My apologies in advance if this breaks the forum rules (its politics i guess, but the post is actually about censorship really), but thought you might be interested to see the letter i have just sent to my MP:
Dear Mr *,
Could you please explain to me why exactly you did not bother to show up to vote on the Digital Economy Bill? this law, as i am sure you're aware, has basically given the Secretary of State the right to erect our very own "Great Firewall of China"
To quote from the Bill, clause 8 will allow the Secretary of State to block "a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for in connection with an actiivity that infringes copyright" you do realise that this basically includes the entire internet don't you? Youtube, any social networking site, google, all can be blocked under this law. Now i was under the impression that i was living in a free democratic society, so perhaps you can explain to me why we are now planning to censor internet access? this is absolutely preposterous, and a disgrace to the British legal system.
In fairness to you, you are far from the only MP who did not bother to turn up, this makes it even worse that this law was passed! Parliament was making decisions affecting the future of democracy itself, and less than half of the MP's turned up, there was little to no debate, and the vote was forced through by the party whips. If less than half of us voted in the election, then chances are we would be in a hung parliament, surely this should apply to Acts of Parliament too?
I am very sorry to tell you that although this is the first time i will be eligible to vote in a general election I will not be doing so, to be honest there seems no point, it is very obvious that democracy is dead, and the government will just do whatever they like, and to hell with the opinions of those who vote for them,
Your very angry Constituent,
Martin *
