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EU Parliament Rejects ACTA In a 663 To 13 Vote
An anonymous reader writes "'The European Parliament defied the EU executive today (10 March), casting a vote against an agreement between the EU, the US and other major powers on combating online piracy and threatening to take legal action at the European Court of Justice.'"
Good to know that the voice of the people is being heard.
I'd be curious to see the political/national/corporate affiliations of the 13 that voted for it. Maybe publish the details, to let people know how these folks were *cough* looking out for their "interests".
I'm always surprised when a minority votes for something that most unequivocally consider at the very least bad, if not downright evil.
Nice to see not everyone in "government" is controlled by Hollywood
You mean there's still a legislative body that isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of their corporations?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You can't see it because this is the internet but I'm giving Europe a standing ovation right now.
It's nice to see some people in power actually understand just how disgusting ACTA is.
Read draft leaked on March 1st to know why.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Do not get your hopes up. I just see 663 politicians who are about to get visits from copyright lobbyists, it remains to be seen how easily these people can be bought.
Palm trees and 8
I am moving to Germany next month! seriously.
The sheep here just dont care what the government takes from them so long as it's "for the children".
That has got to sting.
Most genocides had higher approval ratings than that.
Heh, this is a case where the inappropriately-effusive slashdot story is actually less exciting than the glum reality. This vote was a parliamentary resolution urging the European Commission to (among other things) fight the veil of secrecy that's kept ACTA out of the mainstream press for the most part. That's way cooler than "rejecting" some secret draft that we didn't know about anyway, and that would have been swiftly replaced with another secret draft.
since lisbon treaty last year, Eu parliament has the power. they canceled the swift agreement with usa that allowed cia, nsa to gather info about swift users.
Read radical news here
since lisbon treaty last year, ANYthing that is done by Eu commission has to be approved by parliament to be valid. Parliament can also cancel anything Eu commission did before they had to take their approval. Like the SWIFT bank transfer treaty that required eu to give out private about people doing bank transactions with u.s.
Read radical news here
I don't want to bring the mood down, but this is just a good summary of a bad article. The parliament did not vote against ACTA per se, they voted in favour of resolution RC-B7-0154/2010. Much better summary is the press release from the parliament itself.
In brief, they are mostly pissed off about the secrecy of the negotiations and lack of transparency. The resolution calls on the negotiations being made accessible to the public and the MEPs in a timely manner. So it's not against ACTA, it's against how negotiations are conducted. However, the resolution does also call out against the 3-strike rule and personal searches at EU borders. Regarding warrantless searches, they merely want a "clarification" of clauses that would allow such things.
...how the world has changed in recent 150 years. U.S. corporations push draconian laws and European countries are praised for standing up to protect freedoms and privacy.
Firstly, the vote was not against ACTA, it was a resolution to force the Commission to open up the documents (See one of the Pirate Party MEPs blog: http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/epic-win-for-transparency-on-acta/ or the official EP website http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/026-70281-067-03-11-903-20100309IPR70280-08-03-2010-2010-false/default_en.htm). The article is very very wrong. The 13 against are listed in the EUPs roll calls.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+PV+20100310+RES-RCV+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
The following are against (by their EU party grouping)
EFD: Agnew, Andreasen, Batten, Bufton, Colman, (The Earl of) Dartmouth, Farage, Nattrass, Nuttall
NI: Bontes, Sinclaire, Stassen, van der Stoep
These are from the UK and the Netherlands. All of them UKIP (British anti-eu party) or PVV (Dutch anti-islam party).
The British MEPs are the following
UKIP: Andreasen, Agnew, Batten, Bufton, Colman, Farage, Nattrass, Nuttall
Previous UKIP (expelled): Sinclare
The Dutch ones the following
PVV: Bontes, Stassen, van der Stoep
I have not bothered to include the ones who abstained their vote.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
"i'm going to run to canada if bush is elected! boo hoo!"
look you spineless assholes: if your society is going south, stay there and fight for it. fleeing means that you don't hold much stock in the strength of your own convictions, and instead parasitically depend on someone else to fight for your convictions
all of your freedoms you hold dear must constantly be protected and fought for. what, you think you fight for something once and it stays that way forever? no, every day is a fight against constant assaults against your freedoms, and this is the way it is, FOREVER, IN EVERY SOCIETY. this is the reality you live in, so grow a fucking backbone, stand your fucking ground, and fight the fucking assholes who infect your society
to anyone who threatens to flee the usa because of changes in society they don't like: you're a loser, you're a freeloader, and you ARE PART OF THE FUCKING PROBLEM
we need fighters who will fight for their home, not freeloading whiners
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We were told that ACTA had to remain secret for "National Security Reasons". We were told it had to remain secret or other countries would walk away from the table.
But the truth is that most of Europe will walk away if there is no disclosure. And none of the countries that have supported secrecy have threatened to leave the talks. And the US hasn't even claimed to take a position (though we all know that is a lie).
And to top it all off, despite all the leaks so far, we do not have a single terrorist organization that has been able to leverage the revealed all-so-dangerous-information commit any terrorist act.
At least, as long as you don't consider Michael Geist a terrorist.
Do you really believe that anything the EU does is going to prevent the US from rather forcibly letting the world know that the IP manuactured in the US isn't going to be passed around for free? Dream on. You are talking about a huge economy that is responsible for the well-being of nearly a half a billion people.
Yeah:
GDP (Nominal):
EU - US $14.51 trillion (2009 est.)
US - US $14.266 trillion (2009)
Population:
EU - 491,582,852 (July 2009 est.)
US - 307,212,123 (July 2009 est.)
Sorry buddy, the days are over when the US could unilaterally dictate it's whims to a fractured Europe. The EU has already surpassed the US in size and economic power, and the odds are very good that trend will continue.
Don't get your hopes up, in the Metric system 98% isn't a majority.
663 vs 13.
Remember, the EU parlament is not the US congress. It's not "two parties and a handful of independents". You literally have ALL possible flavors of political opinions represented in there. No matter how you look at it, with the various parties in the parlament, this means that parties from all over the political spectrum voted AGAINST it. From Conservative to Liberal, from Socialist to Libertarian, from left to right, up to down and in to out. That's a result you would expect for votes held on topics that no sane person could shoot down, like, say, "Do we want to give ourselves more money?" And even there I'm not so convinced it would be this clean cut, given that there are actually a few in there that take the whole deal serious.
Sure, a few of those 663 votes will be votes against the council and their "we decide, you shut up" stance towards the parlament, and given the chance to give them the finger, a few MoPs certainly took the opportunity. But my guess is for such a reaction, ACTA is too important. This ain't the decision on the mandatory size of eggs or the shade of green a cucumber has to have to be a grade A. We're talking about a treaty that would affect every single EU citizen, and of course every single EU corporation that even remotely deals with copyright. I doubt many would use just this vote to show their digital 4 to the council.
So what this vote shows us is that pretty much ALL parlament is against the treaty. No matter what party. No matter what political position. No matter their opinion on other issues. They ALL consider it bad enough to object that this is dealt with behind closed curtains.
So my question would be, why was the council and the negotiators for it? No matter what political party you belong to, you pretty much had to be against it... at least if your political point of view was the deciding factor, not the one of the person slipping greens in your pockets...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.