Acta - ot

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2011/acta-rapporteur-resigns-over-masquerade

Kader Arif, rapporteur for ACTA in the European Parliament, has quit his role as rapporteur. Thanks to La Quadrature Du Net, here's his statement in English:

I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: 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, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.


As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.


Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.”


This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.

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Strong stuff and a brave move. Another clear signal that something is seriously wrong. It's going to be our job to make sure that the public's voice is heard. Get ready to help us retrofit some democracy into the ACTA masquerade.

 

Wow, bold move indeed.

 

So we can get fined/sent down for previously downloading illegal content via this act? Checking everyone's ISP for previously downloaded content that may break this act is near impossible by the sheer amount of time it would take, ridiculous act that will only fail in the long term by what it's claiming to do.

 

They wan't you to go down for previous acts as well?!

I'm ****ed...

 

There is no way any government will: force ISPs to send investigative reports on every single user's internet viewing and downloading history and then trawl through every citizen in the country to find something that may or may not look dodgy, send round the local police to seize all computer equipment and send them to prison.

 

There was a part that hinted at it, but the point still stands, will take too long to implement fully and will backfire on itself eventually.

 

I'm not

 

Put it this way, if they went through with something like that, they'd have to charge practically every single person in the world with internet access.

Intentional or not, if you are an active internet user you would of downloaded something dodgy at least once.

 

Daniel Day Lewis

.. no .. wait..

 

This is my point. As harsh as ACTA may be it is impossible to enforce, people break it everyday by accident It will end up like prohibition in America, it is a can of worms which is impossible to close.