Making Sense of ACTA

Hodejo1 writes "This past week Guadalajara, Mexico hosted the 7th secret meeting of ACTA proponents who continue to ignore demands worldwide to open the debate to the public. Piecing together official and leaked documents from various global sources, Michael Geist has coalesced it all into a five part ACTA Guide that offers structured insight into what these talks might foist upon the populace at large. 'Questions about ACTA typically follow a familiar pattern — what is it (Part One of the ACTA Guide listing the timeline of talks), do you have evidence (Part Two), why is this secret (Part Three), followed by what would ACTA do to my country's laws (Part Four)? Countering the momentum behind ACTA will require many to speak out" (Part Five).'"

Comments

Fuck ACTA

[haderytn]

That is all.

Re:Fuck ACTA

[couchslug]

Meetings like ACTA conspiracy (any such hidden meeting certainly qualifies!) are proof Timothy McVeigh got the wrong building.

I don't advocate what he did, but as the proponents of secret government become more and more abusive they are going to provoke the fringe...first.

Re:Fuck ACTA

[hairyfeet]

The problem with that theory is how can you kill that which is not alive? And it is pretty obvious to anyone with a brain that We, The People no longer have any say in the government at all (taxation without representation) thanks to bribery being legal and corporations being labeled "really rich people" by the courts, along with speech equaling money, thus insuring your vote and voice is worthless as any corp can simply come along after the election with a checkbook and take over.

Sadly short of armed revolution (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants) I just don't see things ever getting any better, and more likely will get far worse. At least China and India have strong nationalistic streaks and tend to put their own people first, whereas our traitors will happily sell us out to foriegn multinationals for 30 pieces of silver. I predict we will continue to be flooded by H1-Bs and illegals even as our unemployment continues to climb past 20% (the numbers the fed uses is a lie, as they no longer count those whose benefits run out or who have given up for lack of work in their area) while special interests will continue to feed like hogs at the government trough. Once the fed can no longer print phoney money and the whole Ponzi scheme collapses we will get to watch as they return to their home countries and leave the corpse of the USA to rot.

I am only glad my grandfather who fought in WWII isn't alive to see how pathetic and corrupt our government has become. You could probably already power the entire south with the revolutions the man is spinning in his grave at how far his once great country has fallen. Sadly there is simply no way to compete with income tax dodging multinationals who have more money than most third world nations.

Re:Fuck ACTA

[dissy]

Meetings like ACTA conspiracy (any such hidden meeting certainly qualifies!) are proof Timothy McVeigh got the wrong building.

I don't advocate what he did, but as the proponents of secret government become more and more abusive they are going to provoke the fringe...first.

Can't feel too bad for them. If they want people to take their arguments the legal route, they perhaps shouldn't outlaw all the legal routes.

Close off every possible method of counter except violence, and people will not hesitate to use what you left them.

Re:Fuck ACTA

[martas]

While I agree with the general idea behind your post, I fail to see how immigrants (evil, evil immigrants) fit there. IHMO, the biggest problem with the US gov't today is that it is a "democratic" government where elected officials are more worried about money than their own voters, especially since these days votes are won not through argument and opinion, but through ads and shady campaigns that overwhelm the voter with so much garbage that he no longer thinks about what's best for him, but rather what some cheap slogans that have been crammed in his brain tell him to do. Even language, what is supposed to be a tool for communication, has become tainted and twisted and bent into something that provokes animalistic emotion in the listener, not thought and reason. I bet if you looked at the brain of the average American through an fMRI when he heard words such as Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative, healthcare, terrorism, etc, the areas you'd see lighting up would imply something very disturbing. Immigrants aren't this country's biggest problem. Nor is it terrorists, oil, healthcare, global warming, etc. The biggest problem is that government is no longer for the people, or by the people (if it ever was, of course).

Re:Fuck ACTA

[DangerFace]

Exactly why do Europeans care that we do not have national healthcare? They care because they see it as the US rejecting their ideals. I see the same people posting that they will be happy when the US collapses and it's people talk about how we should all have national healthcare.

Nothing these people say make me think that they give a damn about us.

Seriously? I don't like people dying. I really don't like people dying of easily preventable causes. I hate people dying in hospitals of easily preventable causes because they aren't millionaires. I couldn't care less about what you want to do with your life, if you're doing ok, but if you use "I'm alright" as an answer to "Why are you letting all these people die?" then you are morally reprehensible. If you are just happy to have people die through lack of money in the richest country in the world when much poorer countries do much better, then that's fine.

The New Scientist had a brilliant graph plotting expected lifespan against annual government spending on healthcare. Guess who spent the most? The US. Guess who had the shortest lifespan? The US. Guess what the only explanation is? Profits on such an epic scale even European levels of corruption don't achieve them.

