to say "please filter my internet to keep my conscience clear". The choice of the end user him-/herself.

Re:

[mjwalshe]

then the chair needs sacking/impeaching or the business manger for the labor party - this is gross incompetence and shows contempt for the people and the dutch parliament.

Re:

[Colde]

Actually, this has happened in the danish parliament as well a few times.

Since nobody can be experts on all subjects the danish representatives usually follow the spokesperson on the topic of the legislation thats being voted for. If they accidentally hit the wrong button the voting machine, the rest might follow.

Re:

[eugene2k]

Well, it appears you are not the only one who can't read dutch

Re:

[gmhowell]

What do you expect from a nation of clog wearing dike tenders!

Rule 34 should apply here.

Re:

[GameboyRMH]

Rule 34? That's not so weird. I mean a hot woman in wooden shoes (and not necessarily anything else) inspecting a dam, especially the base...are you telling me you wouldn't watch that? :D

Also Kristin Kreuk is part Dutch so I'm imagining her doing that right now...BRB, rapid localized swelling!

This is...

[oldhack]

This is your parliament.

This is your parliament on pot. Sizzle sizzle sizzle.

Any question?

Re:This is...

[Matje]

ha ha.

Have a look at the drug use statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_lifetime_cannabis_use_by_country) and tell me whose country has a problem with cannabis use...

Re:

[Crash42]

Ha ha good one !!!

but please remember that 73% of all statistics are made up.

Re:

[oldhack]

Ha ha.

Ok, I've got nothing.

Re:

[Frans Faase]

It would be more interesting to have some data about usages per head of the country. In the Netherlands cannabis can be bought legally in small quantaties for personal use. In some other countries it is illegale. For some reason teenagers are drawn to things that are illegale. So, it could well be that in the United States the largest percentage of people who used cannabis used it just for a few times, while in the Netherlands there is a much larger group of regular users.

Re:

[CrimsonAvenger]

So, it could well be that in the United States the largest percentage of people who used cannabis used it just for a few times,

Unlikely.

On the other hand, I personally think that the stuff should be legal, and regulated just like tobacco.

Re:

[Hatta]

None of them. Not one country in the world has a problem with cannabis use.

Re:

[xero314]

None of them. Not one country in the world has a problem with cannabis use.

Looking at the wikipedia link it appears that China and Japan seem to have a problem with cannabis use.

Sound like something from The Onion

[EricJ2190]

In other news, Congress accidentally approves arts funding [theonion.com].

How do you legislate by accident?

[Arancaytar]

Did the parliament hold a tequila party that got out of hand?

Dutch advantage of herring?

[joneshenry]

Relative to most other nations of the world, Holland is relatively well-run, and the Dutch are as capable of fixing such problems as anyone else.

Could the Dutch have an advantage that is somewhat a geographic accident, in that since the Middle Ages they have benefited from having an excellent source of Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D from herring [wikipedia.org]? But the Dutch may have contributed to their own fortune by preparing and consuming herring in a manner that preserves nutrients [wikipedia.org]. Note that under the section in Wikipedia describing pickled herring are listed several Northern European countries that are doing well and other groups with noted individuals of exceptional intelligence.

Re:

[plankrwf]

Chips,

And I do not like herring, that does not bode well for my intelligence then.
On the other side, it should not be difficult to find groups with noted individuals of exceptional intelligence who do NOT like herring.
(Anyone caring to actually read the wikipedia article? I know, I know, it is against /. tradition, but it IS for a good cause, at least I think so ;-0).

Re:

[Errol backfiring]

I always thought we invented the herring-eating to make foreigners look foolish when they try our quaint culture.

Re:Dutch advantage of herring?

[SigILL]

Also, since the middle ages we've been under pretty much constant thread of the sea washing away our country. The waterschappen (water boards), which are responsible for keeping our feet (and sometimes our heads) dry, are the oldest democratic institutions here, some dating back to the 13th century.

The geography of the Netherlands is so that you cannot keep just your bit of land dry. Thus on occasion even lords and cities that were otherwise formally at war had to cooperate to keep the dykes maintained and the water out. This has created a deep democratic tradition and a strong respect for engineering in the Dutch civic mind. For example, the Deltawet, the system of laws describing how the major dykes are to be maintained, isn't based on some ideology or pork-barrel system as it would be in some other countries, but on statistical models and sound engineering.

Does the current state of knowledge tell us that the dykes are too low? Shucks, we'll have to heighten them then. Well, lets get started, otherwise it won't get done before the storm season is upon us again. And don't worry about the cost much, these things usually pay for themselves in one night [wikipedia.org].

tl;dr: We have to have good governance. Otherwise, the dykes fail and we die. Literally.

Re:

[jonescb]

I think this argument is a red herring meant to mislead us.

A mixup and immediate corrective action

[Matje]

After reading the article and watching the video: what seemed to have happened is that the Labour party voted in favor by accident (some sort of mix up apparently), this was recognized immediately and the further procedure was halted until the error could be repaired. So nothing to see here, move along...

