ciao Pietro

Take a look here: http://www.agcom.it/rel_07/eng/rel_07_eng.pdf

“The Authority’s new council has made consumer protection a cardinal point of its stratgey”

… consumer protection?!

A person defends with words, not with censorship :|

Goodbye

PREXURE -_-’

When I first heard about this ridiculous law I was shocked. It is a real attack on freedom of speech, which has be brought about by Italians politicians who detest any form of criticism.

At present the www is the only place in Italy where real people can speak about real issues. The mainstream media are just about all controlled by some interest or other.

However, from what I understand, and I could be wrong, this law will not be brought in – the worldwide reaction seems to have worried Levi-Prodi more than a little. In some ways this is ironic in that these wise politicians wanted to end criticism but have inadvertently created more bad press, and criticism, on a worldwide scale, for Italy than just about all Italian blogs put together!

I really do hope this issue dies the death – if not, then I think there are many who will fight it – including me.

What also gets me is that Italian politicians appear to have no appreciation of the www and blogs and are totally forgetting just how much good publicity many blogs, including my own, generate for the country.

I refer, half jokingly, to Italy as the ‘Living Museum’ – recent events seem to have demonstrated that this description is not too far of the truth.

Let’s keep an eye on this – just in case someone tries to resurrect it…

All the best from Italy – a marvellous place in many ways,

Alex Roe

“Today Italy is among the most liberalized countries in Europe, and the fifth market in the world in terms of pro capita earning, the second for mobile telephony voice services, and
for which Italy represents the highest rate of penetration (140%). We are the first country
in Europe for third generation mobile services (17 million UMTS users) and the second in
the world after Japan”

most liberalized?!

…damn! Shut up PD(evil)F!

PREXURE

If this law will take place, I think for sure I shall ask to any other real democratic county the status of political refugee, because feeless to express my political or any kind of idea , I will finally feel like live in a country pretty close to some those like China or any like fascist or communist type , in brief a kind of regime designed to close our mouth for ever, and what is most unbelievable is that any of the parliamentary or politic figure were all agreed with this issued.

I have my own site , http://www.gizio.it a no profit one , where some of my invention as well ideas are exposed for free to anyone who want enjoy or is interested about , it takes me a lot of my free time to keep the site alive ,and I spent many years to built it as it is now , sacrifice my time and money , and I don’t want to pay any further tax or subscribe any government mandatory or shit like that, I have thought to express my creativity and my democratic opinion if necessary for free because believed to live in a democratic country .
There some years , that we Italians are going through very bad time bad time, and I’d always thought that if our ancestor could only back to life , I guess they would fight all of us as aliens kicking most of us straight to the sea , it seem we are destroying this marvellous country , where the most beautiful pages of art and history were written in the past. Today our most “impressive and interesting social aspect” attracting the world’s opinion seem to be just the political corruption and mafia ……well who think they are different after all?

If there is somebody who give me asylum please contact me for that , because despite all I’m afraid I have to live the Italian soil soon.

It’s far easier to choke the freedom of speech of disarmed people.

(More to the point, guns are property and the right of property is absolute. From my cold, dead hand)

Uh, right. Because its so much easier to squash freedom of speech minus the means to fight back.

- the proposed law can be read by whole on Beppe’s blog.
- it says that all “editorial” sites are to be registerd. That including blogs.
- it says expressly that company sites aren’t to be registered to the ROC. (only editorial companies)
- the registration is free but it has paperwork to be done and stamps to be bought to do that.
- it is not clear if professional journalists are needed.
- the Government published an answer to Beppe on the Government site on saturday saying that it will revise it.
- On wednesday the Parliament is discussing the law with no modifications yet.

- Great result of Beppe’s post I think. 11.000 comments for one post. And I guess pleanty of emails to the writer of the proposed law.

Just some random replies:

1) The current proposal of law is (luckily) being revisited due to the massive people’s reaction.

2) A very similar law in 2001 was approved and it’s still “alive”; anyway this law has never been enforced (as far as I know) against personal, no-profit and randomly-updated sites. It applies only to explicitally declared news sites.
The 2001 law also applies to sites hosted in foreign countries but mantained by italians (don’t ask me how it can be enforced…).

3) The first ones to report informations about the current proposal of law were technology-related web sites (like Punto Informatico); anyway the big trouble started when Beppe Grillo republished the news: since he has an heavy influence on public opinion the news got the TV and newspapers attention (and of course the government attention, too).

4) Beppe Grillo used to smash computers on stage, but it was a period when he though that computers are a form of slavery. Now he discovered that Internet is a great medium to spread his thoughs (especially since when he has been banned from TV). People are allowed to change their ideas.

5) The ROC subscription is free, anyway the needed bureaucracy and the bigger penal risks related to the content (usually defamation) are supposed to discourage many people from blogging.

6)I don’t think that the aim of this law was the censorship of Internet content. Simply, it is a law written by someone that really doesn’t know the Net and made a big mistake…

7) For “Freedom House” (the american organisation) reports say that Italy has a fairly poor press freedom. Most newspapers belong to few powerful economic groups (at present most of them support the center-left parties), but the most important private TV channels are owned by Berlusconi. Public TV channels (RAI) are always taken by any just-elected government. It’s the only country where journalists must be in a professional body (“Ordine professionale dei giornalisti”). Political parties (of every colour) aren’t very interested in the “freedom to informate”, anyway they are much more focused on traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers) then the Internet.

Bye!

Does that mean for servers in Italy, or just Italy’s domain or does it mean any citizen of Italy? Even if that citizen’s blog is on US servers? How can they possibly enforce it?

http://www.antoniodipietro.com/en/2007/10/dont_gag_the_internet.html#comments

========= QUOTE ===============
Don’t Gag the Internet

I am receiving so many emails and comments criticizing the draft bill ”New discipline for publishing and delegating to the Government for the release of a unified text about the reorganisation of legislation in the publishing sector”.
To be clear: the draft law was not discussed in the meeting of the Council of Ministers on 12 October because it was presented as a normal routine measure.
I read the text today for the first time and my opinion is that it should be blocked immediately. This draft law would in fact put a cloak over the Internet in Italy and would probably bring about its ending.
It’s a liberty-killing law and it is against the bloggers who each day publish articles that are never reported by newspapers and the TV.
I am part of the government and I accept my responsibility for not having intercepted the draft law, but as far as I am concerned this law will never pass, even at the cost of raising the issue of the support given by Italia dei Valori to the Government.

========= END QUOTE ===============

Any comments or suggestions?

We hope that next time they will FIRST read and THEN (eventually) sign…

In Italy we have a very very sad and stupdi prime minister, Romano Prodi, an ex-communist that is ruining our country. This censorship law is born from the need to stop the spreading of scandals involving the governmente members, for example the Sircana case, a government spokesman who was caught on a road chatting to some bitches-trans, and the photos spread over the internet.

In soviet Italy, government kills your country.

Um. If the citizen resides in Italy, how about by throwing them out of the fourth floor window of a police station?

The Law proposal did not intend to be about blogs at all from the start, even if it was ambiguous.

Remember that a few years ago Grillo was famous for smashing computers on stage. No one should be allowed to forget that ;)

http://www.blogfromitaly.com/italys-politicians-try-to-ban-blogs-again/

Stop this please. Get Obama to remind Italy that it is a republic and a deomcracy!

Help Italy’s bloggers now.

Alex Roe

Blog from Italy