Δημοκρατία λέμε. Δημοκρατία!

A government minister, not parliament, will decide on the maximum period for which people found guilty of illicit filesharing can have their accounts suspended if the Digital Economy bill becomes law.

Although the government insists that it would only implement "temporary suspension" of internet accounts of people deemed to have broken copyright law, it has not defined how long "temporary" is – and the definition does not appear in the bill now before Parliament.

Instead, the secretary of state at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) will decide on how long it should be, based on a recommendations from the Ofcom, although the regulator's suggestions are not binding.

Presently, the person responsible would be Lord Mandelson, who has been particularly vociferous about the need to take action against persistent illicit use of the net.

The only brake on the "temporary" suspension being of unlimited length would be the Human Rights Act – whose applicability to internet access is untested – and the definition offered by DBIS was that "temporary suspension can't effectively mean termination of an internet connection". But there is no definition in the bill of what marks the legal difference between "suspension" and "termination".

On Monday the Guardian noted that Downing Street had responded to a petition calling on it to reject plans to disconnect people found guilty of illicit file sharing by saying: "We will not terminate the accounts of infringers ... [but] ... We added account suspension to the list of possible technical measures which might be considered."

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) on Tuesday said that "suspension" meant "temporary suspension".

But the Open Rights Group said that this was "semantics" and that the government had simply chosen a different form of words to mean the same thing.

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Έτσι. Να μας κάνουν ότι θέλουν. Το ξεκίνησαν στην Σουηδία. Μετά Αγγλία. Μετά σε όλη την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση(;!). Μετά σε όλο τον κόσμο.

Όντως. Η Apple τελικά είναι πολύ κλειστή και φασιστική. Η ζωή μας είναι καθόλα δημοκρατική. Έτσι;