What is happening in Spain with the Internet
Spanish internauts are, for the first time, organizing around a political issue that affects their freedom. It is a great sign that this beautiful idea of the Web is universal and has profound impact in strengthening liberty. Here is a summary of what is going on:
The music and movie lobbies in Spain first managed to place one of their own, a moviemaker, as “Minister of Culture”. (This ministry has a very questionable purpose, can you imagine the Culture Department in a US administration?). Then she put together a law proposal drafted by those lobbies that pretty much gives an agency within her Ministry the power to determine that a website has links to copyrighted material, and force the cooperation of an ISP to identify the owner and assist the ministry in shutting the website down. All this without judicial intervention.
The response has been unprecedented, with millions of people mobilizing in defense of the cause, and publishing a manifesto in defense of the fundamental rights (of citizens) on the internet that Cory Doctorow reblogged in English.
I found out that the US embassy in Madrid is pressuring the government and the opposition to go ahead with this law. As a dual citizen I find this quite disturbing. So I wrote a letter to the US ambassador.
RE: the pressure to the Spanish government to keep its purported antipiracy reform
Mr. Ambassador,
I am a dual citizen of the United States and Spain. I reside in Virginia, and travel regularly to Spain. I am an entrepreneur in the high-tech field. With my partners, I generate employment both in the US and in Spain, where we maintain a small offshore development center. In other words, I am a manifestation of the great efforts in friendship and collaboration that the embassy you represent have accomplished between the people of Spain and the United States.
I would like to draw your attention to the purported information in the media, and the Internet, that the US Administration, through its representatives in Spain, is pressuring the Spanish government to go ahead with its attempt to reform Spanish law with its proposed legislation “Anteproyecto de Ley de EconomÃa Sostenible”, in particular its final disposition. At the core of this proposed law, is the establishment of a group within the “Ministerio de Cultura” which would have the right to shut down websites that, in the opinion of a civil servant, contain links to files subject to copyright. The law would demand the cooperation of ISPs hosting these websites to identify the owner of the site.
In my opinion, this is a violation of the separation of powers, an extra-judicial process, and a travesty. It is something that we would never stand for in the US, and it is not reflective of the values that our Constiution upholds, especially regarding Freedom of Speech and Due Process.
Furthermore, as the lifelong entrepreneur that you are, I hope that you understand my dismay at the notion that a government-run institution with very little accountability to the people, easily manipulated by the music and movie industry lobbies, would be putting in place mechanisms that are poorly designed and will most likely stifle innovation and not solve the piracy problem that they are attempting to address.
The Spanish people have, for the first time, expressed their opinion at an unprecedented level regarding this issue and written a manifesto on the rights of Internet users which you can find over here — http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/02/spanish-activists-is.htmlI would kindly ask that you would identify who in your mission is administering this pressure to the government and Spanish politicians, and ask them to stop, since this pressure is not reflective of our values as U.S. citizens and is not in the best interest of our nation.
Let me close by saying that as Americans, we should be quite proud of the fact that a U.S. government funded project, and a U.S. invention such as the Internet, which has proven in the last decade to be one of the greatest instruments to enhance and improve the freedoms that we so dearly uphold, has taken such root in a country as Spain, a young democracy, which still has a less than engaged civil society, and is allowing its citizens to engage in active, participatory civil discourse.
Let us not quell this movement, but support it, and trust, as our Founding Fathers did, in the wisdom of the people to direct their own government.
Sincerely,Samuel Aparicio
