“ACTA is effectively dead, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda admitted Friday. An official spokesman said the ‘political reality’ was the fight was over. Neelie Kroes, speaking at a conference in Berlin, told delegates: ‘We have recently seen how many thousands of people are willing to protest against rules which they see as constraining the openness and innovation of the Internet. This is a strong new political voice. And as a force for openness, I welcome it, even if I do not always agree with everything it says on every subject. ‘We are now likely to be in a world without SOPA and without ACTA.'” That’s how we roll, web.
Good riddance.
It can still be back, and it will. What I find most disturbing about this is that the politicians still seem to think this is only about civil liberties vs. intellectual property enforcement.
Most people I know who are upset about ACTA are upset because of the *way* ACTA was divised — in clandestine, secret meetings. The drafting commission was well aware that the rules and regulations drafted in ACTA would upset the people and they thought sneaking it past the electorate is their best shot of getting it through. It so clearly shows who’s servants these “public servants” really are.
EDIT: formatting
Edited 2012-05-07 08:30 UTC
I’m against Internet censorship as much as anybody, but we’re just a loud minority of little people who actually care enough about this issue to raise our squeaky little voices about it.
Our dear leaders could have rammed through SOPA and ACTA and there would have been no consequences but hand-wringing and pity parties.
Boo hoo, they ruined the Internet. What is there to do about it? It’s not like the next election is going to turn on this issue, because it was the kind of issue that doesn’t split along party lines.
The vocal minority is not always the voice of reason, and it’s a little disturbing that politicians in the U.S. and EU are so spineless even when they have the benefit of political cover.
And let’s not believe for a moment that they threw in the towel because they were swayed by our reasoned argument. That’s never why they do anything.
The real reason why Neelie Kroes backed down from ACTA and declared it dead is not because people protested. It is because the European Parliament was about to shot it down. And she decided to save herself some trouble and humiliation.
Now, you might wonder why the EP opposed ACTA. The thing to consider is that the EP is a mix of high profile politicians who can’t get seat in their national elections (because they follow majority rule like in France or UK), with a mix of “second class” politicians. The first ones usually don’t care about the EP and don’t real take part in its activity. While the second ones are usually not professional politicians, and are often closer to the preoccupations of European Citizens, and willing to think by themselves. They usually don’t care so much about their reelections, since, no matter what they do in the EP, it is not going to decide their fate, people vote for the EP in function of their satisfaction of a party in national affair. So those politicians usually act very much in function of their own convictions, and rather curiously, they are very sensible to questions about Freedom and Civil rights. And that is why they opposed ACTA.
You have to admit, it had beautiful plumage.
The CIA has used it to disrupt groups of people, the tactic of infiltrating a group and then spreading the word, “We’ve won!” People don’t show up to keep up the fight.
Don’t stop keeping an eye out for ACTA-like bills. The people who pushed it still have the will and the resources to keep trying.
Look at it this way, SOPA failed by CISPA was slipped in to replace it with virtually on notice about it. I expect a similar action for ACTA…
The rather evil individuals behind SOPA,ACTA,CISPA which I’ll refer to as the ‘MoneyChangers’ have legions of their fellow attorneys from a certain Apartheid State in the Middle East backing them. Those wolves write the laws, then do every dirty trick possible in slamming them down the throats of Western Nations citizens.
Sadly, the larger and more complicated the bills are the more they have found they can get away with in slipping in paragraphs which entirely twist and contort the legislation to forward the evil agendas of the MoneyChangers. For example, a single sentence slipped into the ‘Patriot Act’ US Law which US President Obama re-signed into law entirely dismantled the long lasting US Bioweapons treaty making it now legal for the US Military to have and deploy global Military BioWeapons, all hidden in a huge bill’s single slipped in sentence.
Such soul-less individuals (the MoneyChangers) do not care if 10’s of thousands of US citizens die every year from not being able to afford the hyper marked up prescription drugs, they just want to make certain YOU cannot obtain generic drugs costing mere pennys and bypassing their copywrite claim filling their pockets.
Same with millions of poor familys around the world unable to afford hyper-marked up copy write shoes so their children go shoeless. The MoneyChangers do not care if you die from being unable to afford their copyright goods, it’s pay me. It’s no different from the Zionist Mafia shaking down a business or community.
Quote:
‘We are now likely to be in a world without SOPA and without ACTA.'” That’s how we roll, web.”
NOT HARDLY! Like the evil heads of the serpent hydra, the MoneyChangers shyster attorneys will simply craft similar legislation under another name and slam that down the throats of the EU-Zone lawmakers.
Bush the lesser and lately US President Obama’s Administration and US State Dept. has been foremost in threatening and extorting EU-Zone lawmakers under the guise of ‘National Security’ to craft and pass the ACTA agreement. It’s entirely likely those threats will not only continue, the MoneyChangers puppets are extremely likely to punish those EU-nations who caused
ACTA to fail by pushing them into severe austerity measures. Look for the MoneyChangers to punish the EU-Zone for rejecting their ACTA legislation.
The goose stepping gun boat diplomacy which is often a trademark of the MoneyChangers ‘foreign diplomatic agendas’ makes it entirely likely an ACTA-2 will popup in utterly Satanic fashion and in so doing draft another Million citizens across the earth into hating Israel and the United States even more than they do already. Those that do their due diligence will find both Israel and the United States are squarely behind the Western rush towards the goose stepping Internet censorship and copyright protection of software and goods as well as the overt rush to spy-on, censor and entrap Internet users.
Edited 2012-05-07 20:59 UTC
I find it hilarious that you use the phrase “goose-stepping” in a post veritably stuffed with veiled anti-Semitic rhetoric. Zionist Mafia indeed. What makes you believe this censorship lunacy has anything to do with Israel?
(NB: I do think Israel is getting pretty messed up. Calling political leftists “germs” would not fly even in the United States. But this conspiracy stuff is ridiculous.)
The copyright cartel will continue to try to get its provisions enacted by inserting them into treaties and trade agreements wherever they can. It’s like whack-a-mole, they will keep coming back.
of course the bad guys will keep trying to pass stuff like this every year, and they only need one good day to succeed.
but isnt there an interesting story about the EU in here? I dont know how it works, but I’m imagining the power of the EU counteracting the power of american law and lobby being exported across the ocean.
small powers with no backup more readily adopt american influence wholesale
The EU Commission had not given up its plans to save Acta