But no matter how much we try to ignore the corporate machine it ploughs on regardless and at various points in all of our lives we are forced to interact with the unsustainable, greed-based economy whether we like it or not. We all need to travel, buy energy, we like presents and holidays and now we are buying more and more of these goods and services online, from people we do not know.

As local banks close in favour of apps, local taxis are driven out by Uber and the likes of Airbnb and other holiday and comparison websites offer us ‘guaranteed savings’ – the brave new world of digital platforms is being thrust upon us, whether we like it or not.

The dominant form of business in our economy has not changed, but the method of delivery has. Platform businesses which reach further and wider than conventional ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses, that are able to ‘scale up’ and attract customers in their millions are forcing out the smaller players, just like supermarkets killed the traditional garden market. Except these “platform monopolies” are taking things to a new level – often unbeknown to us they’re gathering our data and using sophisticated algorithms to work out how to sell us more things, that quite often we don’t need or want. They’re aggregating data and dissintermediating in ways that we never knew were possible. Uber is valued at over 60 billion dollars but does not own a single taxi…

From monoculture to platform co-ops

To someone practicing permaculture, there is something almost offensive about vast fields where businesses cultivate the same single crop and, in a similar way, the exponents of ‘peer to peer’ and ‘open source’ technologies get equally offended by monolithic platforms that dominate the digital landscape.

Peer to peer, (where individuals share content with other people, rather than relying on centralised servers) and open source software (which is free to use and adapt, without requiring a licence fee) are like the digital community’s own versions of permaculture. They provide a pathway to greater independence, autonomy, diversity and resilience than is offered by the dominant system.

David Holmgren’s ideas about creating small scale, copyable, adaptable solutions which have the power to change the world by creating decentralised, diverse, and more resilient systems have huge parallels with open source, collaborative software projects, which are developing as a response to the monolithic, proprietary and profit driven enclosures that dominate today’s Internet.

The end goal of this work is to create ‘platform cooperatives’, as alternatives to the venture capital backed platforms. Platform cooperatives that are member owned and democratically controlled – allowing everyone that is affected by the business, be they customers, suppliers, workers or investors, a say in how the business is run and managed. Co-ops are an inherently different form of organisation than Limited or Public companies, which place community before profit, hence have entirely different principles than their corporate rivals. For this reason they are more resilient in downturns, more responsible to their communities and environments and more effective at delivering real (not just financial) value to everyone they interact with.

Platform co-ops provide a template for a new kind of economy built on trust, mutual aid and respect for nature and community. By placing ownership firmly in the hands of the people and applying democratic forms of governance they offer a legitimate alternative to the defacto form of business. There are several platform co-ops that already provide comparable, and often better services than their corporate rivals and with more support others will continue to develop.

On 26 and 27 July the OPEN 2018 conference at Conway Hall in London will showcase platform co-ops such as The Open Food Network – which is linking up local food producers and consumers through Europe, Resonate – the music streaming co-op, and SMart from Belgium which provides support for a network of thousands of freelancers throughout Europe. The beginnings of a viable, self-supporting and sustainable economy are stating to emerge and OPEN 2018, along with similar events in the US and across Europe, is bringing together the people with the ideas, the tech developers and the legal experts to help catalyse the transition.

Shared values and the network effect

By Dmgultekin – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8273108

There are so many similarities between permaculture’s philosophy and principles and the works of other progressive groups that hope to encourage a more sustainable, more resilient and equitable future. From Occupy to Open source, Permaculture to Peer to Peer and Collaborative Technology to the Commons Transition groups there are clearly overlapping values.

David Bollier, writing on the Peer to Peer Foundation blog has suggested that “…permaculturists and commoners need to connect more and learn from each other…” and the idea that these communities are ultimately working towards the same objective seems especially important to recognise if we are to accelerate the development of a more sustainable world.

There is already an evolving “shared narrative” between these various, disparate initiatives, but it is often sidelined by our self-selecting filters which lead us back into the communities we know and trust. Collaboration and cooperation can be hard work and as groups get bigger they can become harder still but that’s no reason not to try. The fact that Wikipedia provides a better encyclopaedia for free in more languages than Britannica ever managed proves that online, open source collaboration can deliver greater value than proprietary, closed source systems.

The true value of a collaborative, open networks only really manifests when its members communicate, and work together, through connected systems. Sharing ideas, discussing problems and addressing challenges in larger networks creates positive feedback loops via the network effect – a term which describes how the value of something increases in proportion to the number of people using it (like a phone, or social media network) – something all the various ethical and progressive networks could benefit from enormously.

Parallels between collaborative, open source software development and permaculture principles:

1. Observe and interact

Progressive software projects often utilise ‘user focused’ design strategies to ensure they meet people’s needs. Taking time to understand how users interact with software systems via user experience testing groups and an ongoing, iterative design processes are recognised to deliver higher quality solutions which suit specific user needs.

2. Catch and store energy

Peer to peer networks don’t rely on centralised servers but instead make use of the latent capacity of other user’s machines. Imagine how much more efficient it would be than deploying huge server farms if our computers were not shut off at night, or left idle, when they could be providing valuable processing power for others. The Holochain project aims to make it simple and secure for anyone to join a truly peer to peer network and to share files and processing power in this way – and to even earn credits for hosting other people’s files and applications.

3. Obtain a yield

The Peer Production License provides a means by which open source developers can make the code they develop available for free and still benefit from it’s use. Sites like the Internet of Ownership, which contains a directory of cooperative platforms use the PPL to “permit reuse exclusively for non-commercial and worker-owned enterprises” thereby helping to grow the commons. The ultimate goal of the PPL is to enable mechanisms so commoners can support themselves and ensure their own social reproduction without resorting to capitalism.

4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

This principle is particularly integral to open source development since the concepts of ‘user focussed’ and ‘agile development’, ‘branching’ and ‘forking’ are all designed to ensure that software projects are self-regulating by listening to the users needs, driven by user feedback and that they are able to be adapted to changing needs.

5. Use and value renewable resources and services

Open source technology is inherently more renewable in the way it enables the reuse and repackaging of code for new purposes. Ethically minded hosts and developers such as Green Net power their servers with renewable energy.

6. Produce no waste

As above, open source code is often re-used and repurposed but progressive developers still have a lot to gain from better collaboration. There are often multiple teams working on identical problems and ideas and whilst this has benefits in terms of developing strength and resilience through diversity it also leads to waste, mainly in terms of time. At least the waste ‘product’ of web development is only digital and so old technology and code doesn’t littler the streets or pollute the environment as much as physical products can, especially if archives are stored on renewably powered servers.

7. Design from patterns to details

Genuine online collaboration has been slow to evolve, with the best examples being Linux (the open source operating system), Firefox, the open source web browser and Wikipedia, the open source encyclopaedia. It is only recently, with the rise of monolithic capitalist gardens such as Google and Facebook and Amazon that the hive mind of the internet is recognising the need to step back and redesign its’ systems according to new patterns. The push for “Net neutrality” and Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid project are examples of this in action as is the Holo project, a very exciting and truly peer to peer “community of passionate humans building a distributed cloud, owned and run by users like you and me.”

