Craig in feed form

The following is a copy of the letter I sent to my MP (Nicola Blackwood, CON, Oxford West and Abingdon) regarding the comments in parliament made by Theresa May with regard to the anti-cuts protests in London on 2011-03-26.

Dear Nicola Blackwood,

Of the ~200 thugs Theresa May stated had been arrested during and
after the recent protests in London, 138 were the “mindless thug[s]” involved in occupying Fortnum & Mason.

I direct your attention to a video (published by the Guardian) taken by
‘legal observers’ within the Fortnum & Mason store [4]. The video shows
a police chief inspector calmly telling the protesters that they: are
free to go, will be safely escorted from the building, and had not been
involved in violent thuggery. So, Theresa May made a political
statement which contradicted the legal opinion of a police chief
inspector (or the inspector was lying when addressing the public);
either is distressing.

In all likelihood the charges against the individuals arrested will be
minor or will be dropped entirely; However, it is a concern if a
trumped up charge for a public order offence could in future results in
having you banned from attending protests.

In the mean time the figures are being used to fuel a cross party zeal
for authoritarian measures. I would like your assurances that you will
act to ensure that stereotyping and knee jerk reactions do not drive
policy. You seem to be a keen question writer and I’m generally happy
with the tone you’ve taken on the Protection of Freedoms Bill; perhaps
you’d consider a question to the home secretary on this issue?

(I have no involvement with UK Uncut or know anyone personally effected
by the events in question; I’m simply concerned by the tone taken by
MPs on this issue)

Yours sincerely,
Craig Loftus

P.S. I request the right to publish (on my blog) your response to my letter.

The following is a copy of the letter I sent to my MP (Nicola Blackwood, CON, Oxford West and Abingdon) regarding the proposal for a UK version of the US DMCA take-down notices.

Dear Nicola Blackwood,

Ed Vaizey, MP Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries recently wrote in reply to a letter from the Open Rights Group:

Jeremy and I met with key players from the digital economy
on 23 February to discuss developing new ways for people to
access content online. Coming out of this meeting was a
proposal for a Working Group to be formed to look at
industry self-regulatory measures to tackle online
copyright infringement through site-blocking.

I recognise that it is very important that consumer
Interests are considered very carefully, and we will
be inviting consumer representative groups to participate
in future discussions on the issue.

As a self confessed civil libertarian I’m sure you react as badly as I do to extra-legal authoritarian solutions such as the site-blocking that Vaizey clearly supports. I urge you to voice dissatisfaction with such a proposal, and question the overly narrow remit of the Working Group.

“Industry self-regulatory” measures such as the US DMCA support for take-down notices are prone to abuse by aggressive rights-holders; particularly with regard to social media sites such as Youtube. It should be clear to anyone why they are popular with large corporate rights holders and unpopular with (legally) creative individuals.

Yours sincerely,
Craig Loftus

The following is a copy of the letter I sent to my MP regarding the Digital Economy Bill.

Dear Don Foster,

I have read of your position on the Digital Economy Bill and I am mostly pleased by it; we all like carrots over sticks.

I am writing to first add another voice to the mêlée pressuring MPs to ensure any self serving items introduced at the behest of lobbies are removed and that Labour’s draconian approach is resisted. Aside from any discussion on the societal cost of copyright, an act that press-gangs one group of companies into acting as policemen for another group is a many faced abomination.

Second; to give you the perspective of a PhD student at the University of Bath; one of the stereotyped targets for this bill. I can tell you we would dodge any stick you might try to hit us with. Without meaning to sound arrogant; I and my peers are more familiar with IT than you and yours. We know of and can use technology, to make ourselves anonymous and to encrypt the data we send.

Third, I fully believe the whole system of copyright in this country has lost sight of its original intentions and now solely benefits copyright holders while preventing creative endeavour. Not unsurprisingly, the current argument playing out is framed entirely as a dichotomy, ‘stricter controls’ or ‘what we have now’? But I’m sure an intelligent and interested man such as yourself will already be fully aware of arguments for the drawing-back of copyright. I would be thrilled to see you make your peers just as aware.

On this topic I recommend Jamie Boyle’s book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (ISBN:978-0300137408).

Finally, I am extremely disappointed in the behaviour of the Lib. Dem. lords in introducing an amendment such as they did.

Yours sincerely,
Craig Loftus

P.S. I never download music or films; I buy CDs and rent DVDs. I do however enjoy the occasional YouTube clip.

I recently got one of these household electricity display devices things and being the information fiend that I am I’ve started studiously recording how much electricity I use. That lead to the obvious question, How much is normal electricity consumption in the UK. The Internet did not provide me with reliable and consistent answer to this question, so after not inconsiderable rooting for information, I derived the answer from the most up to date available:

1 860 kWh (per person per year, UK, 2007). I’ll write about how my consumption compares once I have more lovely data to play with.

That is based on data from The Department of Business Innovation and Skills on the UK domestic electricity consumption in 2007 (117 126.2 GWh) and the associated number of domestic meters (26 670.3×10³)¹. For the per person figure, the UK 2001 Census provides a persons per household figure of 2.36².

1. Electricity Consumption Data at Regional and Local Authority Level
2. Census 2001 – People and their homes in England and Wales

My letter to my MP, Don Foster, regarding Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill.

Dear Don Foster,

I would like to draw your attention to Clause 152 of the Coroners and
Justice Bill. The Bill is currently in the committee phase. I am not
very familiar with reading legislation or interpreting it, but having
read the clause, I would summarise as follows.

The clause amends the Data Protection Act 1998 to allow ministers to
break the act (by sharing personal information) when it is “necessary
to secure a relevant policy” i.e. whenever they like. No restriction is
placed on who the information may be shared with, or for what purposes.

Part B, subsection (2) also allows for the creation of offences through
the issuing of information sharing orders… I don’t know how these
things are normally done, but that just doesn’t sound right.

I fear this is a “get out clause” for those who feel tied by the Data
Protection Act. It also seems to clear barriers to sharing of personal
information between government departments… but further places no
restriction on sharing with the private sector.

Yours sincerely,
Craig Loftus

My letter was sent with the aid of WriteToThem.com.