

Dutch parliament rejects ACTA, prohibits government to sign or ratify. - aerique
https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/29/translations-of-dutch-parliamentary-resolutions-against-acta/

======
aerique
Especially resolution 3 is pertinent:

"3. Resolution of Member Verhoeven (21 501-30, No. 288), 29 May 2012 (original
Dutch text in PDF)

The House of Representatives,

\- observes that treaties like ACTA lead to a further formalization of
copyrights rules on the international level,

\- observes that such treaties are very difficult to modify and as a result
can be an extra impediment for future reforms of copyright law,

\- observes that strict enforcement of intellectual property on the internet
is no solution for the ongoing difficulties regarding copyright law and
interferes with internet freedom,

\- requests the government to vote against new similar treaties,

\- requests the government to focus the copyright policy on economic growth
opportunities offered by the internet through, amongst others things, new
revenue models for legal content.

Verhoeven (D66 – Democrats 66)"

I hope this will be a catalyst for other countries to implement similar
regulations.

~~~
nodata
How strong are these "observes" and "requests"? Why not "requires"?

~~~
gpvos
These are motions, which are not binding, and the government can ignore them
if it wishes, although it may then have a political problem and parliament
might send it home with a "motion of distrust", which the government cannot
ignore. However, these motions were very broadly supported: only CDA voted
against motion 286; motion 287 was accepted by general acclaim; only VVD voted
against motion 288. (CDA and VVD are the two parties currently forming a
minority caretaker government.)

~~~
wwwhizz
Strictly speaking, there is no law dictating the government has to leave when
receiving a "motion of distrust", although it never happened they did not.

~~~
adavies42
is that in theory where the queen steps in?

~~~
gpvos
Not sure; it has never happened yet and it would certainly get ugly, so she
might. She does usually step in at a few other places, though. We're getting
off-topic here; for a very nice but not yet complete overview, see
<http://www.quirksmode.org/politics/> .

~~~
gpvos
Hmm, I may have misunderstood adavies42 slightly here; I thought (s)he meant
what would happen if a motion of no confidence were ignored, which has never
happened and would be quite a shock. When a motion of no confidence is passed
by parliament, either against the entire government or against one or more of
its members, which has happened several times, usually the target of the
motion goes to the queen to resign; the governmental parties then seek a
replacement who has to be officially appointed by the queen. If the entire
government resigns, the queen usually asks for advice from all political
leaders, and then there are several options, all of which involve her, since
she officially appoints the members of the government. In practice, power is
in the hands of the political parties; she does have some possibilities to
influence the process, but not very much.

~~~
adavies42
> I thought (s)he meant what would happen if a motion of no confidence were
> ignored

yes, that's what i meant. thanks for the info!

------
maurits
Two critical notes to the general "holland is fantastic" fuzzy feelings.

The Netherlands are European leaders when it comes to wiretapping
communications. Its laws gives the intelligence communities extensive powers
to tap, filter and store. This was already the case well before 9/11.
Secondly, privacy is usually not a political or social issue of any real
significance.

~~~
jkn
The Netherlands recently passed a law on Net neutrality stating that a warrant
is required for internet wiretapping:

[https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/08/netherlands-first-country-
in-e...](https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/08/netherlands-first-country-in-europe-
with-net-neutrality/)

I don't see anything wrong with wiretapping with a warrant. Do people who
argue against them also argue against home search warrants?

~~~
joelhaasnoot
Little bit ironic BTW, seeing as The Netherlands has one of the highest phone
wiretapping rates in the world.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
The difficulty here is that NL has a strong oversight on wiretapping - so
whereas in the UK, a single wiretap warrant can get other phone numbers on as
riders (usually one cop doing a favour for another cop), which makes the UK
numbers look smaller, the NL is more open and so has larger looking wiretaps.

~~~
rickmb
That "strong oversight" has been hampered by a refusal to publish details (we
have absolutely no clue why there are so many wiretaps, and it's been hard
enough to get the authorities to publish the raw numbers), and the oversight
fails when it comes to storing and providing access to the collected data.

The latter is particularly worrying, because we already know that in other
areas, police access to private data collection is seriously being abused, and
very badly organized.

The oversight basically starts and ends with granting the permission to
wiretap. Everything else is murky as hell.

------
jwr
Thank you, Netherlands! (from the Polish, whose Prime Minister initially
thought signing ACTA was a good idea "because everyone else did")

~~~
ktizo
Which is a marginally better excuse than the standard 4 year old's "someone
else did it and ran away", but only just.

~~~
ajuc
For the record - Polish PM backed off after few weeks of mass protests in
Poland, and said he was wrong, and Poland won't ratificate ACTA.

I still don't like him for his other decisions, and the lies he told about
ACTA before he changed his mind, but at least he can say he was wrong.

~~~
ktizo
Fair point, however I admit I am a bit of a cynical bastard and so suspect
that most politicians would swear the earth was flat, if they thought for one
second it would extend their time in power.

~~~
darkestkhan
That is main reason why he (Polish PM) has to be very wary now - if he didn't
back down from ACTA he wouldn't stand a chance in next elections. And there is
still some time before we will have them but if he makes more blunders it will
be his political death.

