Even Morons Can Get Elected Dept: Canadian MP's Clean Internet Act Bill

[mandy]

Conservative MP Joy Smith yesterday introduced the Clean Internet Act (Bill C-427).  The private member's bill would establish an Internet service provider licensing system to be administered by the CRTC along with "know your subscriber" requirements and content blocking powers.  Just about everything associated with this bill is (to be charitable) rather odd...

The bill itself includes (and I am not making this up):

    * an ISP licensing system to be administered by the CRTC that is defined so broadly that it would seemingly capture anyone offering a wifi connection... <--

From the comments:

Comments
I offer internet access to my family (multiple computers sharing the same connection)... does that make me an ISP? Would I require a licence? What about a public library that provides internet access, would they need a licence?...

full article: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1884/125/

TechDirt on the proposed law:

Lots of folks have been submitting the story that a Canadian MP has introduced "The Clean Internet Act" which is a bizarre bit of proposed legislation that is typical of other "protect the children!" laws that politicians love to propose without actually understanding what they're talking about. This one is pretty ridiculous, basically requiring anyone who provides internet service (including if you have a WiFi connection) to register with the government (hello, bureaucracy). Then it includes all sorts of impossible to obey rules about censoring and blocking users and content...

...is it really that much to ask that those who are regulating the internet actually have some clue about the thing that they're trying to regulate?

full article: http://techdirt.com/articles/20070420/124226.shtml

ArsTechnica on the proposed law:
Canadian MP wants to cleanse the Internet with the scratchy sponge of censorship
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...rship.html

[BellisimaJ.]

...is it really that much to ask that those who are regulating the internet actually have some clue about the thing that they're trying to regulate?

Apparently it is.

[rose]

I'll bet she's a distant cousin of US Senator Ted Stevens.  ;D