I enlighet med HAX uppmaning har jag skickat email till parlamentsmedlemmarna. Ett litet Python-script gör att var och en får ett personligt adresserat mail.
Dear Member of the European Parliament,
The MEPs Tiziano Motti and Anna Záborská are requesting that you sign
the written declaration number 29, concerning extending the Data
Retention Directive to cover search engine searches as well as the
existing, far reaching regulations for the retention of personal data.
The Data Retention Directive is an expensive and inefficient tool that
does very little to help preventing and solving crimes. Adding search
engine data would make the directive even more expensive and even more
wasteful.
The declaration claims that the reason for retaining search engine
data would be to protect children from sexual crimes, but this reason
rings very hollow. That a pedophile would use a search engine to try
to locate illegal materials would be a very rare occurence, both in
absolute numbers as well as in relation to the total number of
searches being made. While saving children from sexual abuse is an
urgent issue, we should do it in ways that produce the most effect for
the money spent.
The Data Retention Directive, as it is, has been estimated to cost the
citizens of Europe over one billion Euro annually. Adding search
engine data to that will increase the bill by several hundred million
Euro. This will not produce any desired effect of reducing sexual
abuse against children. It may have some effect in pedophiles learning
more techniques for hiding their tracks and learning more tricks for
how to form anonymous rings for file sharing. The Internet provides a
plethora of options, and as a developer of network applications since
the early days of the Internet, I can assure you that the technical
possibilities for hiding messages inside apparently innocent
communication are limitless. As long as you allow people to connect to
each other, they will be able to share information in an undetectable
way.
Therefore, the only efficient way of protecting children against
sexual abuse is to attack the source. Producers of materials showing
abuse have to be identified as quickly as possible and brought to
justice. Providers hosting illegal materials must be located as
quickly as possible and brought to justice. If there are nations that
do not cooperate or do not provide responses that are quick enough,
the European Union should use its economic power to persuade them to
change their ways. This is a much better use of the money that
otherwise would be spent on retaining the private information of
hundreds of millions of European citizens.
So, for the sake of the children, if you have not signed the written
declaration, please refrain from doing so. If you have signed it, I
hope that my arguments may persuade you to withdraw your signature.
We must use our scarce resources where they do good, not where they
are wasted.
Sincerely yours
Jacob Hallén