Proposed Treaty Turns Internet Into a Virtual Police State

[Deg™]

Again, it’s one of the few bastions of anti-corruption, Wikileaks, that has spilled the beans on this unsavory topic. Yesterday the site revealed a document proposing a treaty that will significantly limit the privacy and rights of Internet users, to the benefit of multimillion dollar companies.

“ACTA” is basically an attempt to criminalize the Internet, thus allowing a virtual police state to occur by the selective prosecuting of crimes. In short, it’s an international treaty, or hopes to be, that will greatly increase already draconian copyright measures, in a poor attempt to appease the copyright and patent industries.

The proposal is based on the assumption that ‘intellectual property rights’ (a term used nine times on the first page of the proposal, and 24 times over the entire 3 ½ page document) trump personal privacy, data protection, probable cause, and lots of other important principles in western democracies.

The measure which has received wider publicity is the so-called ‘Pirate Bay killer’. At the end of page two, there is a list of things that should be included in a signee’s legal framework, and in the section about criminal sanctions it states “significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright holder (e.g., Internet piracy)”. Think non-profit, personal use file-sharing.


Of course, this could go two ways, as the MPAA, for instance, has been guilty of ‘Internet piracy’ in the past, with it’s university toolkit.

Worst of all though, are the following two points speaking of “establishment and imposition of deterrent-level penalties” and “ex-officio authority to take action against infringers”. It is argued that the current level of penalties aren’t harsh enough (“people are still doing it, so they’re no deterrent”), so there should be room for harsher punishments. Combine this with the ability to prosecute without a rights holder complaint, which means that people could be liable for millions, or imprisoned (they are talking about CRIMINAL enforcement) for sharing Steal this Film, or Paulo Coelho’s books. So, these people actively want you to share would have no say in any such prosecution.

There are some other pure gems proposed, such as “ex officio authority for customs authorities to suspend import, export and trans-shipment of suspected IPR infringing goods”. Given that copyright law is so complex and convoluted, and that judges make mistakes in the cases they hear, this is worrying.

Unsurprisingly, the US patent office is backed up beyond belief and dominated by patent trolls that wait until a successful business is established, before pouncing to clean up. This would mean the death for any new and innovative products, or art. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is a further provision for rights holders to prod customs officials into suspension. Thus, a company can make an allegation, forcing a competitors products to be held in limbo until sorted.

Protest has been swift. TorrentFreak occasional contributor Jamie King wrote on his own blog: “In the form that it currently appears to exist, ACTA would ratchet-up further the rights of Hollywood and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) at the expense of all of our civil liberties. It provisions to criminalize information use practices currently allowed under U.S., European, and international law are completely disproportionate to the ‘problems’ it claims to address.”

Andrew Norton, chairman of the American Pirate Party was much less restrained: “The very existence of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) – be it in policy or just planning, sends one definite message to people around the world; Corruption is rife in the interested countries. There can be no other reason for yet another ‘intellectual property’ (itself a misnomer) law aimed at protecting business interests and expanding government intrusion into the private affairs of it’s citizens, in the name of ‘protection’.”

Of course, the other area most affected by this would be whistle-blower sites like Wikileaks itself. The owner of any leaked document can claim copyright infringement on its publication, and have it pulled. In this, ACTA is a very effective censorship tool. For some reason, though, this aspect has not been widely reported, or even mentioned.

Proposed Treaty Turns Internet Into a Virtual Police State | TorrentFreak


What the ****?

[BD-ICY]

**** THIS **** MAN!

IF THIS **** GETS PAST IM GONNA START A ****ING RIOT!

[CrazyGerbilEater]

will not pass, if 1000 nerds must sacrifice themselves for it to happen, it shall not pass. every person who voted for it would die within the week, every person for it would be under massive internet attacks, they couldnt type their name into a private network without being found and spammed. their ss would cease to exist, they would have 100k loans applications every 5 seconds.

[SilentSymphony]

This reminds me of Prohibition except the reaction worldwide is going to be much more severe.. things keep popping up all the time, rumors or not like Net Neutrality etc, that will have a huge negative feedback from at least 80% of the online population..

SilentSymphony*

[FlamingAsterix]

This has gone far beyond disgusting. If it passed I believe there would be a massive protest, and I'm surprised there isn't such a thing at the mere suggestion of it.

[howardmeis]

We need someone to rise up and stop this ****, honestly. My only idea is 4chan to stop being stupid asses with Scientology and work on this.

[sdk]

It couldn't happen. It's too insane and even if it was put into motion, the US (Should at leas) would refuse due to it's nature of "privacy" but even still, the possibilities are remote.

[K? Pŕo?ćtiόnŹ]

lets make our own intarnetz ^_^

[dt]

lets make our own intarnetz ^_^

With black jack, and hookers.

[BD-ICY]

With black jack, and hookers.

WIN!

[K? Pŕo?ćtiόnŹ]

With black jack, and hookers.

Dt, do you want to go out to dinner before or after the sex?

[BD-ICY]

Why not during?

[Lord_Nicon]

i blame larz. stupid metallica. they always start crap. ohh noes im going to be sued now for saying "metallica".... TWICE... but atleast they dont have a copyright on the word "o.j." like phreaking gene simmons. theres another lawsuit waiting to happen. oops

[Aristocrat]

Proposed Treaty Turns Internet Into a Virtual Police State | TorrentFreak


What the ****?

tl;dr