Forum Post: Even Worse Than SOPA: Big Government to Ratify ACTA
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 25, 2012, 10:44 a.m. EST by TrevorMnemonic
(5827)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement are just as vicious and insane as anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually all of the countries in the developed world, including all of the EU, the United States, Switzerland and Japan.
Many of these countries have already signed or ratified it, and the cogs are still turning. The treaty has been secretly negotiated behind the scenes, with unelected bureaucrats working closely with entertainment industry lobbyists to craft the provisions in the treaty. The Bush administration started the process, but the Obama administration has aggressively pursued it.
Indeed, we’ve already signed on to the treaty. All it needs now is Senate ratification.
Read more about it here, also includes 2 videos on ACTA - http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/23/if-you-thought-sopa-was-bad-just-wait-until-you-meet-acta/
Shit like this greatly opens up the potential for abuse... just like with SOPA.
Thanks TrevorMnemonic for this information....please keep up the great work in exposing the necessary pieces of information for us to stay informed.
Further to TM's important post : "An ACTA of war: Secret censor tool to shake up world wide web" ; http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30350.htm . fiat lux ...
The United States signed onto the agreement in October. Ordinarily, treaties need to be submitted to the US Senate for ratification, but the Obama administration has adopted the novel (and, some have argued, constitutionally dubious) approach of declaring ACTA an "executive agreement" that can be adopted unilaterally by the executive branch, as it ostensibly does not alter existing US law.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) raised concerns about the constitutionality of this tactic back in October. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) joined the chorus of criticism this week when he called ACTA "more dangerous than SOPA" at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "It’s not coming to me for a vote," he said. "It purports that it does not change existing laws. But once implemented, it creates a whole new enforcement system and will virtually tie the hands of Congress to undo it."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/opponents-denounce-signing-of-acta-without-adequate-debate.ars
Looks like SOPA was the con. And yeah, we all got conned.
People for the new order need to propose their amendments, and focus on gaining support for their own amendments.
I've said this before in this forum; the only way to win with these people is to play the same game they are playing. Put up candidates, and move agendas forward the exact same way they do. Follow the leader.
Even if it goes against your beliefs, if it is the way to get things done, follow the leader.
It's funny, but Vietnam war protesters finally won (after years of hard work by protesters and activist lawyers, getting their asses kicked by cops, fire hoses, the National Guard, and everything else the system could get away with), and it was Richard Nixon (another crooked republican) who withdrew from Vietnam amid widespread social unrest and disruption. And all this before the internet was invented.
So what are you saying? Don't follow the leader?
I'm not getting what the point of your post actually was.
Nixon was a crook, and we are currently dealing with more of the same.
The most obscene thing about ACTA has been its secrecy. Here's some excerpts from a Wikipedia article:
An open letter signed by many organizations, including Consumers International, EDRi (27 European civil rights and privacy NGOs), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ASIC (French trade association for web 2.0 companies), and the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), states that "the current draft of ACTA would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy."[7] The Free Software Foundation argues that ACTA will create a culture of surveillance and suspicion.[10] Aaron Shaw, Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, argues that "ACTA would create unduly harsh legal standards that do not reflect contemporary principles of democratic government, free market exchange, or civil liberties. Even though the precise terms of ACTA remain undecided, the negotiants' preliminary documents reveal many troubling aspects of the proposed agreement" such as removing "legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers" in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions. Shaw further says that "[ACTA] would also facilitate privacy violations by trademark and copyright holders against private citizens suspected of infringement activities without any sort of legal due process".[9]
Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration had rejected requests to make the text of ACTA public, with the White House saying that disclosure would cause "damage to the national security."[86] In 2009, Knowledge Ecology International filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request in the United States, but their entire request was denied. The Office of the United States Trade Representative's Freedom of Information office stated the request was withheld for being material "properly classified in the interest of national security."[87] US Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) penned a letter on 23 November 2009, asking the United States Trade Representative to make the text of the ACTA public.[88]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
It's to the point where I no longer think in terms of "Obama is fucking us over again" ... it's becoming painfully apparent that he was never one of "us" to begin with.
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
FOR YOU AND ME TO LIVE IN
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r1HGpomVls&feature=related