8. Integrate rather than segregate

The move from centralised to decentralised, to distributed and federated technology is a a key element of open source and collaborative technology design. The entire Peer to Peer philosophy is based on the recognition that the connections and relationships between nodes (people or computers) in a network is what gives it strength and value. Collaborative technologists still have a lot to gain from developing deeper and wider integrations, like we see in nature, and which permaculturists know so well.

9. Use small and slow solutions

Designing a computer system to be slow is not something you will normally (ever?) hear a programmer talk about but they often talk about small, in many guises. Small packages (of code), small apps, “minified” (meaning compressed) code and even small computers, like the Raspberry Pi are key features of collaborative technology which all aim for increased efficiency.

10. Use and value diversity

Diversity is intrinsic to open source and collaborative technology. The plurality and adaptability of open source solutions ensures a highly diverse ecosystem. Users are free to adapt open source code to their needs and the open nature of most open source projects values contributions from anyone, irrespective of race, gender, age or any other factor. It is true that the majority of contributors to open source projects are normally young, white and male but the reasons for that seem more to do with societal inequalities and stereotypes rather than any specific prejudices or practices.

11. Use edges and value the marginal

The explanation of this principle places most value on “the interface between things…” and this is a central component of web design. Web services have now realised the necessity of providing intuitive user interfaces, to allow users to navigate complex data and to investigate deeper informational relationships but, more interestingly the latest developments in linked open data enable users to interface with more specific, more granular and more timely data to provide increase value. The Internet Of Things will facilitate a massive increase in the number and type of products which can interact over the internet. Whilst it is not the norm, drawing diverse information from the edges and valuing the marginal is something the open internet can really facilitate.

12. Creatively use and response to change

Most open source, collaborative projects use some kind of agile development, which advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. Permaculture and open source see eye to eye on this principle which bodes very well for a growing, symbiotic relationship in our rapidly evolving world.

Lead image by Dmgultekin, Wikimedia Commons.

The post Building a Cooperative Economy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Cory Doctorow: Stanford’s Futurity interviews Stanford Law expert Ryan Singel and International Studies expert Didi Kuo about the meaning of a non-Neutral internet, and the pair make an excellent and chilling point about the subtle, profound ways that Ajit Pai’s rollback of Net Neutrality rules to pre-2005 levels will distort and hobble the future internet.

The Pai rules allow ISPs to block rival services, but the real impact is likely to be much more subtle (and thus harder to spot in the moment and stop while there’s still time).

The ISPs are much more likely to approach the existing internet services like Netflix and demand money in return for a guarantee that their bits will reach you, the ISPs’ customers. The services, in turn, will simply raise their prices to make up the difference, resulting in you paying your ISP twice: once to connect to the internet, and a second time to subsidize the blackmail payments the internet services you make are now obliged to make to your ISP.

There’s another, even subtler and scarier distortion at work here. The ISPs want to create steady revenue streams from these services, and so the blackmail payments they demand will not exceed the services’ ability to pay. But they will limit who else can enter the market: Netflix and Youtube and the other established players were able to start because the capital needs of a video-on-demand service did not include a line item for blackmail to ISPs.

Future Netflix and Youtube challengers will have it different: their startup costs will include millions for hard-drives and marketing and bandwidth — and millions more for bribes to the telcos.

This is bad news for people who like watching videos, but it’s even worse news for people who make videos. With upstarts permanently, structurally frozen out of the market, today’s incumbent providers will become much like the telcos themselves: cozy, cooperative, and more interested in colluding than competing. Some of that will take the form of explicit conspiracies, but highly concentrated, stable industries can collude without conspiring: the executives tend to have worked at all the major firms at some point in their careers, know each other socially, understand one-another’s turf and territories, maintain out-of-work friendships and even intermarry. Without anyone having to draw up an agreement, these industries are perfectly capable of creating arrangements that are mutually beneficial and that freeze out any new entrants.

The online service providers understand that Pai’s rules mean that they’re just going to have to divert some profits to the telcos, but will not face an existential threat. They’ll always have a seat at the table: but the companies that don’t exist yet? They never get a seat at the table.

Here’s how to understand Net Neutrality: you get in a cab and ask it to take you to a Safeway, and you notice that it’s circling the block for no reason, delaying your arrival. “What gives?” you ask. The cabby explains that Whole Foods has paid for “premium carriage” by the cab firm, and so it gets “fast lane” service — which means that everyone else gets the slow lane. The cab driver explains that running a taxi is expensive and hard work, and that choosing one grocer over another helps the cab company fund its maintenance, operations and upgrades.

That’s nice for the cab company, but you didn’t get into the cab to be taken to the most profitable destination for the cab company — you got in to be taken to the place you wanted to go.

The cabbie says, “Hell, why are you being so particular? Safeway and Whole Foods aren’t that different. Besides, Safeway makes decisions about what food you buy: they don’t carry every possible grocery item, and they arrange their groceries in the way that suits them, not you. Why do you get pissed off when the cab company steers you toward the stores of its choosing, but you’re happy to shop at a store that sends you to the items of its choosing?”

The answer, of course, is that it’s none of the taxi’s business. Maybe Safeway is gouging its suppliers for endcaps, and maybe it isn’t, but that’s between you and Safeway. You might choose to tackle that yourself, or it might not matter to you. It’s not the cab company’s job to tell you where to go: it’s their job to go where you tell them.

Singel: The effects we’re likely to see will affect users secondarily. Verizon, for instance, can now go to a Yelp or a Netflix and say, “You need to pay us X amount of money per month, so your content loads for Verizon subscribers.” And there’s no other way for Netflix to get to Verizon subscribers except through Verizon, so they’ll be forced to pay. That cost will then get pushed onto people that subscribe to Netflix.

So what users do online will become more expensive, we’ll see fewer free things, and thus the internet will become more consolidated. Websites, blogs, and startups that don’t have the money to pay won’t survive. I like to think of it as the internet is going to get more boring.

Kuo: The worst-case scenario would be if ISPs blocked access to websites based on their content, but that scenario seems unlikely outside of a few limited applications, such as file-sharing. The ISPs have an interest in being apolitical and letting the internet remain “open,” at least in the ways that will be most apparent to consumers.

More likely, the rollback of net neutrality will have consequences for start-ups and companies with a web presence. It will allow ISPs to charge companies more to reach consumers. While large technology platforms can afford to pay for fast access, start-ups and competitors will have a far more difficult time.

What could net neutrality’s end mean for you? [Futurity]

(via Naked Capitalism)

The post The catastrophic consequences of the non-Neutral Net will be very hard to spot, until it’s too late appeared first on P2P Foundation.

