Police in Your Brain I

IPRED is a counterrevolution. By Isobel Hadley-Kamptz.

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IPRED gives the copyright lobbyists greater police powers than the police themselves. Search and seizure, blocked bank accounts, gigantic sums in lawsuits await us. No matter what you think about file sharing it's obvious these remedies are not in proportion to the alleged crimes.

It's even clearer when you think about the greater consequences. No serious thinker believes these tougher laws can stop file sharing. The criminals - the file sharers - see the laws as unjust as they really are. And they'll find new and smarter ways to file share anonymously beyond the reach of Hollywood's paramilitary forces.

But IPRED, the data storage directive, the Lex-Orwell FRA law, ACTA, and all the other steps underway to take us into a digital totalitarianism will influence the generic behaviour of citizens online. Police in your brain is a bigger threat than police in your street. We don't want the state to log our weaknesses. We are going to be very careful about what we write, who we contact, what we reveal. We will be continually thinking in terms of how our behaviour online can someday be used against us.

The Internet will be divided up into smaller and smaller entities where only trusted netizens will have access. Those without contacts won't have much more than aftonbladet.se.

But maybe that's the idea. The great masses are forced once again to be nice, meek, obedient consumers of what those with the money and influence want us to be. The liberating potential of the Internet is crushed.

IPRED is part of a counterrevolution. But we can still hope that we who are the Internet can meet the challenge.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
 - George Orwell

See Also
Rants: Police in Your Brain II