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Whistleblowers Fear Prosecution Under New European Trade Secrets Law (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the intention-of-misinterpretation dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The European Parliament is debating the Trade Secrets Protection Act critics say threatens to turn whistleblowers into criminals. The bill is aimed to protect European companies from corporate spying by their rivals in other parts of the world. But critics fear that the legislation will make it possible for corporations to define any information they do not want released as a trade secret, and then prosecute journalists or whistleblowers who release it to the public. Campaigner Martin Pigeon, from Corporate Europe Observatory in Brussels says the Trade Secrets Protection Act would have potentially criminalized the release of the Panama Papers. On the flip side, supporters of the bill say there is nothing to worry about because it contains a defense for those who release information exposing criminal wrongdoing or who are acting in the public interest. The bill will still need to be passed into law by national parliaments across the 28 nations of the EU, assuming the bill is approved by the European Parliament.

27 comments

  1. Copyrights, patents, trade secrets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there any other information that can't be permanently owned?

    1. Re:Copyrights, patents, trade secrets by Bob_Who · · Score: 1

      That's a trick question. I need a whistle.

    2. Re:Copyrights, patents, trade secrets by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      Print one, just make sure there are no patents protecting it first...
      This looks safe, maybe. Also, it does not seem to be a secret.
      http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printing-Whistle/

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  2. Clear exemptions...as written by the author? by Sparowl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    French MEP Constance Le Grip - "We have also set out very precisely and clearly set out the exemptions for both journalists and whistleblowers."

    Yes, maybe that's what we're afraid of. That you have decided on precisely where and when journalists and whistleblowers are allowed to act. Our fear is therefore that you might have decided to curtail their activities, to keep in line with your agenda, and away from ours, the public.

    1. Re:Clear exemptions...as written by the author? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Exemptions" are never the correct way to draft a law. Wherever anyone anywhere is exempt from anything, that's a law that should probably be repealed right now.

      Otherwise you're in the business of making different laws to apply to different categories of people. Which is the opposite of "justice".

    2. Re:Clear exemptions...as written by the author? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      That depends on whether it's an exemption for a category of person or for a category of activity. For example, I disagree with the laws against torturing animals having exemptions for certain religions - either it's acceptable for anyone to do it or it's unacceptable for anyone to do it and the lawmakers should decide. Having public interest exceptions are fine though. We used to have exemptions to the official secrets act like this, so if you disclosed state secrets that it was in the public interest to know then you could use that as a defence. Similarly, a defence for revealing trade secrets if it is to expose illegal behaviour sounds like a good exemption to have.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. They should blow secret euro whistles... by Bob_Who · · Score: 1

    Secret whistles conform with the spirit of the law.

  4. Tor, VPN by godel_56 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This law changes nothing. If you have something juicy or illegal to disclose, you should ALWAYS do it anonymously, because they will find a way to get back at you sooner or later.

    Oh, and of course scrub any signs of the information from your equipment as soon as you've made the disclosure and deny, deny, deny, if asked about it.

  5. The Corporation uber alles by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

    Corporate fascism on the march, The Corporation uber alles.

    1. Re:The Corporation uber alles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't about corporate whistleblowing as much as it is about keeping governmental abuse secret. No law enforcement official will care if someone leaks Josef's Secret Recipe, or reveals that Franz only pays his workers 95% of their earned overtime.

      They care a LOT that someone will reveal that Josef and Franz have been paying bribes to the police and government inspectors for the past 10 years.

  6. Trade Secrets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A court will decide whether or not a specific item of information is a trade secret, not the company. The company can argue for it to be so, but it is worth whistleblowing it probably no longer is.

    1. Re:Trade Secrets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So it boils down to who has the more-expensive lawyers?

  7. Ummm by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 1

    "On the flip side, supporters of the bill say there is nothing to worry about because it contains a defense for those who release information exposing criminal wrongdoing or who are acting in the public interest."

    And who is defining what is criminal or what is in the public interest?

    Right.

    1. Re:Ummm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As an American I couldn't point to Europe on a map, but they probably have courts like we do.

    2. Re:Ummm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Secret courts, with secret proceedings, using secret evidence in regards to secret charges?

      Well, it used to, and it soon will again!

      We do have America and Canada to thank for the slight pause we received in the 40s though. Too bad you took the stuff as an example to follow on your end as well.

  8. this bill is wrong by strstr · · Score: 2

    here's why. the public needs to know everything without restriction in order to better themselves and help manage corporations, military, and government.

    this is also designed to foster and create monopolies. by being able to keep information secret, it basically becomes classified and closely held, and withheld from the public. the public then becomes misinformed, and only these mega corporations have the education and technical science know how of the world. this has already happened in the united states. we don't want this to be a world wide issue. information should not be secret. no one should be able to own information.

    http://www.drrobertduncan.com/ http://www.obamasweapon.com/

    1. Re:this bill is wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It probably facilitates corporate espionage for the bigger players. Steal information, and accuse smaller firms or individual developers/engineers/etc of having stolen your trade secrets.

      There's no way this law will not be used in anything but draconian and tyrannical fashion.

    2. Re:this bill is wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, this bill is going to pass in one form or another. It will happen all over the world. Big players will have it all, little guys will disappear and you will have to keep your big mouth shut. Information is and always will be property. What are you going to do about it? Write your "representatives"? Letter, meet wastebasket. Protest? Skull, meet baton. You have lost: face, meet boot.

  9. TPP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome to one of the requirments for TPP

    Happy imprisonment day everbody!

  10. This keeps happening to democracy by Livius · · Score: 2

    For a while the EU was really a step forward for citizens. It was the opposite of the "free" "trade" agreements.

    Now it's a corrupt system like all the other corrupt systems.

    1. Re:This keeps happening to democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's because democracy is three bears, two wolves, and two sheep all voting for bears to decide what's for dinner (to paraphrase, of course). The bears get smart and run candidates (all of whom will feast tonight), the wolves are worried only about themselves, and the sheep are too far inland to GTFO before they're slaughtered.

    2. Re:This keeps happening to democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The EU derives from the EC, which in turn derived from the EEC, the European ECONOMIC Community. The EU is all about trade, business and a framework that makes privatizations mandatory while allowing businesses to drive wages lower and lower thanks to the abundance of cheap workforce. That's all there is to it.

  11. Abuse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Every time we're told not to worry about these things, it means that not only do they plan to abuse it beyond anything we could have imagined, but they've actually begun to do so already.

    This law probably won't even get used more than once or twice over the next decade for actual protection of actual trade-secrets. It's nothing but a way to keep wrongdoings in the dark.

  12. If you're afraid of blowing the whistle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Don't blow it. It's that simple.

  13. The Battle Continues by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    People may be entitled to keep some things private. Corporations are not people. The public needs vastly more light upon everything that goes on inside businesses. For example, why do we allow the sale or export of tobacco when we now know how deadly tobacco is when used in any form? You can surely bet that money is changing hands to keep tobacco as an available product.