# COPYRIGHT AND ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

– Directive of the European Union on Copyright in the Digital Single Market

– “Canon Digital” Private Copy Levy in the Spanish State

– Copyright exceptions and limitations in Spain

# FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND PROTECTION OF LEAKERS / ALERTERS / WHISTLEBLOWERS

– Anticorruption whistleblowing platforms

– Whislteblowers protection legilslation: Catalonia / Spain / Europe

# NET NEUTRALITY

– Application of the new rules of net neutrality in the Spanish State

# PRIVACY VERSUS MASS SURVEILLANCE ON THE INTERNET

– Nullity of the Spanish Data Conservation law

– Transparency in secret international intelligence exchange

– Alarm on the new platform Aura presented by Telefónica

– Protection of Strong Encryption

# BASIC HOW-TO GUIDE FOR PRESERVING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET

– Guide with tips and tools addressed to activists, journalists and citizens whose fundamental freedoms and rights on the Internet

# PUBLIC MONEY? PUBLIC CODE!

– Publicly financed software developed for the public sector must be publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence.

Contents:

# COPYRIGHT AND ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

Directive of the European Union on Copyright in the Digital Single Market


The European Union is presently carrying out reforms to authors’ rights with the aim of situating the big Internet companies as police and judges of the Web, thus turning it into a massive censoring machine.

In particular Article 13 and items 37-39 under the heading “Whereas” require of websites, online platforms and services the development of programming to allow massive systematic monitoring of content uploaded by users and eliminating any material which might include content “identified” by copyright holders.

This automatic filtering, which is not done on the basis of what is legal or illegal, but what is indicated by copyright holders would, at the stroke of a pen, eliminate all the existing exceptions to copyright: the right to cite, to parody, educational purposes, public interest, et cetera, and other forms of totally legal freedom of expression, which an automatic system of censorship would be unable to evaluate as legal and free forms of use of content subject to authors’ rights.

The resistance of cultural industries to adapt to the new digital ecosystem, results in their being pressured by disproportionate ad hoc laws like this attempt at automatic filtering which would crush innovative, creative and inventive potential in the economic cycle of the networked society.

In a setting where the line separating creators of culture from consumers is increasingly blurry, the future of cultural development depends on making the most of new forms of creating and sharing culture, information and knowledge in order to construct a “non-monopolised” economy.

In order to show the dangers of this censorship machine which would mean the end of most GIFs, memes, video reviews, parodies, covers, tutorials, gameplays and many other everyday contents one finds on the Internet, Xnet has produced this viral video which should be used by everyone, everywhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAcTeYtUzQY

Information and educational materials are prepared and shared, together with tools for citizen action to defend our rights and freedoms from this dangerous proposal:

https://xnet-x.net/stop-censorchip-machine-ley-copyright/
https://xnet-x.net/derechos-fundamentales-amenazados-filtrado-contenidos-copyright/
https://xnet-x.net/impide-filtrado-contenidos-por-copyright-en-europa/
https://xnet-x.net/5-razones-filtrado-de-contenido-economicamente-malo/
https://xnet-x.net/operacion-circular-avalar-canon-aede-tasa-google/
https://xnet-x.net/copyright-ue-carta-libertades-civiles-justicia-asuntos-de-interior-libe/
https://xnet-x.net/monitoreo-filtrado-contenido-inceptable-articulo13-copyright-ue/
https://xnet-x.net/gobierno-pp-censura-automatizada-copyright/
https://xnet-x.net/espana-lidera-consejo-ue-amenaza-libertades-internet-censorshipmachine/

Press:
http://www.publico.es/actualidad/ue-busca-blindar-negocio-copyright.html
http://www.infolibre.es/noticias/mundo/2017/03/07/una_nueva_campana_carga_contra_reforma_ley_copyright_ue_62158_1022.html
http://www.europapress.es/portaltic/internet/noticia-nueva-campana-carga-contra-reforma-ley-copyright-ue-lema-memes-no-hay-democracia-20170307092947.html
http://www.eleconomista.es/tecnologia/noticias/8203145/03/17/Una-nueva-campana-carga-contra-la-reforma-de-la-ley-de-copyright-de-la-UE-bajo-el-lema-Sin-memes-no-hay-democracia.html
http://www.expansion.com/agencia/europa_press/2017/03/07/20170307092944.html
http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/internet/2017/03/07/legales-memes/00031488878915777944341.htm
http://www.elboletin.com/tecnologia/146520/campana-evitar-copyright-ue-maquina-censura.html
http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/24/inenglish/1490362000_295766.html
http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2017/03/08/actualidad/1488995404_382434.html
http://www.publico.es/sociedad/tasa-google-industria-editorial-paga-validar-canon-aede.html
https://www.genbeta.com/actualidad/los-editores-se-pagan-la-tasa-google-a-si-mismos-para-legitimar-el-canon-aedehttp://www.elboletin.com/noticia/150976/tecnologia/denuncian-que-los-editores-se-pagan-a-si-mismos-la-tasa-google-para-validar-el-canon-aede.html
http://www.media-tics.com/noticia/7569/medios-de-comunicacion/axel-springer-aplica-la-tasa-google-a-su-propio-agregador.html
http://www.publico.es/politica/copyright-rajoy-presiona-ue-crear-maquina-censura-internet-acabar-memes.html
https://www.infolibre.es/noticias/politica/2017/10/26/presiones_espana_francia_portugal_censura_automatizada_copyright_71139_1012.html
http://www.elboletin.com/noticia/155110/tecnologia/desvelan-las-presiones-del-gobierno-en-favor-de-una-mayor-censura-en-la-reforma-europea-del-copyright.htmlhttp://arainfo.org/el-partido-popular-presiona-en-la-ue-en-favor-de-la-censura-automatizada-de-contenido-en-internet/

“Canon Digital” Private Copy Levy in the Spanish State

The Spanish government approves again an absurd and anachronistic private copy levy; a measure for collection purposes that applies to private copying, an exception to copyright, a right that had already been virtually nonexistent since the last reform of the Spanish Intellectual Property Law.

The new private copy levy contradicts again the TJUE ruling – the Padawan case http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/03/03/navegante/1299148747.html – The ruling said that business use must be exempt. The “new” private copy levy contradicts this ruling by making the classic pirouette of changing the burden of proof. It is up to you the customer to prove the use you make and not for the one who collect the levy to show the reason why it charges it… no matter the use, it charges everyone by default.

https://xnet-x.net/aprobado-nuevo-canon-digital-2017/

Copyright exceptions to and limitations in Spain

Present-day context in Spain of implemented and yet to be implemented exceptions to and limitations of authors’ rights. Comparison with the situation in other countries of the European Union.
– With regard to copyright reform in the European Union it is necessary to strive to ensure that all the legal uses of content coming under authors’ rights do not disappear into the sphere of automatic algorithms.
– In the national context it is necessary to bear in mind the exceptions present in other countries that are absent in Spain, and to exert political pressure for their implementation.
https://xnet-x.net/excepciones-limitaciones-derechos-de-autor/

# FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND PROTECTION OF LEAKERS / ALERTERS / WHISTLEBLOWERS

Anticorruption whistleblowing platforms

Xnet launches in the Barcelona City Hall the first public Anti-Corruption Complaint Box using anonymity protection technology like Tor and GlobaLeaks (“Bústia Ètica” in Catalan). Xnet has always espoused the idea that democracy can only exist if institutions work together in equal conditions with aware, well-organised citizens. The Box aims to provide a way to make this kind of teamwork possible. Corruption can’t be eliminated by institutions scrutinising themselves. Civil society must play a central, continuous role.

