Slashdot Mirror
ACTA's EU Future In Doubt As Poland Suspends Ratification
superglaze writes "Poland has suspended its ratification process for ACTA, throwing the copyright crackdown into doubt for the whole European Union. ACTA is being handled as a 'mixed agreement' in the EU due to its criminalization clauses, so if a single EU member state (such as Poland) fails to ratify it, it is null and void across the entire union. If that were to happen, at least six of the remaining international signatories would have to ratify ACTA for it to apply anywhere in the world. Outside the EU, only eight countries — including the U.S. — have signed."
Let me be the first to say "BARDZO DOBRZA! ACTA JEST GUWNO!" ("Very well done! ACTA is shit!")
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Thank you (again) Poland.
My UID is prime. Hah!
My thanks go out to the Polish people that are making enough of a stink about this that their government had to (maybe) reconsider.
Kick Poland out of the EU
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
There's a great pic of about 15 Polish legislators, holding paper Guy Fawkes masks over their faces - as the vote is tallied.
http://static.arstechnica.net/2012/01/30/polish-mask-4f26f00-intro.jpg
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
There's an immense store of goodwill towards Poland in the US, despite the ludicrous actions of our corporations and government. When it counts, it will be repaid.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This day will hopefully be remembered just as September 17, 1939 is.
ACTA, as it currently stands, in not binding on the U.S., because Congress has not ratified it.
The Executive branch has no Constitutional authority to enforce it as any kind of treaty without ratification by Congress. I know some are "debating" this, but the debate is nothing but BS. The Constitution spells it out pretty clearly.
I guess that would be a "stateful packet".
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
...and reason was also that agreement is too complex to be signed away so easily, so they have to discuss it first too. I highly doubt that they will hear nothing what happen in Poland and other countries with public opinion. This is country where government actually listens to people, using Internet extensively to collect comments about proposed laws.This is also a land where they elect their government using Internet and Skype was also started there.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Currently there is an enormous backlash against ACTA in Poland. If the ratification voting were held today, it would likely be rejected. But suspending means trying to push it later (or via EU channels) when it becomes forgotten. Now is the time for other EU citizens to stand up when it is still hot. Sadly, corporate lobbying is so strong nowadays that fighting it requires almost constant effort.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
From Soviet puppet state to sole voice of freedom and reason in Europe in the space of 20 years. Wow.
ALL american politicians would sign this. come on, guys! stop acting like this is partisan.
mpaa/riaa own all those in power. D/R does not really matter.
they do own more of the D's but I hardly think the 'less government' R's would really step back from this; not one bit!
if you want to hate obama, fine. but don't act like the other guys would have done us any better!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
No, I don't think it's a big sham by politicians. For many of them, their campaigns (and wealth) relies on RIAA/MPAA and other SOPA/PIPA/ACTA supporters contributions. If it was a ploy to take Hollywood money, I think Hollywood would have figured it out before now. We're at a tipping point in World / US history- change is coming (and not the false Change of Obama). What we are observing is people, and politicians as the people's proxy, saying enough is enough.
This just in:
Sources in Washington report the extraordinary rendition of 15 Polish politicians for copyright violation from the Parliament Building of the European Union early today. Acting on secret orders from the MPAA and RIAA, spokesmutants claimed yet another victory in the War Against Piracy and Terrorism. The sources added, an additional 4 British journalists were also captured when they pointed out that it was a British copyright that was infringed upon, not an American copyright. The journalists are said to be 'settling in quite nicely' at Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Can the US get that law, too?
Plawski knew what he had to do – without the other destroyers Piorun couldn’t hope to face the Bismarck alone. Now that suprise was lost the Battleship was fast enough to keep Piorun out of torpedo range, the Piorun couldn’t stay in contact with her now. She should radio in Bismarck’s latest position and then, for want of another phrase, get the fuck out of Dodge.
They’d all just have to hope that another ship was close enough to make contact with her again before she managed to slip away again – although given the weather and the darkness Plawski realised that was increasingly unlikely.
It was frustrating and may ultimately mean the British missed their opportunity to intercept, but sadly, that was the only sensible option. Anything else was suicide.
Plawski though for a split second then sighed, smiled and gave his orders to his crew:
“Full speed ahead. All hands to battlestations. We attack.”
Who gave you the impression the R's are for less government? That's not even REMOTELY true. The Republicans are for less of certain kinds of government and absolutely for more of other kinds. The Dems are in the same position, wanting more of some kinds and less of others. The disagreement between the parties is which parts need less and which parts need more.
See! That's ONE difference between them and the Nazis!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And after you finish "Fiasco" give "The Invincible" a try. It's Lem's best vision of extraterrestial contact. IMHO of course.
Funny thing, there is not one party in Poland that can be trusted currently. Even these with the masks were just trying to cash in on the popularity, but they "woke up" only after massive protests started...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I'm having a hard time understanding why Guy Fawkes was a loser. Was it solely because he failed or because he broke under torture?
