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.

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.