With this pioneering project, the Barcelona City Hall is the first municipal government to invite citizens to use tools which enable them to send information in a way that is secure, that guarantees privacy and gives citizens the option to be totally anonymous.

https://xnet-x.net/en/whistleblowing-platform-barcelona-city-council/

Link to Barcelona City Hall’s Anti-Corruption Complaint Box:
https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/bustiaetica/es (Spanish)

Press:
https://boingboing.net/2017/01/19/barcelona-government-officiall.html
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/xnet/whistleblowing-platform-against-corruption-for-city-council-of-barcelona
http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/01/24/la-mairie-de-barcelone-tend-les-bras-aux-lanceurs-d-alerte_5068211_3234.html
http://agencias.abc.es/agencias/noticia.asp?noticia=2420477
https://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/123739/ciutadans/ja/poden/alertar/corrupcio/amb/bustia/etica/barcelona
http://www.elperiodico.com/es/extra/20170311/buzon-denuncia-casos-corrupcion-5884429

After the first launch in Barcelona, this anonymous whistleblower platform set by Xnet has been also replicated in the Antifraud Office of Catalunya and it is soon to be replicated in the government of Valencia as well.

Whislteblowers protection legilslation

In Catalonia

Xnet warns of the dangerous cosmetic operation lurking behind the “Proposició de llei de protecció dels denunciants i altres mesures de lluita contra la corrupció” (Draft Law on Whistleblower Protection and Other Measures for Combating Corruption) presented by the parliamentary group Ciutadans. The draft law is written in very general, poorly developed terms, and it lacks real, specific measures. Only seven pages long, it is clearly a law drafted in a hurry in order to occupy the political space of civic demands in this area. It does not include any of the basic demands of civil society or international organisations concerned about the issues.

https://xnet-x.net/ca/ridicula-proposicio-llei-proteccio-denunciants-corrupcio-catalunya/

Owing to its imprecise nature, the draft law presented in Catalonia does not cover the very serious threats to civil rights which exist in the equivalent law for Spain. Hence, after conversations with the political parties we have consulted—CUP, ERC, CSQP—we believe that, for the moment, the best alternative is to let the proceedings for the law go ahead but to denounce the gravity of its cosmetic nature and the fact that it denies legitimate status of the demands of civil society.

Xnet is working in coordination with members of the Catalan parliament to produce thoroughgoing amendments to this empty document and to transform it into an exemplary, pioneering piece of legislation in Europe.

Press:
http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20170530/423045261444/erc-csqp-y-cup-denuncian-que-cs-se-apropie-de-la-lucha-contra-la-corrupcion.html
http://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/ampliacioerc-csqp-cup-i-xnet-titllen-doperacio-cosmetica-la-proposicio-de-llei-de-cs-per-protegir-denunciants-de-corrupcio/
http://www.ara.cat/politica/JxSi-CSQP-CUP-Xnet-Cs_0_1805219568.html
http://www.aldia.cat/espanya/noticia-activistes-dinternet-veuen-cosmetica-proposta-cs-denunciants-corrupcio-20170530121649.html
http://elmon.cat/noticia/203035/erc-csqp-cup-i-xnet-titllen-doperacio-cosmetica-la-proposicio-de-llei-de-cs-per-protegir-denunciants-de-corrupcio

In Spain

Concealed behind the attractive name “Proposición de Ley Integral de Lucha contra la Corrupción y Protección de los Denunciantes” (Comprehensive Law on the Struggle against Corruption and Protection of Whistleblowers) is a draft Whistleblowers Protection law which not only fails to protect whistleblowers but also works to the grave detriment of civil rights
Xnet embarked on a campaign to warn of the dangers of the draft law and this has now been picked up by other individuals and groups which had originally given it their blind support. See:

https://xnet-x.net/proposicion-ley-proteccion-denunciante-vuelve-la-stasi/

– It only envisages protection for civil servants (career workers in the public sector) while failing to protect people who denounce abuses against the public interest in the private sector or any other sphere that affects public interest, thus producing the absurd situation in which people involved in many of the currently relevant cases would be excluded from protection.
– It creates an independent Public Integrity Authority which: has the power to “engage in activities of investigation and inspection, for the purposes of which it will be able to accede to any information held by public or private natural or juridical persons”. WITHOUT A WARRANT.
– It is not subject to any disciplinary system or oversight and, lacking due supervision, it would have absolute power.
– It is financed by the “fines it dictates and the penalties it has the power to impose”.
– It does not contemplate the most important protection for a whistleblower, which is preserving anonymity. Any legislation passed without this option is at variance with United Nations reports and recommendations, current instructions from the prosecutor’s inquiry in Spain, and advanced legislation in this area presently being introduced around the world. Moreover, it is an excuse for opening files on whistleblowers, thus increasing their exposure and vulnerability.
– It requires a sufficient appearance of veracity which places the burden of responsibility on the whistleblower with an intimidating effect.
– It does not stipulate sufficient protection for whistleblowers who are faced with threats, legal prosecution and physical or professional reprisals.
– It uses the loaded term “denunciante” which has the negative historical connotations of “informer”, while also placing this legislation at a remove from that elsewhere in Europe where, for the past three centuries, a different term with positive connotations has been used, as is the case with “whistleblower” (which we translate as alertador in Spanish—literally, “person who sounds the alert”).

Xnet has been working on proposals for specific amendments to this dangerous draft law and has met with members of parliament from En comú, ERC, Marea, Compromís, EHBildu, and Podem in order to proceed with these amendments.
https://xnet-x.net/enmiendas-ley-contra-corrupcion-proteccion-denunciantes/

Press:
http://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20170329/421289361196/activistas-de-internet-piden-al-congreso-ayuda-para-frenar-la-ley-contra-la-corrupcion-de-ciudadanos-por-liberticida.html
http://www.publico.es/politica/peligros-ocultos-ley-fachada-ciudadanos.html
http://ctxt.es/es/20170322/Politica/11819/Ley-corrupci%C3%B3n-proteccion-denunciantes-Ciudadanos-Xnet.htm
http://www.vozpopuli.com/la_tribuna_de_juan_pina/Stasi-Ciudadanos_7_1011568835.html
http://www.expansion.com/agencia/europa_press/2017/03/29/20170329143438.html
http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-activistas-internet-piden-ayuda-congreso-frenar-ley-anticorrupcion-ciudadanos-liberticida-20170329143438.html

In Europe

Xnet took part in Brussels at the Roundtable on Whistleblower Protection in Europe, where it warned of the serious situation in Spain and the dangers of the draft law now in parliament, and presented its recommendations on the European scale. These have been included in the Public Consultation on Whistleblower Protection of the European Commission.


https://xnet-x.net/mesa-redonda-proteccion-alertadores-union-europea/
https://xnet-x.net/resolucion-parlamento-europeo-proteccion-alertadores/

Press:
https://elsaltodiario.com/libertad-informacion/ue-debate-proteccion-legal-filtradores
http://www.elboletin.com/noticia/155053/nacional/diferencias-en-la-lucha-contra-la-corrupcion:-bruselas-propone-admitir-las-denuncias-anonimas.html

# NET NEUTRALITY

Application of the new rules of net neutrality in the Spanish State

On 30 April 2016 the European Union’s new Regulation on net neutrality came into force. In Spain, the State Secretariat for the Information Society and the Digital Agenda of the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda (MinETAD in the Spanish acronym) is responsible for carrying out supervision measures to ensure that Internet providers comply with this regulation, and to take corrective measures in the event of non-compliance.

