19,000 Emails Against and 0 In Favor of UK Draft Communications Bill 174
Qedward writes "Open source writer Glyn Moody discusses the Draft Communications Bill (aka Snooper's Charter) in the UK and how the Joint Parliamentary Committee that had been considering the bill received almost 19,000 emails during its consultation period. He notes: 'Out of 19,000 emails received by the Committee on the subject of the proposed Draft Communications Bill, not a single one was in favor of it, or even agreed with its premise. Has there ever been a bill so universally rejected by the public in a consultation? Clearly, it must be thrown out completely.'"
I wrote to my MP (Score:5, Interesting)
I wrote to my MP, via a link the Open Rights Group (which I'm a member of) sent. I was pleased with the reply -- my MP agreed with me, gave some additional points that I'd not made, and asked me to forward any reply I received to him.
(At least, I think I did. There have been a few similar bills, and I've not necessarily kept up with which one is which.)
Re:Unfair comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"GLYN"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Being the proud posessor of a Welsh name - come on, it's not that hard!
You must have heard of Bob Dylan (who took his name from Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet). The y in Glyn is exactly as the y in Dylan. (Although many people from the US seem to think that Dylan is actually pronounced Dialin', which is what you do on a telephone - despite Bob Dylan's fame).
I know a motorcycle sidecar racer called Glyn Jones who crashes often (and puts his passengers in hospital so frequently) his nickname is the Glyn Reaper. Think how you pronounce 'grim', it rhymes with Glyn, hence the joke.
Re:Unfair comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Always the way.
The last big one I remember was ID cards, which was also very skewed, but at the last minute the government decided that any results collected from the internet were unrepresentative and to be ignored.
It's almost as if your opinion doesn't count if collected electronically, because it's too easy or something. Never mind that it brings down the barriers and allows people to participate just that little bit more in democracy, no citizen, you didn't try hard enough so even though we heard you we feel safe ignoring you.
And they are safe, frankly. We never vote the bastards out because of this stuff.