Re:

[xSander]

It's still a delay and an opportunity for the telecom companies to lobby and have it shot down.

Labour Party, hah. More like Sleeping-on-the-job party. They need to drink more tea or switch to coffee.*

* Reference to the leader of the party, Job Cohen, who once said he'd rather drink tea with the parents of the Moroccan kids who were (and are) a nuisance in Amsterdam, where he was mayor, than to actually do something about them. That phrase is haunting him.

Re:

[AlXtreme]

And the internet does a collective *facepalm*

Regardless of the idiot in Labour who was responsible, the real surprise is that the ruling liberal party voted in favour of this filtering. It was probably a carrot for the christians who they need to stay in power, but still...

Politicians: Ignorant, stupid, malicious. Pick 3.

No immediate corrective action

[Frans Faase]

I got the impression that it could not be corrected after the vote was taken and the president of the House declared the amendement to be accepted. I also understand that according to the procedures, there is no way to redo the vote. The only way to correct the mistake is to stop the bill in the Senate or create a new bill that would correct the mistake.

The procedure was also not immediately halted. According to the regulations it is not possible to halt a voting for this kind of reason. There was some disc

It's comforting, really

[grasshoppa]

It's comforting to know that the USA is not the only government in the world with completely inept lawmakers.

( we're going to ignore the fact that we, the public, continue to give them our blessings to be complete and utter morons by virtue of our votes )

PVDA, not whole government.

[Barryke]

completely inept lawmakers.

Its the PVDA, not the entire government.
Its also the PVDA had the latest government disintegrate, by stepping out of the government. It basicly sayed "we are not working anymore" to all its voters. Its mindboggling.

They never had my vote and now they'll never wil. They are almost as ridiculous as the PVV is, biggest difference is the PVDA acts ridiculous by accident.

Why?

[hackertourist]

Here in the Netherlands, there currently are a few (right-wing Christian) ISPs that filter internet access at the request of their clients. Some of these ISPs do this by providing filtering software that the customer can install locally, others do the filtering on proxy servers at the ISP. The net neutrality law makes the second option illegal, despite this filtering being done at the client's request.

The amendment in question would repair this, allowing clients to request a filter. Some parties (PvdA, GL) see this amendment as a loophole. I don't see how, though.

Re:

[ledow]

Join my ISP.

£7000000 a year for unfiltered access.
But we only charge £10 a year if you want our "family-safe" version.

Instantaneous filtering of every customer, completely legitimately, at the customer's own "request".

Re:

[LordLucless]

Yeah. At that ISP. Somehow I see that ISP being out-competed rather quickly.

Re:

[Omegium]

Although competition on the ISP's here in the Netherlands is better than in the US (as far as I can tell from stories online), it is far from perfect. We have three mobile internet providers, and a lot of other brands using their networks. If all three providers decide to implement mandatory filtering in some way, consumers cannot choose. There are provisions in this filtering law that consumers cannot get a financial advantage if the choose for filtering, but the providers probably can find some loophole

Re:

[AVee]

Which is why the amendment explicitly states that an ISP must offer unfiltered access under the exacts same conditions. They can make you pay extra for the filter, but they can never make you pay extra to loose the filter. Despite all the wining about the amendment from the PVDA (and others) I really can't see how this creates a loophole. (And if it does, they should fix the loophole instead of depriving customers of options.)

Re:

[TapeCutter]

Here in Australia every ISPs must, by law, provide an option for a filtered connection at no extra cost to the customer, it has been this way for a number of years now. The filter is the same filter used on government computers (schools, libraries, etc). The uptake is not huge but the 5% of private connections that do opt in must see it as useful to them in some way. Besides, the scenario you paint would not happen in Oz due to simple competition between ISPs, and I strongly suspect the same is true in NL.

Re:

[mcvos]

I don't really have a problem with ISPs filtering at the request of their customers. The details of the amendment determine just how much of a loophole it really is. If the ISPs offer subscriptions that filter evil Youtube content at a lower rate than subscriptions that allow access to Youtube, then it's a loophole that can be used by ISPs to filter by type of content. If, on the other hand, the filtered subscription has to be equal or higher in cost to unfiltered subscriptions, then it's not so much of a l

Re:

[will_die]

That that is why you have a bunch of people in the USA not wanting a net neutrality law.
In addition to services like this ISP is providing, my current ISP does email filtering for SPAM. According to the various bills being proposed that would be illegal.

Re:

[bibh_sl427]

The problem with this right-wing Christian party is that in principle it favors a Christian, Calvinist theocracy, and refer to Romans 13. This scary aspect is always downplayed, but it is there alright. If they try smuggle a loophole into general legislation which is pro net neutrality, one has to be extra vigilant. The Dutch Labor party was not.

Re:

[Hatta]

Here in the Netherlands, there currently are a few (right-wing Christian) ISPs that filter internet access at the request of their clients

Can a Muslim get internet filtered to his preferences? If a conservative can get internet with anything fun out, can I get an internet with all the prudishness filtered out?