However, a year and a half after the Regulation came into force, we have received no news (and not for lack of trying) of any measure taken by the State Secretariat for the Information Society and the Digital Agenda with regard to net neutrality. In the entire MinETAD hardly anyone knows that the Regulation exists, let alone understands that there is an obligation to enforce it.

Since there is as yet no sign of proactive fulfilment by MinETAD of its obligations regarding net neutrality, Xnet publicly denounces this negligence and is studying the possibilities of addressing a complaint to higher European Union bodies. We did not struggle for and win the Save the Internet battle for net neutrality in Europe in order to be ignored here in Spain.

https://xnet-x.net/en/inaction-minetad-defend-net-neutrality/
https://xnet-x.net/en/zero-rating-offers-contrary-to-net-neutrality-in-spain/

Press:
http://www.elmundo.es/tecnologia/2017/07/04/595b7293468aeb6b368b467b.html
https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2017-07-03/vodafone-tarifas-datos-neutralidad-red_1408900/

# PRIVACY VERSUS MASS SURVEILLANCE ON THE INTERNET

Nullity of the Spanish Data Conservation law

Xnet requests to the Spanish Agency for Data Protection analysis and action on the invalidity of the Spanish Data Retention Law 25/2007.

On December 21, 2016, the TJUE ruled in its Tele2 case (accumulated cases “C-203/15 and C-698/15) that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits all Member States the adoption and application of laws that enable “the preventive, general and indiscriminate retention of traffic data and the location of all registered users and subscribers of all electronic communications.”

Months after the ruling of the TJUE, the requirements of general and indiscriminate retention of traffic data and location of the Spanish Data Retention Law 25/2007 are still valid.

Xnet has presented these facts before the legal office of the Spanish Data Protection Agency, asking them to analyze and adopt the necessary measures at thier hands so that the legislative framework of the Span nullifies or corrects the Law of Conservation of Details of the Spanish State 25/2007, adapting it to the cited sentences and to respect the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as ruled by the TJUE.

https://xnet-x.net/nulidad-ley-conservacion-datos/

Press:
http://arainfo.org/xnet-solicita-la-modificacion-de-la-ley-de-conservacion-de-datos-del-estado-espanol/
https://www.lamarea.com/2017/01/13/democracia-y-neutralidad-en-internet-derechos-pendientes/

Xnet also denounced that far from recapitulating with respect to the disproportionate data retention data Law 25/2007, the Spanish Government goes further and now pressures the European institutions to increase the data retention within the ePrivacy Regulations, ignoring, once again, the sentences of the CJEU and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

https://xnet-x.net/gobierno-espana-retencion-datos-eprivacy/

Transparency in secret international intelligence exchange

Xnet launches with Privacy International, and 30 other organizations, an international campaign for greater transparency in secret international intelligence exchange activities. We have written to the national intelligence oversight bodies in more than 40 countries demanding information about the intelligence exchange activities of their governments.

In Spain, we have sent the letter to the Interior Commission of the Congress of Deputies, the Commission of Interior of the Senate and the Ombudsman.

Countries can use secret intelligence exchange agreements to circumvent international and national rules on massive surveillance. These agreements can also lead to the exchange of information that facilitates violations of human rights, particularly in countries with poor human rights records or with a weak rule of law.

https://xnet-x.net/carta-abierta-supervision-intercambio-inteligencia/

Alarm on the new platform Aura presented by Telefónica

Xnet sounded the alarm on the new platform Aura presented by Telefónica. With Aura, Telefónica will begin to process our data which it has in vast quantities as a telecommunications services provider, and to create profiles in order to take advantage of users to do business.

Telefónica itself says that all these data are ours because we can access them and consult them and this is positive. However, and in accordance with the data protection law, we should also be able to require that these data are not processed without our consent.

As a company, Telefónica retains data of a person’s bills, messages and phone calls (how many and to which numbers), payments, and so on. It also has data concerning the antenna to which one is connected when browsing with a mobile phone (ergo geolocation), how many and which devices are connected to one’s router, which websites and services one visits and for how long.

https://xnet-x.net/aura-telefonica-procesa-negocia-tus-datos/
https://edri.org/is-telefonica-offering-real-transparency-and-control/

Press:
http://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20170227/42356858301/colectivo-xnet-critica-que-con-aura-telefonica-negocia-con-datos-de-clientes.html
http://www.finanzas.com/noticias/empresas/20170227/colectivo-xnet-critica-aura-3575038.html
http://arainfo.org/nace-aura-la-empresa-del-grupo-telefonica-que-procesa-y-negocia-con-tus-datos/

Protection of Strong Encryption

Xnet, together with other European organizations in campaign for the defense of privacy and digital rights within the ePrivacy Regulation, welcomes the result of the vote of the LIBE committee (leader of the dossier) resulting in improvements that demand privacy by default, and protect strong encryption (forbidding backdoors or for governments to demand their weakening).

https://xnet-x.net/eprivacy-libe-voto/
https://xnet-x.net/reglamento-eprivacy-lookwhosstalking/

# BASIC HOW-TO GUIDE FOR PRESERVING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET

During the catalan crisis, Xnet has prepared this technical guide with tips and tools addressed to activists, journalists and citizens whose fundamental freedoms and rights on the Internet are being restricted by state powers or authoritarian governments.

Everything explained in this guide is to protect the inviolability of our communications, our right to privacy and freedom of political opinion, expression and access to information, all of them fundamental rights that have been legally recognized for centuries.

It is important that legal doctrines that blame the tools for the crimes are not established. The tools are neutral. Making use of a particular tool can never be a crime in itself. It is only the use that is made of them that can be considered criminal.

In the post-Snowden revelation era, many institutions, including the UN and the EU, remember that the only way that people have to protect themselves from mass surveillance is through the use of autonomous tools to protect our communications.

https://xnet-x.net/en/how-to-guide-for-preserving-fundamental-rights-internet/

Press:
https://boingboing.net/2017/10/02/pwnage-to-catalonia.html
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/xnet/repression-and-digital-resistance-in-catalanreferendum
https://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/139119/publiquen/guia/eines/digitals/protegir/privacitat/mobils/ordinadors
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/una-guia-breu-per-a-preservar-els-nostres-drets-a-internet/

# PUBLIC MONEY? PUBLIC CODE!

Xnet, together with the Free Software Foundation Europe and other 31 organizations, published on September 31, 2017 an open letter asking our lawmakers to enact legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence.

