Anyone Heard of ACTA?

quote:

Originally posted by Clover-Dale:
Sorry I didn't respond earlier, lawguy, but I have to disagree that this is a conspiracy theory. The story of ACTA has been published all over main stream Internet news sites for a couple of years now, and there is even a well annotated Wikipedia page about it. The Obama administration admits the talks are going on but says the details are being withheld for "national security" reasons.

The reason I responded is because I came across another story relating to ACTA that was published earlier today (the linked story is from a well respected blogger/journalist who gets paid to track broadband and ISP industry news, and has been researching this story for years). It seems now the MAFIAA (also known as the RIAA and MPAA) is pushing to have European style "three strikes laws" pushed onto the U.S. What this means is if you get caught violating the the DMCA on three separate occasions, your Internet connection will be, by law, cut permanently. You cannot change service providers -- you are simply cut off for life. This is obviously unfair for a number of reasons that should be obvious to any reader.

What makes the potential "3 strikes law" so insidious (and not to mention just plain stupid since it is unenforceable) is that there is no due process for the accused; if one is simply accused of being an infringer, one has no recourse. Further, the law will provide the MAFIAA access to your ISP records without a warrant. In essence, it would make a private entity a sort of law enforcement agency.

There are so many unanswered questions about how such a system will work, who will police it, who will pay for it, and what recourse the accused will have to defend against bogus allegations. So far, the MAFIAA representatives have failed to answer these questions completely.

A Canadian International Law Professor wrote an interesting piece about the status of such laws in other countries. New Zealand, for instance, had to withdraw its 3 strikes law because of public outrage. Germany and Spain have also both rejected such laws.

Now, I agree that it's possible such a treaty will never pass; that is, just because it's being proposed by some powerful lobbyists in secret smoke filled rooms doesn't mean a whole lot. That much is true. However, one must ask why the government refuses any transparency whatsoever -- even going as far as rejecting a FOIA request on the basis of "national security?"

Of course the MSM wont cover this story because they are all owned by corporations closely tied with the MAFIAA. Most of them (NBC, ABC, FOX, MSNBC, CNN) are owned by conglomerates that also have an economic interest in seeing this nonsense get passed into law. So, all of them wish to ignore this story for obvious reasons.