Say no to asbos for downloaders | Charlotte Gore

The internet is such a huge part of life that Mandelson’s plans to cut people off for copyright breach is a clear restriction of liberty

At 33 years old I’m more Generation X than Generation X-Box. I’m too old to be one of the new wave of “digital natives” who’ve never known life without the internet, but I’m just about young enough (and geeky enough) to consider myself an enthusiastic immigrant. I moved in about 13 years ago, and if I could swear an oath of allegiance to some Head Of The Internet State, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Sadly there is no president of the internet, which is a shame because it means I’m stuck with my British passport instead. And relations between Britain and the internet have been strained of late.

Lord Mandelson is seeking to grant himself significant powers in the fight against copyright infringement – the ability to do just about anything so long as it’s in the interest of protecting copyright, and without having to go through parliament.

This is disturbing not just because it represents a triumph of executive power over the normal democratic process, but also because it also reflects the increasing hunger our politicians have to control the internet. For the politicians that’s a hopeless dream, but the damage they can do in the trying is real.

The beauty of the internet is the egalitarianism of it. It is empowering, enriching and liberating in the most literal sense: freedom of speech, freedom of association, access to knowledge and access to the most exciting and glorious marketplace in the world.

We organise our social lives with it, we do our banking and pay our bills through it. We access public services and news and we express ourselves creatively through it. Politics has been opened up and democratised through blogging, Twitter and access to information and debate.

Despite this, Mandelson wants to be able to ban individuals from it as punishment for copyright infringement. It’s an idea that has the media giants rubbing their hands together with glee. Yet what they want is impossible – at least, not possible yet. First, the vast majority of home wireless connections aren’t secure. Our internet connections can be easily hijacked and used by other people without our permission or knowledge, and the owner of the phone line will get the blame for what they do.

Second, people do not have their own personal connections to the internet – households share them. By banning the person who owns the phone line, they ban the entire family (and, of course, the neighbour who’s been downloading episodes of Lost through it).

All this together means Mandelson’s plan violates the fundamental principle that people are innocent until proven guilty, and that only the guilty should be punished. His system would see parents thrown off because of their children, children thrown off because of their parents and all thrown off because of a stranger.

So here’s the key question: do we want to live in a society where people can be cut off from the internet without a trial, without a jury and without proving they committed any offence at all?

How to answer that depends on how you view the internet. Is it like a hi-fi that the council can confiscate if you disturb your neighbours, or is it more like being banished from the town you live in?

I vote banished. I know enough people who don’t have friends in the real world, who socialise exclusively online. I know people who depend on access to the internet for their careers and livelihoods. It’s become such a huge part of our lives, of the way we live and interact with each other that cutting people off from it is a clear and severe restriction of their liberty.

This is the case we need to make – that the government should not be able to restrict people’s liberty on a whim. If copyright infringement is a crime, it needs to be treated like any other crime. What we’re getting instead – asbos for downloaders – is a powerful reminder that when it comes to civil liberties we can’t let our guard down against this government, no matter how close to the end it may be.