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European Parliament Declaring War Against ACTA
An anonymous reader writes "The European Parliament is preparing to take on ACTA. A joint resolution (DOC) has been tabled by the major EP parties that threatens to go to court unless things change. The EP is calling for public access to negotiation texts and rules out further confidential negotiations. Moreover, the EP wants a ban on imposing a three-strikes model, assurances that ACTA will not result in personal searches at the border, and an ACTA impact assessment on fundamental rights and data protection."
Finally we have the chance to lobby elected representatives rather than aetherial bureaucracy! Don't let's waste it, guys...
If anyone in the UK wants to write to their MEPs about this resolution (you should), you can use this page to do so. I'm sure similar services exist in other countries, or you could just post the MEPs a dead tree version of your complaint.
You do know that many of the richest EU countries base their economies heavily on providing servies already?
We're not all ignorant savages outside the US.
The service sector is the dominant sector of the UK economy and also many of the other big rich EU countries.
The EU can portray itself as the hero to the people
You do know EU has a lot different system than US? First theres different political systems in all of their member countries, most of them who actually do have 6-8 different parties that have saying over things. EU doesn't need to portray itself as an hero to the people - it pretty much is the EU people, and that's why it will fight ACTA.
(btw, I've seen you shouting bullshit in many different areas, from running trackers to some china government and now this - do you even know what you're talking about?)
Also, are you really serious about us economy being closed? Did you forget China and Taiwan, the Indian coders and phone support, even us mail manual processing being offshored to Singapore? You can't be serious.
The US model is even more open. There are relatively minor state level trading restrictions (the biggest currently is probably the state level differences in health insurance regulation, which are significant obstacles to an interstate insurance market and a contributor to the high US health care costs). And from a pragmatic point of view, there's no language barrier (English being dominant throughout the US) nor a transportation barrier (US transportation infrastructure and regulation is very uniform).
Don't forget Canada and New Zealand. The leaked ACTA docs show that they were standing up for rights and good law from the beginning. The EU was going along with the US before it became public.
Mind you, EU has two sides, parliament are the good guys in general (looking at a large number of cases). The commision (the bad side) is appointed by the EU, they fuck up pretty much everything. Parliament is elected and seem to actually fight for the people. So the shift shouldn't be too shocking. EU commision secretly fucking over the people w/ ACTA, parliament finding out and being pissed about it.
It might be worth explaining for non-European readers that the balance of power between the (elected) Parliament and the (appointed) Commissioners shifted significantly as a result of the Lisbon Treaty, which recently took effect. There was plenty to worry about in that treaty, but this part, at least, they did get right.
A similar difference in opinion between MEPs and the appointed guys explains the recent oddities about allowing the US access to bank records: that provision was pushed through by the appointed government weenies literally hours before Lisbon came into effect, and the MEPs have been working to get it fixed since the change.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Actually, ever since the Lisbon Treaty came into effect on January 1 of this year, the Parliament has to agree in order for ACTA to come into force. The way it looks now, it would fail by a very large margin, and ACTA would be null and void in the world's largest economy.