Digital services offered and used by our public administrations are the critical infrastructure of 21st century democratic nations. In order to establish trustworthy systems, public bodies must ensure they have full control over the software and the computer systems at the core of our state digital infrastructure. We need software that guarantees freedom of choice, access, and competition. We need software that helps public administrations regain full control of their critical digital infrastructure, allowing them to become and remain independent from a handful of companies.

https://xnet-x.net/dinero-publico-codigo-publico/

Press:
http://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20170913/431262292479/31-colectivos-reclaman-una-legislacion-que-obligue-a-las-instituciones-publicas-a-utilizar-software-de-codigo-abierto.html
http://www.cuatro.com/noticias/tecnologia/colectivos-reclaman-legislacion-instituciones-publicas_0_2434950641.html
http://www.eleconomista.es/tecnologia/noticias/8605372/09/17/31-colectivos-reclaman-una-legislacion-que-obligue-a-las-instituciones-publicas-a-utilizar-software-de-codigo-abierto.html

The post Summary of Xnet’s work defending Digital Rights in 2017 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Small, community-owned ISPs are spreading – and could help to protect open internet access

Sammi-Jo Lee, writing for Coop News, gives us the lowdown on the P2P alternative to ISP big players.

Sammi-Jo Lee: In 2011, brand new fibre-optic cables lit up for the first time across the forested terrain of the Ozarks and up and down the farmlands of central Missouri, USA.

Here among the hickory and red oaks, you might expect to be in the land that the internet forgot. That’s what it could have been, had residents not decided to stop waiting for large for-profit telecommunications companies. They built their own internet instead.

They turned to their electric utility for a solution, and Co-Mo Electric Cooperative, established in 1939 to bring power to the region’s farms, answered the call.

“What got the project off the ground was the membership demand,” said Randy Klindt, who at the time was the general manager of Co-Mo Connect, the co-op’s internet branch. “The members all drove it from the grassroots. They went door to door. They paid their neighbours’ $100 deposit.”

Later at a community meeting, a local bank surprised the room by paying the deposit of everyone present. They quickly crowdfunded enough money to begin construction, and in 2011, just before Christmas, its first members came online.

There are hundreds of small internet service providers owned by member co-operatives.

Co-Mo’s members aren’t the only people who can say they own their own internet utility. In cities and rural swaths across the country, there are hundreds of small internet service providers owned by member co-operatives, local municipalities, or tribal governments. Over the past two decades, these small internet service providers (ISPs) have been spreading and gaining notice. As success stories travel and inspire other communities to ask how they can do the same thing, they’re multiplying faster than ever.

These locally owned networks are poised to do what federal and state governments and the marketplace couldn’t. One, they can bring affordable access to fast internet to anyone, narrowing the digital divide that deepens individual and regional socioeconomic disparities.

Two, these small operators can protect open internet access from the handful of large ISPs that stand to pocket the profits from net neutrality rollbacks announced by the Trump administration. That’s according to Christopher Mitchell, who is the director of Community Broadband Projects, a project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Mitchell, who has been tracking and advocating community-owned broadband networks for a decade, hopes that this will be the moment when people rebel against the administration’s attack on net neutrality and expand rural cooperative and municipal ISPs.

“The FCC is basically taking the regulations off of big companies, but local companies can still offer high-quality internet access at good prices,” Mitchell says.

Without net neutrality, broadband providers will be able to charge more for better access and faster speeds or be able to restrict traffic to preferred business partners over competitors. More independent ISPs can offer consumers a wider variety of choices.

Internet connectivity is a crucial economic leveller, without which people fall behind in schools, health, and the job market.

“No one will have to offer prioritised content in the ways that we fear AT&T and Comcast will. So local investments can preserve access to the open internet,” Mitchell says.

Can internet co-ops offer an open alternative to big ISPs like Comcast?

But, for many, before the question of an open internet and net neutrality comes to the question of whether people can have access to and afford the internet at all.

Remote, sparsely populated areas like the rural Ozarks are often synonymous with the digital divide. Large carriers don’t have a financial incentive to enter those markets where getting high returns on their investment are unlikely if not impossible. According to the FCC, 39% of rural Americans – 23 million people – don’t have access to broadband speeds.

Before Co-Mo Connect got off the ground, Klindt says, only one out of five members had access to broadband. Many still crawled along on obsolete dial-up connections. By 2014, however, nearby Tipton (population 3,351) enjoyed connection speeds in the top 20% of the US and the fastest in Missouri. By 2016, Co-Mo’s entire service area was on the digital grid.

ILSR estimates that there are more than 300 telephone and electric co-ops that provide rural fibre-optic internet service. Since the late 1990s, these co-ops have been installing more cable and leveraging existing infrastructure to provide faster service to their communities. A few have even built networks from scratch, such as RS Fiber in Minnesota and Allband in Michigan.

Matthew Rantanen, the director of technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association, tells another story of access and adoption from reservation lands, where the FCC estimates that 68 percent of residents – 1.3 million people – lack access. Rantanen directed the initiative, which introduced wireless internet to 17 tribal reservation communities in San Diego County.

“Whatever is right for the local culture and the local government capacity is probably the best way forward.”

The initiative, Rantanen says, inspired Valerie Fast Horse, the IT director of the Coeur d’Alene tribe in Idaho, to build an entirely fibre tribal network. “Networking is in its very early stages, and I can’t wait to see some of this blossom,” Rantanen says. He estimates that just 30 of more than 300 tribal reservations in the US have broadband access.

Internet connectivity is a crucial economic leveller, he says, without which people fall behind in schools, health, and the job market. “Without that resource,” Rantanen says, “You’re a different class. You’re [on] a different level of participation in the US and the world.”

Though unequal access is primarily thought of as a rural problem, it affects urban centres, as well. ILSR estimates 90 cities are connected with high-quality municipal networks, while more than 200 are connected with more basic networks.

“Customers want reliable, fast, and inexpensive service. The market is not solving this problem,” says Deb Socia, the executive director of Next Century Cities, which works with 183 mayors across the country in hatching plans to fund locally based solutions in 19 states.

“The biggest dilemma for cities is that there has been an erosion of the capacity for communities to solve their own problems, and that has happened primarily at the state and federal level,” Socia says. Some networks, like the one in Ammon, Idaho, lease their networks to other providers. Others, like the one in Chattanooga, Tennessee, sell services like a conventional ISP.

“There are a lot of workable models,” says Mitchell, “and whatever is right for the local culture and the local government capacity is probably the best way forward.”

Cobbling together local solutions is the common challenge across all of these community projects, says Mitchell, whether it’s cracking the funding code, slashing through the governmental red tape, or cultivating enthusiastic leadership to convince communities that, in order to have their own internet service provider, it’s worth it to try something new.

Looking down the road, Mitchell believes that a strong network of small, competitive community-owned ISPs is possible. By syphoning revenue away from the monopoly ISPs, they could disrupt their ability to dominate their markets. And also, if net neutrality does indeed get rolled back, competition could make it less appealing for large ISPs to restrict content.

“I would say that if we had a flourishing of these local networks, it would still significantly hurt the ability of Comcast and AT&T to create tollbooths,” to prioritise content, Mitchell says. “It’s going to be fascinating to see what’s going to happen in coming years.”

• This article was originally published in Yes! Magazine.

