bjoernvold.com

ACTA handles the sales of counterfeit shoes and handbags - but the real nasty implications are Internet related. They really need to divide those areas. Then we can discuss what priorities the customs should give the control of "Chanel" handbags and "Ray Ban" Sunglases vs Drugs and weapons. And on the other hand the familiar censoring of websites selling pirated Intellectual property. What level of censorship will the taxpayers accept to guard the interests of Ray Ban and Chanel (and Microsoft +Hollywood)? And how much are they willing to pay?

On the 26 of January the European rapporteur for ACTA the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -resigned! EU Rapporteur's resignation Kader Arif, European rapporteur for ACTA, resigned from his position on 26 January 2012 denouncing the treaty "in the strongest possible manner" for having "no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in [the] assembly," concluding with his intent to "send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation" and refusal to "take part in this masquerade."[10][11]

ACTA is a global PIPA and most countries in the world had already agreed when the leaks started to reach the public. For some reason it has been considered vital to the process that secrecy is kept. Parallels with SOPA and PIPA Connor Adams Sheets of the International Business Times outlined five categories where digital rights advocates compared but expressed greater concern about ACTA than SOPA. Among these were the treaty's broader international nature, its fundamental lack of transparency, the relative ease of enactment, the degree of support by signatories, and a lack of visibility on the global political stage.[85] Forbes writer E.D. Kain compared the characteristics of ACTA with that of SOPA and PIPA, noting that they were each "defined by [their] opacity: secret negotiations, closed door talks, no public discussion."[86]

Furthermore it has been an important point to withhold the process from parliamentary treatment - even when this was ordered.
Why you say?

Because You can't handle the truth !
Kader Arif could not stay in his job with a clean conscience and thus he broke the "code", describing the process as a masquerade.
Clearly this was to be rushed without attention. Attention it got though so it was important to speed things up.
This made the minority in the Polish parliament to demonstrate with an Infringement of Hollywood rights:


As it is there has been so much foul play - in terms of democracy- that these negotiations will be blown wide open. This will be hindered by politicians you probably know - because it is embarrassing to them that they do not trust you (Boy do we need Wikileaks).
And if you do not behave they would love to replace you!
The truth is that anything goes as long as they get to control the Internet - so it seems.
Why else would executives from the 27 EU member states—adopt ACTA during a completely unrelated meeting on agriculture and fisheries??
This has nothing to do with political preferences, Liars and cheaters are handled the same in all parties.

Handle it! And get them out of office!

Sources:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/2 ... ments-acta
https://www.eff.org/node/56035
http://www.thejournal.ie/french-mep-qui ... 3-Jan2012/
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php/acta ... signs-acta
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news-topic/ ... wk-sQ.html
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/get ... XML+V0//DA
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... up-to-acta

Well I have done some research and I might have been unfair here. Those guys are all for transparency and information to the public:

ARTICLE 30: TRANSPARENCY
To promote transparency in the administration of its intellectual property rights
enforcement system, each Party shall take appropriate measures, pursuant to its law and
policies, to publish or otherwise make available to the public information on:

(a) procedures available under its law for enforcing intellectual property
rights, its competent authorities responsible for such enforcement, and
contact points available for assistance;

(b)relevant laws, regulations, final judicial decisions, and administrative
rulings of general application pertaining to the enforcement of
intellectual property rights; and

(c) its efforts to ensure an effective system of enforcement and protection of
intellectual property rights.

ARTICLE 31: PUBLIC A WARENESS
Each Party shall, as appropriate, promote the adoption of measures to enhance
public awareness of the importance of respecting intellectual property rights and the
detrimental effects of intellectual property rights infringement.

I am sure they just forgot about promoting Human rights - like privacy.
Because the German Constitutional court ruled that the EU Data retention was in conflict with the Human Rights. And that was constructed to fight serious crime.
I don't quite know how this computes then:

7. To protect electronic rights management information, 16 each Party shall provide
adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly
performing without authority any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil
remedies, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or
conceal an infringement of any copyright or related rights:

Because they cannot do it with Data retention..... Unless they push the Human Rights a bit of course.
Hmm I wonder what those "reasonable grounds" will be

In any case you can look forward to your favorite politicians telling you how important it is to respect intellectual property - try not to laugh.

In this case it sure looks like a choice between Intellectual property and Human rights - We will see what they pick.

And I bet money that most politicians are in; therefore if you talk to them it will fall in deft ears.

If they care about human rights, nobody will be talking about this crap in the beginning with (whoever comes with that idea would be thrown out of the assembly).

Yes but they will react to a risk of loosing their position.
The secrecy is undemocratic IMHO and that is grounds to remove them. If they do not trust you, why should you trust them? Getting them out of those overpaid offices and make them work for a living sounds brilliant to me. Especially since they use your trust to thoroughly screw you.
Who are they representing (besides themselves)?
Hollywood? Microsoft? Sony? Well that would be fine, if they were the ones that elected them...

I do not like piracy and illegal copying - and I will not defend it. But this is shooting birds with cannons.

Oh, believe me when I say this: They don't give two sh!ts about re-election, because they assume it's in the bag, because they have the sheeple snowed, and probably no matter what they are right - they will be re-elected (unfortunately). In particular since our voting system is so corrupt and effed up.

So, they feel they can do as they please, legal or not. Pick a congressman or senator here in the states, then look them up in a google search, and look at their past as well as current "activities". From extending the Patriot Act, to making wars legal or not, to not even knowing or caring how stupid they are when it comes to history, they own us, and all we are is their slaves. Pity, really, I don't understand how people can be so low as to accept slavery to celebrities (that's what it - they - comes/come down to).

Sarah Palin, John McCain, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Obama, Joseph Biden, John Boehner, go for it. Look any of them that you want to up, you'll see how low they are, and how little they care. All they care about is making spectacles of themselves, and have no clue of "human rights" or "natural rights" either one.

Let's not forget, Biden wanted to put a bullet through Assange's head, and probably still does. Some human rights. For that matter, some Democrat. :p

Edit: Just in case you need any further proof that it's all about celebrity-ism ("I wish I hadn't even read this" is currently #1 in that little poll there.)

viking60 wrote:Who are they representing (besides themselves)?
Hollywood? Microsoft? Sony? Well that would be fine, if they were the ones that elected them...

This never gets old; enjoy

Internet Pact Sparks Outrage Across Europe


^^ A protester shouts slogans during a demonstration against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, February 11, 2012 (today, ~D). ^^

Tens of thousands of Europeans braved bitterly cold temperatures to rally against a controversial treaty intended to protect intellectual property.

Anger spilled into the streets of European cities, from Sofia and Vilnius to Prague and Paris to voice displeasure with ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

The treaty had been under negotiation for years, and countries like the United States, Japan and South Korea say it is needed to protect the rights of musicians, filmmakers and even clothing and pharmaceutical companies. But in the past few months it has come under increasing criticism from young people in Europe who say it will lead to online censorship.

Some protesters, like Jan Hulek in Prague, also voiced complaints over how the treaty has been ratified.

"The main issue why I am here is because ACTA was accepted without people knowing it. We didn't know ACTA was going on and there should be discussion before we accepted it. There wasn't," Hulek said.

More at the link.

Did I said that SOPA and PIPA was a magic trick to pass ACTA?

A piece of advice....

When the media agree with the population on doing some good is because they do not want you to focus on some worse.

Have anybody seen it / noticed?
The media is so full of crap to keep the mindless drones entertained...

Yes the good old smokescreen tactics.
It comes in handy every time you try to do something that does not compute with full daylight.