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."

Comments

ACTA

[sopssa]

It's getting heated up in my country too. People are demanding answers from politicians, but even they don't know what the fuck is going on. ACTA is seriously the kind of secrecy movement that should not be allowed. It's good to see we actually have some backbone. My image towards EU has growth a lot with this.

Re:ACTA

[magus_melchior]

No, I think the EU is doing this as an act of self-preservation.

I've done my fair share of BS'ing/armchair-punditry, but I have to say that this is either grossly naive or overgeneralized. France under Sarkozy has been pushing 3-strikes legislation aggressively, even though it keeps getting killed in court.

And if the US backs out of its FTAs, that'd be akin to committing economic policy seppuku. Another commenter mentioned China, but do you realize how much we're interdependent with East Asia in general? 90%+ of the components you used to comment were either made there (China) or designed by a firm in that region (Samsung, LG, Sony, Asus, etc. etc. etc.). Now imagine what would happen if the US even thinks about going protectionist on these guys-- you'll see a collapse of the US consumer economy as we know it, because we've abandoned the idea of making goods domestically due to higher costs.