Shame I found out about this only today, may be to late to get through to the MEPs.

Dear John Bowis OBE,

I have just found out about the plan to include a "three strikes"
directive in the new Telecoms legislation (la quadrature) which is
scheduled for voting TODAY Monday, July 7.

This legislation means that anyone determined three times by their
Internet Service Provider to be downloading copyrighted material would
be disconnected from the Internet.

What worries me most about this legislation is that it is being
appended to an otherwise sound Telecoms legislation that is assumed to
be accepted.

This practice of adding (sneaking in) points to a generally accepted
legislation is a very undemocratic and dangerous practice.

To act against such practices can only enforce people's trust in
politicians and in the Conservative party and I hope that you will find
the time do to so dear MEP.

Below are just some arguments against the "three strikes" directive in
question.

(boilerplate arguments)

When our son was 6 months old he was up at 3 am crying and playing with the home phone.

5 minutes after I removed the phone from him there was knock on the door and to my amazement two police officers.

It hit me that our son must have dialed 999 (911) by accident so I apologised and told the officers that everything was fine and that they could leave.

They insisted on coming in and confirming that the wife and child were OK. Apparently this is standard procedure when they receive 999 calls and hear children crying in the background.

I was very impressed with this and I believe that safety of a human being overrules any "PRIVATE PROPERTY" sign posted in the front yard.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN! (This time no sarcasm in that saying)

Isn't the DNS system P2P as well (between routers instead of PCs)?

If you are innocent you have nothing to fear!!!!1

(I jest)

I will make sure to practice my funny/scary faces in the general direction of the (spy[sic]) camera.

Well done on organizing such an event after all the comments talking about flashmobs.

Make sure to create a Flickr group so that we that cannot attend can share in on the fun afterwards.

"And I seriously doubt anyone would program a system to find something like "woman in shower" or "dark skin in white neighborhood" because if it's actually programmed into the system, it can be reviewed and there's accountability."

I on the other hand suspect this is EXACTLY what would happen.

When was the last time you were given a chance to audit any "security procedures"?

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

You think you are stealthy for using cash to buy or top-up your Oyster card but only until you realise that money can be traced due to their unique serial number.

Did you get the cash from an ATM using your card? Did you get the cash from a bank from your account?

Where is my tinfoil suit when I need it!

@34, Taukan

Clearly the problem is that the child's name is Mohammed.

If the child had a pretty name such a Eric or Charles, he'd be playing in the sand box with Becky and Freddie all day long.

I JEST I JEST I JEST!

Brilliant... really sends the message across!

Once again we (customers) have suddenly become "the product".

I remember how disgusted I was when I first time realized that with cable TV _I_ am the product to be delivered to various marketing and advertising agencies.

It looks like the Internet will be heading the same way if we allow it.

I a dark future there will be no interaction with the information on the Internet. We will simply sit back quietly while we are blasted with informacials (with the occassional facebook page to keep us hooked).

Surely this is due to the trend of ISP consolidations and take overs. Once an ISP has a large user base they will start exploting additional revenue models using their customers as leverage in any negotiations.

I wrote to my MP (Greg Hands) to make him aware of Austin Mitchell's position.

Greg Hands replied within a few days with standard reply snail mail but added a hand written note.

Mr Hands proclaimed that he is an amateur photographer himself and that he hasn't noticed any frequent stoppings by the police.

I think he may be right in fact.

Besides 3 incidents I have read about on line (you are one of them Cory) it hasn't happened to me nor any close friend.

I shall be doing some night photography in London fairly soon with tripod and big lenses and all so I will test exactly how oppressive the climate is!