See, this is a bad idea. Giving conservative christians the ability to filter their internet, but not anyone else, amounts to an endorsement of conservative christianity by the government. Conse

Re:

[hackertourist]

That's nonsense. Nobody is stopping you (or anyone else) from creating and marketing such a filter. Conservative Christians just have been the only group where there's enough demand that someone decided to provide the service.

No endorsement is expressed or implied by the government; in fact, that same government is currently engaged in creating laws that are seen as antireligious (a proposed ban on certain types of animal slaughter that includes kosher and halal).

Re:

[orkysoft]

Exposing your children to religious ideas, when they're otherwise being raised secularly, won't make them want to believe.

Re:

[Hatta]

I know. I just want the pro-censorship crowd to eat their own dogfood.

Re:

[MistrX]

Companies could misuse this loophole by letting people only to use filtered Internet. At least thats how I understand it.

In Dutch:
http://nu.pvda.nl/berichten/2011/06/Voorstellen-martijn-van-dam-wijziging-telecommunicatiewet-open-vrij-internet.html [nu.pvda.nl]

Re:

[hackertourist]

Actually that page doesn't say anything about the issue, and your understanding is incorrect.

This is the amendment we're talking about:

[ een uitzondering om] tegemoet te komen aan een uitdrukkelijk verzoek van de abonnee om diensten of toepassingen op grond van door de abonnee gespecificeerde ideologische motieven te belemmeren, mits de aanbieder de abonnee voor deze toestemming geen geldelijk of ander voordeel biedt.

Translated:
An exception to honor specific requests by the subscriber to block services or applications on grounds of ideological motives specified by the subscriber, on condition that the provider does not grant the subscriber price reductions or other advantages in exchange for this request.

So the only way an ISP can get away with filtering is at the express request of the

Re:

[hackertourist]

In most of the country (>90% would be my guess, can't find hard numbers on short notice) you have at least two networks (cable and ADSL). ADSL is offered by multiple ISPs (the owner of the last mile wiring is required to allow other ISPs to offer connections). Quite a few ADSL providers are storefronts for a few companies, though.
This may be the case for cable as well, not sure about that. There are no geographic monopolies. Smaller, independent ISPs still exist.

Filtering can be (and is) done by third-pa

The REAL shocking part

[Anonymous Coward]

The shocking part of this news is not hat Labour accidntally voted for, it's that the (supposedly) _libereral_ VVD voted for the motion on purpose, thus selling out it's principles to the (theocratic, anti-liberal) SGP, who's votes they need since the VVD runs a minority cabinet.

THAT is the shocking news. Not some cockup.

Re:

[Antiocheian]

is "THAT" an acronym as well ?

Re:

[leuk_he]

The real shock is that the vvd (liberals) voted for network neutrality at all. Liberals are for freedom, but mainly this is freedom for the companies to do as they want, not freedom for consumers to use products as they like.

network neutrality limits the freedom of the isp and increases the freedom of consumers.

That the vvd voted for SGP (church party) is no suprise, since they knew that it would not get a majority. (excep for this accident). It would have gotten them brownie points without any action neede

Politicians...

[alex67500]

they can only be trusted with bribery and rape...

In the US Congress/Senate

[bryan1945]

... riders get added at the last minute all the time, resulting in stuff getting passed that has nothing to do with the original bill. Don't know how the Dutch government works, but I could see this happening if it's similar. Nice tactic by the legislatures to try and sneak things in. Not saying this is what happened. Could just have been overlooked.

Idiotic mistake, but little consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read the law in question (Dutch citizen here), and it is not half as ignorant as it is portrayed to be.
First of all, it gives the end user and NO ONE ELSE the possibility to have their own, and no one else's IP traffic filtered for stuff they do not want to see. Second of all, the end user has to take action (contact their ISP) to get this to happen, and to specify what they want filtered. Third of all, it excludes filtering which is aimed at leading to financial gain for ISP's: the "I'll filter out

This has gotta make you think...

[threeseas]

For certainly the law makers aren't. What else have they accidentally passed but without correction?

What a surprise, Dutch socialists mess up

[lowlands]

This "oopsie" is just a small fail in a long history of epic fails. In the last 100 years the Dutch socialists have destroyed education and healthcare, have initiated massive blue collar immigration without thinking one second of the consequences if you don't do anything about integration resulting, besides increased crime, in considerable emigration of highly educated white collar knowledge workers. Furthermore Dutch socialists have subsidized ridiculous initiatives with ridiculous amounts of taxpayer mone

They should leave it in

[CAPSLOCK2000]

I think they should leave the amendment in. The amendment allows for an _opt-in_ internet filter from your provider. I think many parents would not mind a some kind of a filter for their children. Without this amendment it is not legal for a provider to offer it.

Of course the proponents of this law will mostly use it to filter based on their religion but as long as they only do it to their own connections it's fine by me.

There is a bit of a loophole here, but only a tiny one. The amendment requires that un

Re:

[_Shad0w_]

They are fixing it.