The War Against Censorship: ACTA

While the controversy surrounding Anti-Piracy bills and legislation has settled down to a mere murmur in America, the European Union has gone forward with a new piece of legislation that would be worse than SOPA and PIPA combined and could spell the end for internet privacy and freedom of speech. Sponsored by the United States as well as many other prominent European countries, the ACTA legislation has risen up to the forefront in European politics. Being discussed behind closed doors, the bill would have all complying countries form an outside organization to deal with online piracy. (Similar to the the WTO or other international organizations.) However it has come under attack as restricting many forms of internet trade along with censoring the internet. Obviously this raises some fears that it would trample on the freedom of speech, expression, and digital rights. Parallels have been drawn from it to SOPA and PIPA, but with the number of countries seemingly ready to ratify it and the international aspect it is much more dangerous.

Originally drafted in 2006 by the US and Japan, more countries soon joined, in secrecy of course. These nations include: Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Morocco, and the European Union (who signed off with 22 non-represented states present). Other countries, like Mexico for example, have been involved in talks but have yet to sign on it. You would think that this would at least be decided by elected officials, representatives of government. Wrong. The main contributors to the bill have been corporations, ones that easily have a bias for this type of bill. Disney, Time-Warner, Sony, and many more entertainment and legal corporations have pledged monetary support for this bill. The bill that would help them increase and already outrageous profit while choking out individuals rights.

Similar to SOPA/PIPA, ACTA will require the internet service providers to monitor internet activity for piracy. This means they'll take the fall for anything that passes under their watch, so they will most certainly take precautions. Censorship will be inevitable as the providers work to avoid pricey fines and legal issues caused by piracy on their service. Remember how Facebook and pretty much every social media site would have to censor user content/ Emails being pre-read to determine any illegitimate material? Yeah, that would totally happen with ACTA. And because this isn't just the US, it would be way harder to circumnavigate. Think Big Brother only internationally, that's pretty much it. Or the beginning of it. Because once the world lets a piece of legislation like this pass, it will be much easier to pass similar, stronger bills than it will be to take it back. The line is drawn here, and if ACTA isn't shot down then we could all be royally screwed.

Luckily there's always things we cyber-activists can do. (I must say its cool to be a cyber-activist.) As always you can sign online petitions. You may not think it makes much of a difference, one signature. But the petitions are meant for the statistic standpoint. If representatives of opposition can go up and be like "Hey, we've got millions of people against this think, you better watch it." Its much better to have evidence of this than just hearsay. Also contact INTA, an organization currently compiling a report on the bill. Let them know your concerns with the bills in order for them to fully document the opposition and reasons for opposing the bill. And as always, read the actual bill. While the internet may be tempting with it's TL;DR versions, reading the actual bill along with these sources will give you a thorough understanding of the issues and enable you to speak about it in order to inform others. Informing others is everything. Also besides the bill, read up on it through wikileaks. This gives you background on the bill besides what it actually says. That way you know the history and where the bill is coming from.

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 Retaliation:
Recently on Saturday there was a worldwide rally against ACTA, the bill that could "destroy absolutely everything you hold near and dear, including kittens and puppies." <= (Felt like being sensationalist.)   Millions of people took to their respective streets to raise awareness and protest the bill, which has been pretty secretive until now. Thousands of places across Europe are participating, as well as those across the world. While the United States had minimal action in the physical sense, millions took to the web to express their discontent with the bill.

ACTA protests across Europe.

Happily these protests have had results with Poland hesitating last week. Several other countries have joined Poland today in withholding their support of the treaty. Slovakia, Czech Republic, Latvia and Germany have all held their support due to the popular protests. In fact, healthy opposition has even taken root in the EU parliament.  EU Parliament President Martin Schulz criticized the treaty on national television, saying he was not content with it in it's current form. Holy schnikes, things getting done. Progress being made? Can you smell the activism in the air, oh so refreshing.