Middlesbrough Council - News Forum - Setting a light to the News

MISSION STATEMENT
Big Brother Watch fights injustice and campaigns to protect our civil liberties and personal freedoms.
The British state has accumulated unprecedented power and the instinct of politicians and bureaucrats is to expand their power base even further into areas unknown in peace time.
Big Brother Watch campaigns to re-establish the balance of power between the state and individuals and families, whether at home or abroad.
We look for the sly, slow seizure of control by the state – of power, of information and of our lives.
We advocate the return of our liberties and freedoms and look to ordinary people to join our cause.
Big Brother Watch is on your side.

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/

A High Court judge ruled earlier today that BT must block the file-sharing website Newsbin – the first time such a judgement has been handed down in the history of UK law. Using the blocking technology CleanFeed, Newzbin2 will be inaccessible for BT customers as a result of a copyright infringement case brought by the Motion Picture Industry of America. Commenting on the judgement, Dominique Lazanski, Big Brother Watch’s technology expert said: “We are deeply disappointed by the High Court’s ruling ordering BT to block access to the Newzbin website. “This ruling may force Internet Service Providers, for fear of being prosecuted, to impose strict controls on the type of web services their users may or may not access. “While illegal copyright infringement is a serious problem which must be tackled, expanding regulations and control over the internet is a hugely regressive step” The Internet Service Providers’ Association has also been sceptical of web blocking. Blocking technology is, according to the group, inappropriate, as it is not designed for such high volume targets as file sharing sites. The widespread use of web blocking technology such as this would set a dangerous precedent and would do little to solve the problem of copyright infringement. It’s market reforms that need to happen, not over-regulation or overbearing policy restrictions.
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/