------
dutchbrit
As a Dutch resident (British citizen), who's working on a file sharing
startup, this news really makes me happy. Hopefully other countries will
follow

~~~
davedx
Also a Brit in NL. Net neutrality and this news makes me very happy too,
though I actually work (indirectly) for Hollywood!

~~~
dutchbrit
Seriously? Where are you based?!

------
gglanzani
And on the other and now the majority of ISP are blocking access to the
PirateBay.

As much as I like the Netherlands (living here from 2006, I'm Italian), these
inconsistencies in their systems are really annoying[^1]. Net neutrality, ACTA
rejection on one side, blocking web sites on the other.

[^1]: I won't mention the other kind of inconsistencies, but if you really
curious about some health care system madness, I encourage you to
read<http://blog.lanzani.nl/2011/doctors/>

~~~
icoder
Really? The ISP-PirateBay blockade was ordered by a judge based on existing
legislation. The field of net neutrality, privacy, copyright/piracy is
changing and complex: I don't think it is reasonable to expect full
consistency now. Tell me which country is consistent, and is so
democratically? At least the Dutch have set a course, and in my opinion it is
a good one.

[I read your blog entry, sorry to hear about your knee but otherwise I find
your story single sided and your statement that doctors get money for not
helping is so crude and slander-like that it needs citation, in my opinion -
if it were not for the fact that I have to email you to comment on the post I
would have placed this part of my reaction over there.]

~~~
gglanzani
Not saying that other countries are better, just saying that there are still a
lot of inconsistencies.

[As for the doctors: for what regards the money, this is what I've heard. Of
course there will be nothing official but: I know 2 (!) persons who died of
uncured cancer, because Dutch doctors just told them to take pain killers (not
kidding). Then I know other 2 (we were close) that had to go to their home
countries to get the cancer cured, because here the doctors told them to wait
a couple of weeks. Once home their doctors hospitalized them immediately,
saying that further delays would have killed them. A PhD student from Russia,
also here in the Netherlands, emailed me after reading my blog post, because
the same happened to his knee and the doctor didn't want to treat him. My
mother-in-law had kidney stones, and what did the doctor say? Drink some warm
milk. She had to fight 3 days to be sent to the hospital. I'm here since 2006,
but I already met so many people who where _shocked_ by the incompetence of
Dutch doctors, that I could write for hours. The entry in my blog reflects
some facts happened directly to me or my family.]

------
iscrewyou
It's things like these that makes it hard for me to ignore that the U.S. is
heading down the wrong path and most of its governmental arms are controlled
by corporations. Let the people decide on something for once.

------
Mordor
The last few years have been particularly crazy - Apple's pursuit of what is
essentially a black rectangle being the oddest of all.

Looking forward to the next generation of laws appropriate to the growth of
the internet and the people who use it...

------
Casperin
It's a bit scary that it is news worthy that some politicians stood up for the
people.

Well done though :)

------
bgentry
Wow, is this really what bills in the Netherlands look like? 500 words, half a
page?

How do we get our govt to stop churning out multi-thousand page piles of pork-
barreling instead of simple, straightforward resolutions like this?

~~~
speleding
Actually, it's a "motion", a (strong though non-binding) suggestion from the
house to the cabinet that they should change the regulations to accommodate
the motion.

The actual law or laws that will be changed or created are not nearly as
pretty. (Although judges here are allowed to pass judgement in the "spirit of
the law" rather than taking the text literally, so there is less of an
incentive to get every little detail nailed down on paper)

------
SjuulJanssen
I'm happy that privacy is still on the political agenda

------
lucb1e
Net neutrality, a lot of ISPs counter-suing BREIN for having to block
thepiratebay, and now this. I love the Netherlands ^^

------
Kartificial
Good news to start off the day. I hope many will follow.

------
rsanchez1
Earth to Congress, Europe is starting to turn against this treaty drafted in
secret, when are you going to come out against this on the side of the
American people?

~~~
mtgx
Well, Sen. Wyden has asked the Obama administration to send ACTA to Senate for
ratification, but the Obama administration refuses to do so, and says ACTA,
which is a global treaty, can be made and signed just by the president.
Something about that argument sounds very wrong to me.

~~~
KoulMomo
Sen Wyden has been great on these issues. See also
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/11415519051/wyden-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/11415519051/wyden-
to-obama-hollywood-shouldnt-know-more-about-tpp-than-congress.shtml) Where the
Obama administration would not share the contents of the TTP (Trans-Pacific
Partnership) agreement with congress or senate, while representatives of U.S.
corporations are being consulted on the agreement.

Crony Capitalism at its worst.

~~~
snowwrestler
Without commenting on the TPP specifically, I will point out that this is the
process that the Constitution sets out for international treaties: the
executive branch negotiates them as they see fit, then the agreement is
presented to the Congress for ratification.

If TPP makes it that far (no guarantee it will), the Congress will have plenty
of opportunity to read and react to it--especially now that Fast Track has
expired. Just look at how many times the negotiators had to go back to the
table on the South Korea and Colombia free trade agreements to satisfy
Congressional objections.