I'm not sure if most people associate it with that movie, in which case they are associating it with the plight of the character which is wholly different than that of the real Guy Fawkes.
He was a hero to some people. That would have depended on your religion and philosophy at the time. He was quite defiant and resolute but did ultimately break under torture. That is kind of hard to hold against him as every man breaks.
I don't find the symbolism strange because of Guy Fawkes being a loser or a hero, just that Guy Fawkes was never fighting for any noble cause, or the suffering of the people per se, but for Catholicism. That's it. I don't find that very impressive and quite unsuitable to what he is being used as a symbol for today.
Why is it said here that ACTA needs to be signed by 6 countries to apply worldwide? Sovereign nations are usualy not bound by international treaties they have not signed. There are a few exceptions but it would be surprising that they include ACTA.
At the time, fighting for Catholicism was probably considered noble by many people. Remember, England had two big uprisings during Henry VIII's time over his forcing of Protestantism on the people, and along with that seizing the monasteries and churches and making them Crown property. These uprisings were put down brutally, but the people participating were regular common people (with a few nobility); they obviously liked their Catholicism for whatever reason. They really believed you had to talk to a priest to talk to God, and Henry was taking that away from them.
Greetings from Poland.
The whole thing stinks. Our whole political class was involved in an attempt to pass it as quietly as possible and ram this feudal law down our throats. Those 15 crooks were involved in this scam but - as they're formally an opposition - they weren't directly responsible for passing ACTA, so they could switch sides at any time and they did it as soon as they saw opportunity in it. Neverthless I'm happy to see they've helped raising (bad) publicity about ACTA fiasco with those masks. I'm definitely NOT happy with Tusk who ordered signing this crap despite huge protests and I'm not confident he really means to not ratify this - in my opinion he is a pathological liar. Just one day earlier one of his stooges (M. Dowgielewicz) acknowledged that they (government) are determined to ratify it despite of protests. In their (polish govt) opinion protests are "overreaction of manipulated young people". Geez. What a bunch of fucks (I told you they're all pathological liars).
Our media also didn't help much - media lied at first. Only later, as more and more known and respected persons took side of protesters - media acknowledged some of their concerns - but all reports in our mainstream media seems to be watered down and limited to internet/copyright issues. Not a single word about generic drugs or patented GMO crops - whole debate is as limited as possible.
And there is another thing that stinks even more than all things above combined. In the wake of these protests we had major hiccup in our parliament and reps in one of commision voted and issued a recommendation to suspend ratification process and start public consultations about ACTA. Next day some lady from US embassy started calling those representatives and asking why did they pass this and why party leaders did not enforce 'party discipline' to vote this recommendation down. While previous things did not impress me too much (as I'm used to our crappy political class), the last one made me really furious. If someone is still in doubt who is ruling my country - not President nor Prime Minister - It's some obscure lady from US embassy. (?!?) Few months ago (presumeably) the same lady in meetings of agriculture commision was pushing to legalize patented GMOs in my country ! It seems that we've got rid of Soviets but we haven't got our independence either. Our politicians stopped taking orders from Mockba but started taking orders from Washington and Brussels.
Last but not least I would thank everyone who attended anti-ACTA rallies regardless of cold weather we currently have. I was only on one of these and I feel I did too little. Thank you - all of you who made our lovely government reconsidering (or at least pretending to reconsider) this decision. My feeling is that we should not stop here. Every term our elected officials show disregard for us and do things that directly violate their fiduciary duties (at expense of citizens of course). I think that now as we've scored first meaningful success, we should go further and demand as many elements of direct democracy as possible. Technical means to cheaply perform referendums are in place, it's just politicians that are dragging their feet.
The mask as it is used everywhere has nothing to do with the real Guy Fawkes. It was designed for the comic V for Vendetta by DC
It's not used because of Guy Fawkes, it's used because a movie called "V for Vendetta".
No sig today...
I don't find the symbolism strange because of Guy Fawkes being a loser or a hero, just that Guy Fawkes was never fighting for any noble cause, or the suffering of the people per se, but for Catholicism. That's it. I don't find that very impressive and quite unsuitable to what he is being used as a symbol for today.
I'd have to disagree with you on that one. You can certainly take the view that he was "fighting for Catholicism". Fighting for any kind of religion is not something I'd be particularly interested in. I however would take the view that he was fighting against repression and persecution. Europe had all sorts of religious fun after the Reformation. In France, Spain and Italy, Catholics murdered Protestants. In the various germanic countries, they killed each other and eventually learned to live with each other. And in Britain and Ireland, the Protestants got to be the ones who did most of the murdering. And I think that is exactly the view that the comic character takes. He is someone fighting against repression who is planning to blow up the House of Parliament, and he wears a mask of someone who was fighting against repression and who planned to blow up the House of Parliament.