EU ACTA Chief Resigns

bs0d3 writes "The EU ACTA chief has resigned, saying, 'This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.' 22 EU members signed the controversial ACTA treaty Thursday in Tokyo."

Comments

Another politician with half a brain?

[ToiletBomber]

I think my faith in humanity might yet be vindicated.

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you've missed the Republican Presidential race.

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[petman]

He got ACTA signed in Europe.

That's not how I understand it. I think you got misled by the misleading title of TFA/TFS. He's not the 'EU ACTA Chief'. He was the European Parliament's rapporteur on ACTA. His job was to investigate the issue and produce a report on it.

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think my faith in humanity might yet be vindicated.

Not so fast.

He got ACTA signed in Europe. He did the job he was paid for, only now can he say whatever he likes.

He did no such thing. Signing is the responsibility of the respective member countries, specifically their ministers. In "EU-speak" the Council. The next step is to get ACTA ratified in a) the EU parliament and b) the national parliaments, without which ACTA is just a piece of paper with no impact whatsoever except for wasting a lot of time.

What this man did was (at first glance) admirable. Had he done this after the ratification in EUParl had gone through, not so much, but that vote is not until in a few months, and is going to be a highly influenced by this kind of high-profile action.

Still, that doesn't mean you shouldn't call your MEP to make them aware of this action, and the importance of saying no to ACTA

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a clue before spurting nonsense. The vote in the parliament is still not done, if the vote fails (which he wants to make sure with his dramatic exit), the all the signing by the member states isn't worth the paper the treaty is printed on

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[TapeCutter]

He's a little fucking late, don't you think?

Nope, handing over the report and quitting at the same time is perfect timing, especially if you want to draw attention to why you are quitting. Finishing what he started shows he's a professional, had he quit half way through they would have simply replaced him with someone more malleable.

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[rtb61]

Also he is now free to tell all and sundry, as often and as loudly as possible exactly why he quite. He is basically in the best position to deliver a swift kick in the goolies to ACTA in Europe.

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[cpu6502]

âI want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliamentâ(TM)s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly..... This agreement might have major consequences on citizensâ(TM) lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter.â

Wow.

Do Europeans still have the right to own guns? If I read that my government was bypassing my elected representatives to pass ACTA, I'd be visiting the local target shooting store to polish my skills. Passage of laws without representation is just 1 step short of tyranny.

"No legislation without representation."

Re:Another politician with half a brain?

[thereitis]

If you've ever been a manager, you'd know that being "in charge" of something doesn't always mean "in charge" the way you think it should. Obviously, there are larger forces at work here and rather than battle them himself and lose, he's letting the world know what's going on. I think that's a smarter plan. There's some very powerful people behind this legislation. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of whatever tactics they might employ.

Call me picky but...

[Corporate T00l]

"News sites" hosted on port 82 set off some alarm bells. That being said, this piece has been picked up by other news sites with more direct citations. Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120126/11014317553/european-parliament-official-charge-acta-quits-denounces-masquerade-behind-acta.shtml) and The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/27/eu_signs_acta/) both have articles that are worth reading.

Re:Call me picky but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Kader Arif gave some insight here [numerama.com]:

(french) http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21424-acta-demissionnaire-kader-arif-denonce-une-mascarade.html
(google tr) http://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.numerama.com%2Fmagazine%2F21424-acta-demissionnaire-kader-arif-denonce-une-mascarade.html&act=url

"I want to denounce as the greatest of all the process that led to the signing of this agreement: no association of civil society, lack of transparency from the beginning of negotiations, successive postponements of the signing of the text without no explanation was given, setting aside the claims of the European Parliament, however, expressed in several resolutions of this assembly, "he complains.

The MEP also confirms what we reported on the schedule to the charge imposed for parliamentary committees to express their views on the content of the agreement. "As the reporter on this text, I also faced unprecedented maneuvers of the right of Parliament to impose an accelerated schedule to pass the agreement as soon as possible before the public is alerted, denying that the European Parliament's right of expression and the tools at its disposal to carry the legitimate demands of citizens. "

For Kader Arif, "everyone knows, the ACTA has greement problem, whether its impact on civil liberties, responsibilities it imposes on providers of Internet access, impact on the manufacture of generic drugs and the lack of protection it offers to our geographical indications ".

"This agreement can have major consequences on the lives of our citizens, and yet everything is done for the European Parliament has no say. So today, in submitting this report in my charge, I wants to send a strong signal and alert the public about this unacceptable situation. I will not participate in this charade. "

Re:Call me picky but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on slashdot can a discussion on a non-default HTTP port turn into one about survival of mankind :D

Re:I can understand why

[symbolset]

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. - Various attributions.

How do we protest this?

[Zandamesh]

What we need is a simple webpage with links to complete tutorials of how to protest this for each country, where people can edit the tutorials, like, a wikipedia for protests. I don't know how to create such a website quickly, but I'm sure some guys on Slashdot could whip out something like this in a couple of hours.