Photo by Stephen D. Melkisethian

The post In the battle for net neutrality, can co-ops keep the internet open and democratic? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

When it comes to the internet, our connections are generally controlled by telecom companies. But a group of people in Detroit is trying to change that. Motherboard met with the members of the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII), a group that is building their own wireless networks from the ground up in order to provide affordable and high-speed internet to prevent the creation of a digital class system.

Killer video about Detroit’s Equitable Internet Initiative. Also check out the Mesh Network project in Sarantaporo, Greece.

This video was originally published in Vice, but make some time to read the related article posted in Motherboard. Here’s an extract:

Jason Koebler: The Federal Communications Commission will announce a full repeal of net neutrality protections Wednesday, according to the New York Times and several other media outlets. It is possible that a committee of telecom industry plutocrats who have from the outset made it their mission to rollback regulations on the industry will bow to public pressure before Wednesday, but let’s not count on it.

It is time to take action, and that doesn’t mean signing an online petition, upvoting a Reddit post, or calling your member of Congress.

Net neutrality as a principle of the federal government will soon be dead, but the protections are wildly popular among the American people and are integral to the internet as we know it. Rather than putting such a core tenet of the internet in the hands of politicians, whose whims and interests change with their donors, net neutrality must be protected by a populist revolution in the ownership of internet infrastructure and networks.

In short, we must end our reliance on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure. The great news is this is currently possible in most parts of the United States.

Read the rest of the article in Motherboard.

The post To Save Net Neutrality, We Must Build Our Own Internet appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Matt Petronzio: Net neutrality is in jeopardy. It’s time for you to take action.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is the U.S. government’s media regulator, is planning to completely scrap Obama-era rules protecting the idea that the internet should be an even playing field. Without these rules, the door is open for internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to potentially favor or discriminate against certain content and services, accept money for preferential treatment, or even charge users more for better access.

Put simply: online free speech, innovation, and creativity are at stake.

The FCC and its chairman, Ajit Pai , are cleverly burying the news this week while much of the country is focused on the Thanksgiving holiday. Voting on the rules is expected to take place as early as Dec. 14.

But you can join the fight immediately in one major way: call your representatives.

Your lawmakers in Congress have the power to stop the FCC’s elimination of net neutrality rules, and as we’ve seen time and time again, calling your reps actually works.

Here are a few tools that will help you contact your members of Congress, demand a free and fair internet, and make your voice heard.

Be sure to also educate yourself on the topic of net neutrality, and keep your eyes peeled for protests across the country, online and off.

1. Battle for the Net

#NetNeutrality is NOT DEAD YET. Congress has stopped FCC votes before. Do NOT give up!

1) RETWEET this to help spread the word that we can still stop this.

2) CALL your lawmakers: https://t.co/S8d0OxZQe0

3) PROTEST at Verizon stores on Dec 7: https://t.co/OvdNJe0Idh pic.twitter.com/oPXgyGRsam

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) November 21, 2017

Battle for the Net is a joint initiative from three organizations fighting to protect net neutrality: Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and the Free Press Action Fund. This central hub gives you a great overview of the issue and what the FCC is trying to do.

The website has a tool, front and center, where you can enter your phone number and you’ll be connected to your representative. You’ll also get a suggested script of what to say.

Find more info here.

2. 5 Calls

https://twitter.com/make5calls/status/932956258646315008

5 Calls doesn’t just make it easy to call Congress — it gives you a direct line to Pai’s office at the FCC, too. The site’s net neutrality page includes short instructions and scripts for you to read from, so you can speak with confidence.

Check it out here.

3. Free Press Action Fund

Call your members of Congress. Tell them to oppose the FCC’s plan to end #NetNeutrality. Our call tool makes it easy: https://t.co/reb5iyjIAk

— Free Press Action (@freepressaction) November 21, 2017

The Free Press Action Fund finds the right numbers for you to call just by your ZIP code. You can take action at the Free Press website and also on the Save the Internet site.

4. Electronic Frontier Foundation

The FCC’s new plan will create a future where only the largest Internet & cable, & telephone companies will survive while every start-up, small business, & new innovators are crowded out, & the voice of nonprofits and ordinary individuals are suppressed. https://t.co/DTaMdWmKDQ

— EFF (@EFF) November 21, 2017

Not into phone calls? No problem. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends “your civil liberties in a digital world,” has a tool that lets you customize an email message to your representatives.

Find it here.

5. CREDO Action

CREDO statement on the FCC order dismantling #NetNeutrality: "This decision is bad for our economy, our free speech and our democracy." https://t.co/zZawMW8EXF pic.twitter.com/TaQcdHe4U4

— CREDO Mobile (@CREDOMobile) November 21, 2017

Progressive change organization CREDO Action has a clearly outlined, step-by-step guide for calling your reps about net neutrality.

Click here to use the tool.

6. ACLU

The FCC introduced a plan to completely repeal #NetNeutrality. Call Congress NOW before it's too late. https://t.co/edAOIrEi2R
#SaveNetNeutrality

— ACLU (@ACLU) November 21, 2017

The ACLU is known for taking action on a variety of social issues, and it’s partnering with Fight for the Future and the Harry Potter Alliance to fight for net neutrality.

Find the organization’s call tool and a helpful script here.

BONUS: Consider donating to impactful organizations

Beyond calling Congress, various grassroots efforts are leading the charge to make sure the government hears your voice on net neutrality.

Here are a few organizations that you can support:

• Fight for the Future
• Demand Progress
• Free Press
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Access Now
• Public Knowledge

WATCH: What is net neutrality?

The post Here’s how to contact your reps in support of net neutrality appeared first on P2P Foundation.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers like Comcast & Verizon should not control what we see and do online. In 2015, startups, Internet freedom groups, and 3.7 million commenters won strong net neutrality rules from the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The rules prohibit from blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization—”fast lanes” for sites that pay, and slow lanes for everyone else.

We are Team Internet. We support net neutrality, freedom of speech.

Nearly everyone who understands and depends on the Internet supports net neutrality, whether they’re startup founders, activists, gamers, politicians, investors, comedians, YouTube stars, or typical Internet users who just want their Internet to work as advertised—regardless of their political party. But don’t take our word for it. Ask around, or watch some of these videos.

They are Team Cable. They want to end net neutrality, to control & tax the Internet.

Cable companies are famous for high prices and poor service. Several rank as the most hated companies in America. Now, they’re lobbying the FCC and Congress to end net neutrality. Why? It’s simple: if they win the power to slow sites down, they can bully any site into paying millions to escape the “slow lane.” This would amount to a tax on every sector of the American economy. Every site would cost more, since they’d all have to pay big cable. Worse, it would extinguish the startups and independent voices who can’t afford to pay. If we lose net neutrality, the Internet will never be the same.

Send a letter to defend net neutrality.

Photo by DavidDPD

The post The Internet is under attack: This is the Battle for the Net appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The future of the internet is in peril, thanks to surveillance, net neutrality and other assaults. But there are communities that are building their own.

Like many Americans, I don’t have a choice about my internet service provider. I live in a subsidized housing development where there’s only one option, and it happens to be, by some accounts, the most hated company in the United States.

