WEBVTT 00:00:06.860 --> 00:00:09.352 Text: Gurb in Spain, 1002 km to Brussels 00:00:10.228 --> 00:00:14.733 The NSA scandal almost makes us laugh 00:00:14.733 --> 00:00:16.149 I started Guifi.net 00:00:16.149 --> 00:00:19.491 so we can provide ourselves with Internet connection. 00:00:20.306 --> 00:00:25.178 Here in the middle of the Catalan nowhere a digital revolution started 10 years ago. 00:00:25.178 --> 00:00:29.596 Ramon and his neighbors have built their own broadband network, 00:00:29.596 --> 00:00:33.781 because the big commercial providers had no interest in connecting villages and their vicinity. 00:00:33.781 --> 00:00:39.046 Today, Guifi.net is one of the greatest alternative networks worldwide. 00:00:39.046 --> 00:00:43.772 I want to show you where the cables merge together: 00:00:43.772 --> 00:00:45.374 right here. 00:00:45.374 --> 00:00:47.773 This rack is the equivalent of 00:00:47.773 --> 00:00:51.277 a telephone switchboard in a village. 00:00:51.277 --> 00:00:54.903 It is a bit dirty because this is actually my garden shed. 00:00:54.903 --> 00:00:58.904 What it can do is impressing. 00:00:58.904 --> 00:01:01.483 I can't say it precisely now, 00:01:01.483 --> 00:01:06.989 but these are the routers of some 5000 households. 00:01:07.419 --> 00:01:08.711 In a free wireless network, 00:01:08.711 --> 00:01:13.062 the participants are connecting among each other and not via Internet providers. 00:01:13.062 --> 00:01:16.753 They can directly share data with each other, chat, write e-mails 00:01:16.753 --> 00:01:20.124 - a decentralized network that the users control themselves. 00:01:20.124 --> 00:01:23.348 Thereby their data is secured from access by strangers. 00:01:23.348 --> 00:01:27.500 Meanwhile, the "Internet guerillas" are even able to roll out their own fiberlines. 00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:31.462 Today, Ramon's colleagues are working since 3 AM. 00:01:33.882 --> 00:01:36.306 We all know that the government operates slowly. 00:01:36.306 --> 00:01:40.528 We can't wait until laws solve everything. 00:01:40.528 --> 00:01:45.530 In any case this is also comfortable for us. 00:01:45.530 --> 00:01:49.491 With regards to communication, we can do or not do whatever we like. 00:01:50.045 --> 00:01:52.995 The builders of Guifi are financing their network themselves. 00:01:52.995 --> 00:01:57.832 The users, like here the hospital of Vic, are buying once the connections to the fiberline, 00:01:57.832 --> 00:02:01.879 after that, they can use the infrastructure free of charge. 00:02:04.274 --> 00:02:08.671 So far there was no provider available, that was able to deliver broadband network access, 00:02:08.671 --> 00:02:11.306 like we need it in the three hospitals. 00:02:11.306 --> 00:02:14.142 This is the advantage of Guifi. 00:02:14.142 --> 00:02:16.598 Also the services they provide. 00:02:16.598 --> 00:02:18.834 And it is also cheaper. 00:02:18.834 --> 00:02:21.104 It's true, this is quite important. 00:02:24.264 --> 00:02:27.361 Even more important, Ramon and the Catalan free network people 00:02:27.361 --> 00:02:31.915 are protected in their Internet against the surveillance of NSA & Co. 00:02:33.375 --> 00:02:35.719 Text: Catalan free network meeting [guifilab] 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:38.699 But on EU-level, free networks like this are no subject of interest. 00:02:38.699 --> 00:02:41.569 There they missed the connection a long time ago: 00:02:41.569 --> 00:02:43.061 the laws are from the 90s, 00:02:43.061 --> 00:02:46.383 And aand the planned reform of data protection laws does not take off. 00:02:46.383 --> 00:02:48.715 Anyway we have to 00:02:48.715 --> 00:02:54.328 tie the European laws and the interests of citizens together. 00:02:54.328 --> 00:02:57.696 This makes our structures more robust 00:02:57.696 --> 00:03:00.880 thus strengthening our freedom. 00:03:02.312 --> 00:03:04.971 At least the European parliament is pressing to finally pass the reform of data protection laws. 00:03:10.290 --> 00:03:14.280 They should unify the laws in EU. But a merely technical reform is not enough for Ramon. 00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:16.574 Important is not the laws, 00:03:16.574 --> 00:03:22.772 important is the spirit behind those laws and that here people works together and most important: 00:03:22.772 --> 00:03:26.290 we have to act against the big economic interests.