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La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) welcomes the adoption, in the first reading, of several amendments correcting major problems in the Telecoms Package, as well as the rejection of the most dangerous amendments. Members of the European Parliament have shown today their commitment to privacy, the protection of personal data, and principles of proportionality and separation of powers. La Quadrature thanks all MEPs who have worked in this direction, and all citizens who mobilized en masse to alert their delegates on these issues. We'd like to thank particularly the MEPs who have been able to reconsider their positions as they became aware of the risks to the rights and freedoms of their fellow-citizens. However, La Quadrature calls for watchfulness. Some vague formulations remain in the Telecoms Package. They do not prevent transposition into national laws affecting network neutrality. For example, the concept of "lawful content" is unknown in European law; its definition is left to the Member States. It must be completely removed, in order to complete the cleaning already made on this Package. In addition, European Commissioner Viviane Reding has already announced she would require, on behalf of the European Commission, the withdrawal of Amendment 138 voted this morning. Amendment 138 yet reaffirms a fundamental principle which should bring together all Europeans attached to the pillars of Europe, since it states that no restriction on the rights and freedoms of end users can be taken without prior decision of the judicial authority - safe when public safety is concerned (prevention of harm to persons). La Quadrature therefore denounces a completely unsuitable request from Mrs. Reding, under the basic democratic principle recalled in the amendment (i.e. the separation of powers), but also under the parliamentary plebiscite it collected (574 MEPs for, 73 against). This is indeed a self-evident democratic issue that a technocrat cannot deny, whatever her will to serve the liberticide plans of the French government and the entertainment lobbies. It is indeed obvious that she is trying to save the French "Graduated Response" project (also called "three strikes and you're out"), at which amendment 138 directly aims. This is not the first time, however, that MEPs have stressed the illegality of the so-called three-strikes approach under community law.
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