[pp.int.general] A spanisch sad history

[Gabriel Serrano]

One of the cables revealed by Wikileaks, tells how the United States 
Government issued the Government of Spain to move forward looking for a 
law to control “illegal” downloading.

As it seems, the Government of Spain has obeyed the order.

One year ago our Government proposed the new “Sustainable Economy Act” 
in which a particularly interesting paragraph was sliced. This paragraph 
knows as “Sinde-Law” (honoring our Culture Ministers name), will allows 
the Government to close any web in Spain with a simple administrative 
order. Such a possibility clearly violate Article 20.5 of the Spanish 
Constitution, which grants exclusively to a judge the power to order the 
closure of a media outlet.

Further the Government is trying to pass the new law avoiding the 
parliament aproval process in a special way reserved only to minor laws 
with general agreement.

The apparent motivation for this law seems to lie in the judicial 
defeats each time the Cultural-Industry Lobby tried to close P2P 
services, so now they are trying another way to get them close no matter 
if by the way they finish as well with our freedom of speech.

Today, just a few hours before the holidays season, our beloved 
Government ist trying to pass the Law.

We don't know what is going to happen. During the past year the 
Government has disregard any popular protest against this Law and the 
last days the movement in Spain against the Law has been growing 
exponentially.

But in any case we feel us less free in our country.

Gabriel Serrano