Political Revolution in Germany: Pirates Country's Third Strongest Party in New Poll

Germany's Green Party used to be the model for upstart political parties in the country. But now it appears that the new Internet-freedom Pirate Party is on an even more rapid path to nationwide success. And it has overtaken the Greens in public opinion polls, as well.

According to a survey released by the pollsters at Forsa for broadcaster RTL on Tuesday, the political newcomers currently enjoy 13 percent of voter support and are now the third most popular party in the country ahead of the environmentalist Greens, which lagged behind at 11 percent.

The results come after a pair of recent eyebrow-raising successes in state elections. Last September, the Pirates received 8.9 percent of the vote in Berlin city-state elections. In March, the party followed that up with 7.4 percent in the tiny western state of Saarland, more than two percentage points ahead of the Greens.


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CafeBabel/EU-Digest: EUROPEAN PIRATE PARTY MOVEMENT- Swedish Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström: ‘Europe stronger than US’ - by Waldemar Ingdahl

EU-Digest

EUROPEAN PIRATE PARTY MOVEMENT- Swedish Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström: ‘Europe stronger than US’ - by Waldemar Ingdahl

"The Swedish pirate party program claims three things: to strive to reform laws regarding copyright and patents, strengthening the right to internet and daily privacy and increasing the transparency of government administration. The pirate party gained one seat in the 736-strong European parliament after winning 7.1% of the Swedish vote in June 2009, coming fifth after the social democrats, greens, liberals and the moderate party. It would acquire another if the Lisbon treaty is ratified; the EU aims to see that in force by 2010. 26 EU countries have ratified the treaty, except for Ireland, who are due to hold a referendum due on 2 October. On 25 June, Christian Engström joined the green bloc, a move to avoid being marginalized in the EP. But the pirate party, now the third largest party in Sweden, is a representative of a set of ideas of its own; is it setting sail towards further success or facing its first gust of ideological high seas?"

Engström was an open source software developer and entrepreneur in the first wave of Swedish internet expansion in the nineties. He was a volunteer activist for the foundation for a free information infrastructure (FFII). Between 2004 and 2005 he lobbied in the European parliament in a dispute over the software patents directive. The struggle was a great success for Engström as the parliament rejected the directive in its second reading. The success of the free software movement, in combination with a continuing increase in the conflict between internet pirates and the record industry, gave the impulse for a new set of ideas. The ground was particularly favorable in Sweden.

According to the Pirate Party, intellectual property laws written pre-internet are just out of date. Today the entire Internet is based on copying stuff. Each time you load a web page, your computer is, in fact, copying a set of files from another computer. You could argue that digital copying is so seamless that nearly everyone could become a "pirate" by virtue of the technology. At least, that's what pirate parties across Europe are saying – and they’re in many countries. You can find them in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Ukraine, Russia, Austria and Switzerland. There's also the Czech Pirate Party and the Estonian Pirate Party. Both were founded last month. And now there’s one in Switzerland. The pirate parties are calling for shorter copyright terms, the elimination of patents and broader online privacy rights. So far, the European Pirate Parties don’t have much political power, but last month, a German member of Parliament left the Social Democrats and joined the Pirate Party. And the Swedish Pirate Party did well enough in the recent European Union parliamentary elections to secure one of the country’s seats.

Please click on this link if you are interested to start a Pirate Party in your own country.

SpiegelOnline: Revenge of the Netizens: Online Activists Take On Germany's Political Mainstream - by Marcel Rosenbach and Hilmar Schmundt

For the complete report from SPIEGEL ONLINE click on this link

Germany: Revenge of the Netizens: Online Activists Take On Germany's Political Mainstream - by Marcel Rosenbach and Hilmar Schmundt

As Germany heads into national elections, established political parties are trying to appeal to Web-savvy voters using Facebook and Twitter. But their Internet policies are alienating bloggers and activists, who are using the medium to protest against the political mainstream. To anyone who visits the sites of political lobbyists in the German blogosphere, sites like netzpolitik.org or odem.org, it is clear that Internet activists are on the warpath against the established parties, a group which for many now includes the traditionally anti-establishment Greens. "They'll soon be wishing we were apolitical," one of their slogans reads. Another novel aspect of this year's campaign is that the party strategists at campaign headquarters are starting to take Internet users, long ridiculed as nerds, seriously. When strategists at SPD headquarters in Berlin, for example, embarked on a large-scale effort to incorporate Facebook and Twitter into their campaign, they were horrified by the reactions they encountered, which ranged from malice to open rejection and sheer hate.

Netizens are primarily young and well-educated. Many are, due to their blogs and Twitter presence, influencers and trendsetters, with some star bloggers even being opinion leaders within their medium. All government initiatives like data retention by telecommunications companies, online monitoring of the computers of suspected criminals by the authorities and biometric identification cards are nothing short of assaults on their much-valued freedoms.