Well now. Usually Tuppenceworth’s denizens take an Olympian view of the rest of the Internet. They may make use of it for research, but they rarely comment of the hot topic of the moment. Speaking for myself, it may be something to do with other people getting there first with all the good ideas. <\/p>\n
But I’m going to consciously break this habit by mentioning the discussions on setting up a digital rights organisation which would lobby for, advise on and promote sensible electronic policies. A magnificent example of how effective an organisation like this was when the Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting<\/a> took on the Civil Service spokesman Minister Martin Cullen and pushed electronic voting machines out of the door and into a number of properties rented from Returning Officers by the Returning Officers around the country. And on the lobbying side, IrelandOffline<\/a> has been doing Trojan work offering an alternative to eircom’s vision of internet use for years now. And their spokespeople are always more credible than the eircom bods wheeled out to spout guff. <\/p>\n Here’s the Freestater blog’s round-up of talk about it. <\/a> And here’s the link to the boards.ie forum on Digital Rights.<\/a> <\/p>\n Lost of people saying things there, and as usual they’ve got to the good stuff before me. So for my contribution, I’ll just say that we’re not the only nation wondering why they can’t have an organisation as powerful as the American EFF<\/a> to make noise about the things that matter to them. Danny O’Brien, who now works for the EFF and writes a column for the Irish Times on Friday (along with Karlin Lillington’s column the joint highlight of the Friday Business Supplement) as well as for the Guardian recently chaired a meeting in the UK where they asked themselves “Where’s the British EFF?”<\/p>\n You can hear what happened at that meeting, if you’ve the wherewithal, by downloading an MP3<\/a> of about an hour long that’s available from the conference’s site.<\/p>\n Amongst other things, Cory Doctorow of the EFF describes that organisation as an ‘Impact Litigator’. They take the very tidy cases that turn on the specific points of law that the EFF want a judgement on and drive them as far as they need to establish their constitutionality. Alas for the constitutionless British, the ECHR can’t strike down a law they don’t like. They can only apply moral pressure by finding a practice or law to be in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights. <\/p>\n
\nDemonstrating a slightly shaky grasp of pan-European judicial systems, as do we all when forced to think of them at all, he suggested that the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law gave the Brits a chance to attempt to rely on something akin to a constitution, with an appeal to the Court of Human Rights in The Hague<\/a> (known as the ECHR to its Mammy).<\/p>\n