Not all Europeans are like this. In fact, I imagine that the majority of Europe either likes the US or is apathetic to us. But there is a strong and loud anti-US online sentiment that drowns out the rational ones.

The majority of Europe hates America. Really, really hates America. However, most European people understand that most American people are alright. The basic values of the Founding Fathers are pretty noble and good.

But

Your country and its citizens dare to lecture China on human rights when you don't recognise the International Criminal Courts, you hold unnamed suspects with no evidence and no charges against them for unlimited amounts of time with no access to legal representation. You invade sovereign nations in the name of regime change. You defend these invasions with the words freedom and liberty, and yet have no care for the millions dying in far worse regimes throughout Africa and Asia. You announce wars on abstract ideas like 'terror' or 'drugs' - unwinnable wars that nevertheless get people whipped up into a nationalistic frenzy.

You know what the worst part is, though? The reason people throughout Europe really, really hate the US? Our governments copy you like fscking monkeys, spending more in order to get less, joining in with your pointless wars in far off lands - at least you have companies that profit from rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. Our school systems get more and more like yours, even though our schools have always turned out smarter kids. Nationalised public services start being seen as some left-wing ideal, rather than centrist and part-of-the-basic-ideals-of-the-free-market.

The truth is that the venting you get on the interwebs is actually pretty mild compared with the venting you get at dinner parties, in pubs - basically wherever there aren't Americans, because you bastards are all so fscking nice.

Have a nice day.

Could someone explain to me

[MrEricSir]

how it would be constitutional to enact laws that were developed behind closed doors by private interests?

The whole secrecy only adds to the resistance

[Opportunist]

Let's be level headed here for a moment. Let's assume for a moment ACTA was a "fair" agreement. Designed to give all affected parties a fair share of the cake. Even then, it would be met with incredible resistance once it hits the fan. Why? Because it's kept secret. You design a contract that will affect me but I don't get to read it until after it is signed. How in the world could I not resist it with all the force I could possibly have?

Also, they will soon notice that all the secrecy around it only makes it more interesting. If ACTA was published and discussed in plain view, it would soon be drowned in the noise of everyday politics. A few activists would care and as usual, nobody would listen to them. Do you think it would be on /.'s frontpage every other day if it was public? This way, it's kept in our minds, fresh and looming, a secret deal that will affect us but we don't get to see it. Can you imagine anything more interesting?

Of course (please put on your tinfoil hats now), it could all be a gigantic plot to keep our interest on it so we overlook something else. But generally, if ACTA is supposed to become reality some day, the whole secrecy around it will ensure that every government will have to fight an uphill battle to get it ratified and codified and every single step will be monitored closely and reported widely, simply because ACTA got that much limelight. Due to its secrecy.

waggers

[epine]

USTR head Ron Kirk has reportedly said that countries would walk away from the treaty if the text were made available

I don't get this. If our elected leaders walk off on the job, we already have a mechanism in place to fix this: a general election. Maybe the next batch is willing to contend with the issue under democratic conditions, such as open consultation.

Oh, you mean only the tinpots will walk away from the table, which will hurt us more than it hurts them. Why didn't you make yourself clear in the first place? Democracy is good, except when negotiating with tinpots, which necessarily takes place on their terms, in the best interest of all concerned.

Nice tail-wags-the-dog justification for subverting democratic transparency.

Or is there something I missed here? Did I skip an essential chapter in Democracy for Dummies? I feel so stupid. Our politicians are willing to shine their eminent sensibilities on this problem and all they want is a little secrecy to work their magic for the good of humanity? There's just no respect in this world, is there?

Re:how to defeat acta:

[ratboy666]

Yes, I can see it coming.

I still have my old analog modem, and I still control my own network. We hackers will simply retreat to UUCP ("bbs" for the micro-computer generation). With known and trusted peers only.

About the only thing added will be full crypto on the UUCP links.

And when they come for that...

It will go back to physical data exchange.

Too bad, though. But the level of discourse may become reasonable again, and maybe, just maybe, SPAM will go away. At least on the darknets.

Outsourcing is a lie

[shmlco]

"How can you stop outsourcing without severely damaging the competitiveness of american companies?"

I'm beginning to think that this is a lie.

We're told over and over again that American companies have to outsource production to other countries in order for them to remain "competitive".

Okay, fine. But tell me this: How do Honda and Toyota and Kia and Hyundai BUILD PLANTS HERE IN THE US???

Are they not competitive? If FOREIGN companies can build plants here and produce products here for sale here AND hire American labor to do so... AND still make a profit...

THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS OUR PROBLEM??????