Like its monstrous peers, my provider is celebrating that Congress has recently permitted it to spy on me. Although it pretends to support the overwhelming majority of the country’s population who support net neutrality, it has been trying to bury the principle of an open internet for years and, under Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, is making good progress.

I can already feel my browsing habits shift. I’m reigning in curiosities a bit more, a bit more anxious about who might be watching. I’ve taken to using a VPN, like people have to do to access the open internet from China. And the real effects go deeper than personal anxieties.

Although the fight for an open internet tends to have Silicon Valley tech bros at the forefront, it’s a racial justice issue; arbitrary powers for corporations tend not to help marginalized populations. It’s a rural justice issue, too.

The big service providers pushing the deregulation spree are the same companies that have so far refused to bring broadband to less-dense areas. They are holding under-served communities hostage by proposing a deal: roll back rights to private, open media, and we’ll give you cheaper internet. Trump’s Republican party is taking the bait.

This is not a deal we need to make. It shouldn’t be necessary to choose between universal access and basic rights. But this deal has been a long time coming, thanks to long campaigns to convince us there is no other way. It turns out, though, there is.

Up in the mountains west of me, a decade and a half ago, the commercial internet service providers weren’t bringing high-speed connectivity to residents, so a group of neighbors banded together and created their own internet cooperative. Big providers love making their jobs sound so complicated that nobody else could do it, but these people set up their own wireless network, and they still maintain it.

Of course, their service remains pretty rudimentary; the same can’t be said of Longmont, Colorado, a city 20 minutes from where I live in the opposite direction. There, the city-owned NextLight fiber network provides some of the fastest connectivity in the country for a reasonable price. In Longmont, all the surveillance and anti-neutrality stuff simply isn’t relevant.

“As a not-for-profit community-owned broadband provider, our loyalty is entirely to our customer-owners,” a spokesman recently told the local paper. “That will not change, regardless of what happens to the FCC regulations in question.”

Municipalities across the country, from Santa Monica to Chattanooga, have quietly created their own internet service providers – and for the most part residents love them, especially in comparison to the competition.

A major reason more towns haven’t followed suit is that the big telecoms companies have lobbied hard to discourage or outright ban community broadband, pressuring many states to enact legal barriers. It’s happening again in West Virginia. But the tide may be turning.

Consumer Reports has taken up a crusade against these restrictions. Colorado has one on the books, but jurisdictions can opt out by referendum. Following Longmont’s example, in the 2016 election, the citizens of 26 cities and countiesin the state opened the door to building internet service providers of their own.

Local government isn’t the only path for creating internet service accountable to its users. On the far western end of the state, an old energy cooperative called Delta Montrose Electric Association has created a new offering for its member-owners, Elevate Fiber. It delivers a remarkable 100 megabits per second – upload and download – to homes for $50 a month.

Electric co-ops once brought power to rural areas to people that investor-owned companies wouldn’t serve, and now they’re starting to do the same with broadband. The Obama-era FCC supported these efforts. Donald Trump has voiced support for rural broadband in general, but it remains to be seen whether that will mean subsidies for big corporations, whose existing customers despise them, or opportunities for communities to take control of the internet for themselves.

Whatever happens in Washington, we can start building an internet that respects our rights on the local level. What would be the best route for creating community broadband in your community?

In cities and towns, it’s probably through a municipal government, or even neighborhood mesh networks, which can swell across whole regions. Rural areas can piggyback on existing electric and telephone cooperatives, or start new co-ops from scratch.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is one of the best organizations tracking these options, and its Community Networks website is full of resources about who is doing what where, and why.

It turns out that many community-based internet providers actually oppose the form net neutrality has come to take. There are troubling reasons the idea is so vigorously supported by internet giants like Facebook and Google, who also have surveillance addictions of their own.

There is a genuine debate to be had. Entrapment by unpopular, unaccountable corporations doesn’t constitute one. Those of us who rely on regulations to protect us from our providers can’t afford to budge on letting those regulations go. But when our points of access are accountable to us, the debate about the future of the internet can get a lot more interesting.

Photo by Free Press Pics

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WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?

Net neutrality is the basic principle that protects our free speech on the Internet. “Title II” of the Communications Act is what provides the legal foundation for net neutrality and prevents Internet Service Providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from slowing down and blocking websites, or charging apps and sites extra fees to reach an audience (which they then pass along to consumers.)

WHY IS NET NEUTRALITY IMPORTANT?

The Internet has thrived precisely because of net neutrality. It’s what makes it so vibrant and innovative—a place for creativity, free expression, and exchange of ideas. Without net neutrality, the Internet will become more like Cable TV, where the content you see is what your provider puts in front of you.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN ON JULY 12TH?

We’ll provide tools for everyone to make it super easy for your followers / visitors to take action. From the SOPA blackout to the Internet Slowdown, we’ve shown time and time again that when the Internet comes together, we can stop censorship and corruption. Now, we have to do it again!

Extra Reading

Here are some excellent articles for additional depth. They cover the issue, its political history, the struggles we’ve overcome, and the fight ahead in Congress and at the FCC.

• Comcast May Have Found a Major Net Neutrality Loophole Wired
• Verizon’s mobile video won’t count against data caps—but Netflix does Ars Technica
• HOW WE WON! Battle for the net
• The FCC’s Net Neutrality Order Protects Internet Freedom by Restoring the Law Medium

Photo by boyan_d; additional image by Free the Net

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The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) and the 28 telecom regulators are currently negotiating guidelines that will clarify the recently adopted net neutrality law in the EU.

“A wrong interpretation of the law not upholding net neutrality unambiguosuly would undermine freedom of expression and the innovative and democratic potential of the Internet in Europe.”

Simona Levi, Xnet

The letter signatories urge BEREC to adopt guidelines give real meaning to this goal, including:

• Careful consideration of so-called “Specialized Services”;
• The reaffirmation that zero rating practices, which are anticompetitive, harm innovation and restrict users freedom of choice; and
• Strictly non-discriminatory traffic management and a clear statement opposing intrusive traffic management that would restrict internet users’ privacy.

Letter – Global open civil society letter to the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) in support of strong net neutrality guidelines:
https://xnet-x.net/img/net-neutrality-letter-BEREC-2016-05-02.pdf

In this regard, Xnet and EDRi on behalf of the SaveTheInternet coalition will meet this Friday with the Spanish Telecom Regulator, the CNMC, to expose our position on how the European TSM Regulation must be interpreted to effectively protect net neutrality, answer their doubts and hear their opinion on the issue. More info soon

More info:

Save The Internet campaign
https://savetheinternet.eu

RespectMyNet, online platform to report net neutrality violations
https://respectmynet.eu

European Parliament fails to provide a strong regulation to unambiguously protect net neutrality
https://xnet-x.net/en/european-parliament-fails-regulation-net-neutrality/

Save Net Neutrality in Europe: next steps
https://2015.fcforum.net/en/net-neutrality/#europe-next-steps

Written response to BEREC stakeholder dialogue with representatives of end-users/consumers and civil society
https://edri.org/files/BEREC_Hearing2015_EDRiposition.pdf

Spanish government attacks Internet in Europe
https://xnet-x.net/en/spanish-government-attacks-net-neutrality/

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