Outgoing Labour MP John Grogan on the Digital Economy Bill.

John Grogan has been dubbed online as one of the "Digital Economy Saints" and is one of the few MPs who defied the three line government whip and helped a tri-partisan alliance against the Digital Economy legislation.

In this interview I had with him earlier today he explained his opposition to the bill both on the constitutional issue of how the bill itself was passed and the civil liberties the bill infringes such as free speech and open access.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• digital economy bill
• pirate bay
• file sharing
• p2p
• piracy
• free speech
• human rights
• civil liberties
• constitution
• copyright
• labour
• hung parliament
• balanced parliament

[Akin42]

"constitutional". I'm sorry British public, but you don't have a Constitution. If you did have one, you would be able to produce it for arguments like this, and swiftly enacted laws that broke it could be struck down easily. Currently, you not only don't have one, but you basically have only one branch of government, the legislative branch, which has unchecked powers (as your unelected "executive" does nothing but eat your money.).

[MrTonyRichards]

@Akin42 I think you'll find we do have a constitution with a series of conventions. The monarch can refuse to sign bills into law if the constitutional conventions are viewed not to have been followed.

One such convention you will see in action during our hung parliament, the PM will be invited first by the monarch to form a coalition. Brining me nicely onto this I agree with you we should directly elect our executive our present system is totally absurd. Especially if we want to have PR!

[MrTonyRichards]

....only kidding ;) it stays up for now!

[MrTonyRichards]

Dont look now but it's an industry copyright take down request, OH NO the videos gonna go down by the powers that be...

[jagged4edge]

A swell video, old boy, a swell video!!

[funk2ion]

Wow an MP with common sense, nice one John and Tony

[TheMvuser]

I just looked at maps.fon.com It's part of the Fon Wifi network. There are Wifi hotspots all over the UK and rest of the world. BT are investors in this network but they have potentially lobbied the UK Gov to close down open Wifi. Also, these Wifi Hotspots must be a subsystem of existing customers BT Broadband Home Hubs. do these customers know ? It seems remarkable that Fonera has survived while open Wifi is now illegal.

[Joliebella1]

Well said m'dear. Good to know that the minutiae will be put under scrutiny next time round.....