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EU Privacy Chief Says ACTA Violates European Law
An anonymous reader writes "Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, has issued a 20-page opinion expressing concern about ACTA (PDF). Michael Geist's summary of the opinion notes that it concludes that the prospect of a three-strikes and you're out system may violate European privacy law, that the possibility of cross-border enforcement raises serious privacy issues, and that ACTA transparency is needed now."
Its not law yet. Its a proposed international treaty. Once it is signed, then each individual country that signs (an ratifies) it is then obligated to pass laws to implement the treaty. Those laws of course will be public.
The problem with secret negotiations, is that the public is then presented with a fait d'accompli, which must be implemented in law, thus depriving them of any input. In some countries, the ratification process provides some measure of input, but it is binary, either yes or no. Once ratified, the politicians can then say, "we have to pass this law, we are obligated by the treaty" and ignore any opposition from the public.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
I have to disagree with you in this:
People have all sorts of different reasons for keeping legislation secret until it is proposed ranging from strategically hiding it from your opposition thereby reducing their reaction time to simply not having a solid foundation built yet. If you've got a shaky idea of what all the players want out of this deal, you shouldn't be publishing the initial draft of the documentation. This leads to confusion and gives opponents fodder. Let's say the countries that came to the table eventually reject the international three strikes rule but later have problems passing a better version of ACTA that actually tries to achieve a solution without invading privacy.
That's exacty what corrupts democracy from an open discussion of ideas towards a power game more akin to chess playing. Entertaining, but missing the point.
One of the pieces of US legislation I'm most envious of, as an European is FOIA (the time span should be considerably shorter, but over here, governments are free to keep things secret forever).
Keep politics and admin honest by making known as much as possible as early as possible.