Britain's back-room negotiations to establish a national, extrajudicial Internet censorship regime

Ed Vaizey, the UK Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries has admitted that he is in talks with ISPs to create a voluntary national firewall. Big copyright companies would petition to have sites they don’t like added to the secret national blacklist, and the ISPs would decide — without transparency or judicial review — whether to silently block Britons from seeing the censored sites.

Peter from the Open Rights Group adds, “Website blocking is a bad idea, especially on a self-regulatory basis where vital judicial oversight is bypassed.

The good news is that he has promised to invite civil society groups to participate in future discussions on the matter.

You can help explain the problems by writing to your MP at ORG’s website.”

Minister confirms site blocking discussions

(Thanks, PeterBradwell, via Submitterator!)