Re:How do we protest this?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Once again the French come through:How to act against ACTA.

In addition, if you're a member or supporter of any national party in Europe, lean on your party's committee members as well. Often they have a large influence on their EU counterparts, and don't forget that your own governments still have to ratify the treaty.

Sadly, it looks like in many countries ACTA will sail through the ratification process: at that point most ruling parties will already have given it their implicit endorsement, and they might look silly nacking out now. Rebelious coalition members might vote in favour as well, out of political expedience. If the EU parliament does not kill this, I guess it'll be too late.

I'm proud of Mr Arif

[Trapezium Artist]

What can I say? I'm very pleased that Kader Arif had the guts to make his disgust with the ACTA process known so publicly. His actions deserve to be widely recognised outside the tech community as well as within; we should ensure that "regular" media outlets cover this part of the story.

Will his stand bring down the entire shameful edifice that is ACTA? No. Is it an important part of the battle that is being fought and must continue to be fought? Yes.

Re:I'm proud of Mr Arif

[Capitaine]

Just checked out the 3 major French (Le Monde, Liberation, Le Figaro) and German (Frankfurter Algemein, Süddeutscher Zeitung, Die Welt) newspaper website. No trace of the ACTA. Nothing more in economical newspapers. Your words are safe.

Re:Fundamental disconnect:

[petman]

Since ACTA is yet to be passed by the parliaments, then "might" is the right word.

Re:Probably was the best course of action

[CRCulver]

Guess what, cockroaches? The democracy genie is outta the bottle, and it has been for 15 years. These desperate, piddly attempts of yours to stuff it back in the bottle won't work for long.

It's funny for me to read this not two minutes after I finished Roger Hutchinson's book High Sixites, a sweeping view of 1960s youth culture. The final pages are an interview with the artist Jeff Nuttall held in 1991, at the end of the Thatcher era. Nuttall poignantly recalls that he thought at the time that his generation had triumphed, that conservative forces should just step out of the way since they had already plainly lost. And then came two decades (and more) that did away with all that they had accomplished, and with their hope itself.

For our own generation, the genie may well go back in the bottle...

Re:I can understand why

[dmbasso]

I did something, I signed this petition. I hope it helps.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?fp

Re:I can understand why

[evilviper]

Evil will always triumph, because good Is dumb - Dark Helmet

Re:I can understand why

[kinarduk]

I also did something, I wrote to the MEP's in my area, outlining my position and asking their opinion. They need to know this is important. My local government web site had a link to my MEP's. http://www.thurrock.gov.uk/democracy/content.php?page=mps#c03

Re:I can understand why

[kinarduk]

I've already had a reply from one of them (Andrew Duff)! ...

Thank you for contacting Andrew about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

I can assure you that I will forward your email to Andrew so that he can read the specific points you make.

Andrew is not on the committee that specialises in these issues, but has been following developments closely along with his group colleagues, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE).


He recognises that some of ACTA's aims are valid, but also has real concerns that - as with so much legislation in this area - its implications for privacy and freedom may be more serious than is currently understood, and is seeking greater assurance on these points.



Throughout negotiations on ACTA the ALDE group has called for greater transparency and tabled a resolution in September 2010 asking the Commission for all relevant studies and impact assessments before signing the agreement. ALDE colleagues have sponsored many of the Parliamentary questions on this matter.



Negotiations were finalised in November 2010 and the relevant parties are now in the process of ratifying the Agreement through their internal procedures. In the EU this means that both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers must give their approval. The Council adopted a decision on December 17th authorising the signature of ACTA, and the text now passes to the European Parliament for ratification. The International Trade Committee (INTA) and the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) have already asked the Parliament’s Legal Services for advice on the agreement, and then the INTA Committee will produce a report with input in the form of opinions from the Development Committee (DEVE), the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) and the JURI Committee.



On 24 November 2010 the European Parliament adopted a Resolution in which we called on the Commission to confirm that ACTA’s implementation will have no impact on fundamental rights and data protection. MEPs welcomed the Commission’s confirmation that the ACTA provisions will be fully in line with EU law and that neither personal searches nor the so-called ‘three strikes and out’ procedure will be introduced. The Parliament also emphasised that any decision taken by the Commission as part of the ACTA Committee must not unilaterally change the agreement’s content, and that therefore any proposed change must be approved by the Parliament and the Council.



ALDE will finalise its decision on whether to support the agreement or not once the legal advice and INTA committee report are available and only if concerns about interference with internet freedoms and other civil liberties can be assuaged. Until then it is not possible to have a fully informed position on this issue.



In the meantime I attach a couple of interim briefing documents I have received on the issue, which are designed to address some of the specific criticisms that have been levelled at these proposals.



Thank you once again for contacting Andrew about this issue. I hope this response has been helpful.