PART 1: HOW THE DIGITAL ECONOMY  BILL WORKS FROM THE USER'S VIEWPOINT

 The most direct way that Internet users will be affected is the graduated response (aka 3-strikes) measures. The British government has its own interpretation of graduated response, which is different from that in other countries. It is also buried  in legal jargon and deliberately confusing. Here is a short, to the point, explanation. 

Don't be fooled by the language

  A "temporary account suspension" is just a deliberate attempt to confuse people and bury any publicity about  the Bill. It means that the Internet account will be cut off for a period of time.

 "Temporary account suspension would require the ISP to prevent the use of a particular account to access the Internet for a period of time" (BPI, supplementary submission to DBIS Consultation, 25 September 2009, p3).

 The reason they cannot say how long it will be cut off for, is that the exact details of the punishments to be meted out to Internet users  will be defined by Ofcom, in secret. Discussions are going on now, (see the recent leaked email from the BPI) but the detail will only be made public  after Parliament has passed the law, and the Queen has given her assent.  Therefore, we, the UK citizens, will

Part 2 : HOW THE DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL OPENS THE DOOR TO INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR COMMUNICATIONS

 The Digital Economy Bill stands to change a fundamental principle of UK communications policy. When considered in light of some of the proposed ways to implement it, we could be facing a regime of widespread Internet surveillance. 

What laws does the Digital Economy Bill change?

It changes communications law, as well as copyright law. In fact, most of the provisions in the Bill amend Section 124 of the Communications Act 2003.

More importantly, the Digital Economy Bill changes communications law, in order to enforce copyright law.

In making this change, it alters a fundamental principle on which our democracy is based, namely that individual communications may not be interfered with by the State or by private companies.

This is a principle which, since the introduction of the Human Rights Act in 1998, has been supported by EU law, under the European Convention of Human Rights.

 When we just had the telephone network, that right was protected

Part 3 HOW THE DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL COULD GO AGAINST EU LAW

 Europe has passed a law that users must get a 'prior, fair and impartial hearing' before being cut off the Internet. How can an appeal which you pay for, be the same thing? 

Why does  European law matter - isn't this a UK law?

Last year the EU passed a law called the Telecoms Package. In the UK, our media kept us in the dark, but it was extensively covered by some Continental media. Citizens advocacy groups from many European countries fought hard in Brussels to oppose graduated response measures of the type that the government is now trying to impose onto us in Britain.

The Telecoms Package contains a provision which means that graduated response measures cannot be imposed without giving the user a right to due process.  The actual words are ‘a prior, fair and impartial procedure' which guarantees the presumption of innocence. (EU Framework directive 2009/140/EC, Article 1.3a). The intention of the European Parliament was that users would have a court