Done it having blatantly copied a number of passages from other places as I don't have time to look into this more deeply this afternoon (jam making takes time you know!!). See below. Oh and I'm in the north-west in case anyone else wants to write to these MEPs.

**********************************************************************

Dear Sajjad Karim, Gary Titley, Robert Atkins, Arlene McCarthy, Chris
Davies, Brian Simpson, David Sumberg, John Whittaker and Den Dover,

I am writing to you because I am very concerned about the IMCO/ITRE
vote tomorrow 07/07/08, specifically a number of amendments (H1, H2 and
H3 and K1 and K2).

I am very worried by the lack of consideration for what the public
wants; the lack of balance between legitimate protection of IPRs and
vital interests such as the access of students and workers to the Net;
the disregard for privacy and the personal data safeguards of the data
protection laws; the apparent washing away of the E-Commerce Directive
immunities; but more than that, aghast at this blatant attempt to sneak
through vital changes to the law without proper notice or debate,
across Europe, in the Trojan horse of a giant and extraordinarily hard
to understand reform exercise.

This legislation is the "three strikes" law, proposed by the big media
companies. If someone's ISP decides that their IP address is involved
in file-sharing, the most likely process will be that they'll have to
send the user two warning letters, then on the third strike, they
disconnect and blacklist the user. Period. No appeal.

It doesn't matter if it was someone else in the user's household, maybe
a flatmate, their kids, or a mate and the user never knew about it.

It won't matter if the user's PC was hit by malware, or someone hacked
their wi-fi.

It won't matter if the user wasn't actually filesharing illegally, but
just tripped some automated system on the ISP's servers because they
downloaded a lot of data.

The Net is what holds the modern world together. Cutting people off
from it just for sharing a few mp3s or watching Dr Who via torrent
instead of iPlayer or PVR is ridiculous.

I would urge you to vote against these amendments to this piece of
legislation to prevent people being barred from the vital tool that is
the internet.

Yours sincerely,

I only got a response from only ONE of my MEP's.

It was from one of the Conservative MEP's for my region who I can not contact (they have divvied the West Midlands up between them, and allot constituents' letters accordingly, so I can only contact one of the three), and it reads as an automated response to ANY query.

It doesn't make any attempt to even respond to the points I raised - but it does at least contain a ‘commitment’ to re-examining the legislation's finer points prior to its final approval in September.

So, should I thank him for bothering to respond, or should I go after him about the 'conviction without proof of culprit's identity' point?

RSVP

Politeness dictates you should do both; I haven't had a reply from any of mine, but I did get one from Heinz...

Thanks for reminding me - I must write back and thank the single MEP that replied (see below).

I got a reply from one of the Labour MEPS as follows

Dear (Bagfish),

Thank you for writing to all the North West MEPs about this week's vote on
the EU telecommunications package.

The North West Labour MEPs have divided the region geographically and my
colleague Brian Simpson is the Labour MEP with special responsibility for
your area. As such, he should be your first point of contact on any EU
related matters.

I feel sure you will be hearing from Brian soon on behalf of the North West
Labour team.

Yours sincerely
Gary Titley MEP

I, for one, will be hoisting the flag of this cause, and shamelessly plagiarising (or should that be ‘pirating’?) bagfish's letter to my MEP's (in the West Midlands).

I hold out very little hope of Success though - six of my seven are out-and-out Corporatists (three are Tories, two are ‘New Labour’, one is a UKIPper), and will therefore probably actively vote in favour of any measure to further enhance/entrench the Power of the Charmed Circle of Talentless Parasitic Drones.
Only one - Liz Lynne of the Yellow Party - would seem to be not obviously pro-Big Business and anti-citizen.

Still, fingers crossed....

Of course, being a rather prolix old Hector, I have rather ‘baroqued’ my own letter - to the extent tht it exceeds the character limit here!

I am Jack's raging logorrhoea....

I thought you might like to see the reply I got from the Lib Dem MEP int he list of those I contacted. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, especially the sentences

MEPs of all parties from the Committee rejected the claims that these amendments are intended to reduce consumer choice and undermine individual freedom.

and

Members of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee were highly critical of lobbyists who had completely misrepresented the objectives of the legislation. Nevertheless, they welcomed further constructive suggestions for improvements to ensure that the text has no consequences that infringe consumer rights.

Text of e-mail posted below due to character limits

**************************************************************
EU Telecoms Package

Thank you very much for contacting me on the European Parliament’s Internal
Market and Consumer Protection Committee vote on the Telecoms package in
Strasbourg earlier this week.

My work in the Parliament is almost entirely focused on my role as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on the environment committee in the European Parliament.

I am not a member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee so could not contribute to the debate in person, although I have received many numbers of e-mails regarding the vote on 7 July, some of which contain a good number of misconceptions within them. As a result I thought I would
reply in detail to the points raised.

If it is at all useful, I have also attached a note regarding some of the amendments tabled by Mr Harbour and Mr Kamall.

The vote in the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) produced a very large majority in favour of a series of amendments that significantly enhance users’ rights in electronic communications.

Some of the key points are that:

• Users will now be informed by operators, before contracts are
concluded, about any restrictions on access to services (such as Skype).

• Market demand and competition between operators will decide
whether they see any point in restricting access. The IMCO vote does not give governments new powers to decide that, or to make applications illegal.


• Where handsets or other terminal equipment are included free, or at a subsidised price, users must be informed of the cost of terminating their agreement early.



• Number porting (the process of keeping a number when switching
networks) will now take one day (while it has previously taken up to one month). However, there are also provisions in case of slamming (when a consumer is switched to another network without their consent) which will allow NRAs to intervene in such cases.

• Promotion of the European 112 emergency call number across the
EU, and measures to speed up the availability of mobile caller location when emergency calls are made. This is complementary to existing national emergency numbers.

• Disabled users will have equivalent access to communications
with special terminal equipment for their needs.


• The need to keep the Internet open by empowering regulators to
intervene if a carrier discriminated against a particular service provider - for example, by blocking or slowing traffic.


• Regulators would be given enabling powers to allow standardised public service messages to be delivered to users. These service messages could include security protection advice, and advice on harmful or unlawful uses of the Internet, and their potential consequences. The information would be sent to all users, not to targeted individuals and not based on
individual usage. Copyright infringement is just one of the areas that might be covered, but it will be up to public authorities to supply the information.

• Under Parliament's rules, the Committee also accepted a set of
amendments from the Civil Liberties Committee on data protection. These include significant new requirements for operators to inform subscribers in the event of any breach of their personal data through electronic networks.

MEPs of all parties from the Committee rejected the claims that these amendments are intended to reduce consumer choice and undermine individual freedom.

In particular, the Directive contains no provisions on Copyright Law enforcement, not does it refer in any way to the French Government’s proposed enforcement agreement.

Members of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee were highly critical of lobbyists who had completely misrepresented the objectives of the legislation. Nevertheless, they welcomed further constructive suggestions for improvements to ensure that the text has no consequences that infringe consumer rights.

MEPs will examine the detailed drafting of all amendments before the final approval by Parliament in September.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Davies MEP