

22 EU states sign the ACTA ‘Internet censorship’ treaty - joejohnson
http://thenextweb.com/eu/2012/01/26/the-eu-and-22-member-states-sign-the-controversial-acta-internet-censorship-treaty/

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narrator
The oligarchy in China is at least out in the open and nationalistic.

In the west the oligarchy does everything in secret, their motives are largely
unclear, and they keep everyone focused on culture war issues that never get
resolved and celebrity like gossiping about politicians. Meanwhile, the
lobbyists and the rest of the oligarchy write absurdly complex bills and pass
them in obscurity.

In Russia it's a bit of a hybrid of the western and eastern system.

~~~
vacri
The meme of 'they're better because at least they admit they're an arsehole'
needs to die.

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batista
It's a perfectly valid point of view (btw: point of view != argument).

Everything else being equal, a well defined opponent is much easier to fight
that a vague one, or one that presents itself as your friend.

~~~
vacri
But everything else isn't equal - the reason why 'their' governments can and
'our' governments can't is because it is so much worse there. It's silly
saying that 'at least the chinese gov't is honest' because for a start it's
not, and secondly because they already have the strongarm power to halt
dissenting opinions. First-world countries generally have a ton of avenues to
make your voice heard with some degree of fairness. Lauding China because the
government already has such iron-fisted control that it can be more
straightforward is just stupid.

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rickmb
It's time people realize who the supporters behind ACTA are. Here's one:
<http://www.inta.org/Press/Pages/EUsignsACTA.aspx>

INTA represents amongst others our good friends Rackspace, eBay, GoDaddy
(surprise!), Yahoo, Microsoft, etcetera.

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kzrdude
American lobbyists had direct access to the drafting of the treaty while the
european parliament was told it was secret for them due to national security
issues. No comment necessary.

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ergo14
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514232> \- ACTA will NOT pass as of now
since it's in validation of Basic Human Rights Bill, so it looks with
exception of Poland and Czech EU is safe, but i have high hopes that our
(polish) parliament will not ratify the document. So lets hope not everything
is lost.

[http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/bert-
knabe/2011-...](http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/bert-
knabe/2011-11-25/european-court-justice-internet-filtering-
illegal#.TyGXlkDCQkA)

here are more sources on the matter

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sounds
Do you have any suggestions for what the internet can do? Those of us outside
Poland and the Czech Republic?

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ergo14
I'm not a lawyer only a humble developer, I think the only thing we can do in
EU is to put pressure on EU parliament to not agree to the pact - that's all.

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tzs
ACTA is not an "internet censorship treaty". A very good analysis of what it
_ACTUALLY_ is was posted a few days ago on Reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/or8ag/ive_read_the...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/or8ag/ive_read_the_final_version_of)

~~~
kiloaper
I question the 'expertise' of a random poster on the internet and the reasons
they would go to such lengths (astroturfing does happen, especially with
powerful lobbyists in play). I'm no lawyer but just glancing at their
'analysis' I spotted something which suggests they have little knowledge of EU
law and practices, or simply chose to ignore it. They try and defend Article
11 with

>Aha. If an ISP only keeps IP logs for a month, or doesn't do so at all, then
the copyright holder is without any recourse. You can't hand over information
you don't have.

and again

>whilst ISPs may be ordered to hand over information on infringers, there is
nothing requiring them to gather information to do so, and there is a specific
clause

I guess they don't know about the Data Retention Directive (2006) then. Where
I live in the EU ISPs keep data for the max 2 years.

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fierarul
I find it ironic that we had some Romanian sites go black in response to SOPA
which was an US issue but today Romania signed ACTA and nobody did anything.

[http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/i_property/acta1201.htm...](http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/i_property/acta1201.html)

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bad_user
For what is worth, I contacted a few of our members of parliament - apparently
with no success. All of them are a bunch of illiterate assholes anyway.

UPDATE: in case you want to contact them too, here's the list ...
<http://bit.ly/AkFjG6>

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spdy
There needs to be a better way to communicate this problem.
<http://www.stopacta.info/> has a lot of information but only for people who
are interested in this matter will stay, everyone else just leaves.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Xg_C2YmG0> is something you can show around.

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orbitingpluto
The thing about legislation like ACTA is that countries are often pressured by
the US to put it into place. Then, with a wave of the hand, American
politicians argue that, "we must get in step with the rest of the world."

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white_devil
Our "leaders" are such fucking corrupt shitbags.. It's disgusting.

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bad_user
Either corrupt, or ass-kissing douches that have no idea why they are there.
Many of them probably have no idea what they signed for.

Sorry for the language, but I'm really pissed off that my country is on that
list.

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white_devil
> Either corrupt, or ass-kissing douches that have no idea why they are there.

Sure they do - they're there for their own personal gain. The second-most
important thing is the benefit of their "campaign contributors" - in other
words: the companies/people that bribe them.

My country is on the list too.

~~~
batista
So it's not the politicians "own personal gain" that is primarily behind of
this, but the gain of companies/people. The politicians are just puppets for
the men in power of the economy.

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creativityland
Sigh...what is 2012, end of the internet?

~~~
jaryd
The Mayans were right!!!</panic>

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h00k
inb4revolutions

