Art, media, opinion and ideas
I noticed a new blog appear on Planet of the Blogs today- Liz McManus, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. She's clearly writing it herself. I'm in favour of Ms McManus, as she appeared to wish my Grandmother a happy birthday a few years ago at her house party.
If I were Gareth Stack, of the Pod-and-videocast Technolotics, I would contact Bernie Goldbach and ask him if he knew any way of getting a 2-5 min segment from Digital Rights Ireland for his show. I would also read the Digital Rights Ireland pamphlet on Libel Laws in Ireland. And give a copy to his other contributors.
The sleepy days between Christmas and New Year are traditionally a time to release news you don’t want anyone to ask questions about. This year two stories found their way into the public domain which, now that we’re all trying to shake off the coma of Roses and tinsel, deserve a closer look.
As before, my thanks to The Dossing Times for permission to reprint the below. Thank you for your email regarding the voting on the ALVARO Report on Data Retention. As you may be aware the two largest political groups in the Parliament, the EPP and PSE, agreed a deal on a compromise package of amendments which forced the Rapporteur, Mr Alvaro to withdraw his name from the report.
I thought I'd collect up some of the other responses from MEPs to constituants who asked why they voted the way they did. My thanks to The Dossing Times, who gave me permission to repost the letters from here. (You can also see the letter he sent at the end of that link as well).
I haven't seen this anywhere else and a number of the comments in the earlier post voiced a specific disappointment with Proinsias De Rossa's decision, alone amongst Irish MEPs, to vote in favour of the Data Retention Directive. So in the interests of fairness, I reproduce below his statement on the matter.
Data Retention Hits the Front Page Originally uploaded by Editor_Tupp. The Data Retention vote in the European Parliament is today the front page story in Dublin's Metro Newspaper. 'Stop the Net Spies' it gratifyingly says.
Now, after a little help from Europe Direct I can bring you the votes of Irish MEPs in relation to the final Data Retention Directive vote yesterday.
Rubbish debate. Watching the stream of the Debate on the introduction of Data Retention Directive. The live stream is all the excitement of the European Parliament on your very own screen.
A defining point in the EU Data Retention saga (what an alluring set of words) will come next Tuesday/Wednesday, when the EU Parliament will vote on the latest version of the planned European law to force data retention on every member state. The last we heard of this matter, the parliament had produced a minimalist version of the Commission’s Directive.
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