EU Council Refuses To Release ACTA Documents 145
CaptSolo writes "The EU Council refuses to release secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement documents, stating that disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations, would weaken the position of the EU in these negotiations, and might affect relations with the third parties concerned. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure requested these documents last week. FFII's response questions ACTA's secrecy saying: 'The argument that public transparency regarding 'trade negotiations' can be ignored if it would weaken the EU's negotiation position is particularly painful. At which point exactly do negotiations over trade issues become more important than democratic law making? At 200 million euro? At 500 million euro? At 1 billion euro? What is the price of our democracy?'"
Re:Oh, how surprising! (Score:4, Informative)
Note that the problem with the EU comes down to national governments not wanting to cede power. The council is composed of the leaders of the respective governments whilst the commission is headed up by appointees of those governments. The parliament is democratically elected but has insufficient power. The trade commissioner responsible for ACTA (it was one of his "successes") was Mandelson and we know how he has always had his links with business and the media.
The role of British media should also be examined as they love to misrepresent regulations out of context whilst forgetting to inform people about useful things like the matching regional development aid. It seems that the UK has been somewhat inefficient at applying for grants that other countries, i.e., Ireland have done very well out of.
Please remember that the EU has relevance here tro slashdot, given the support for open formats and open source software and the reverse engineering directive which gives rights that are simply not available in the US.
Re:uh oh.... (Score:3, Informative)
Whoa dude,
By all accounts the US are the instigaters of this ACTA nonsense, instigated under a Republican administration.
Trade reps have been bullying and bribing the Canadian government for a couple of years to get our Lilly livered conservatives to try to pass a "made in Canada" DMCA that makes the US DMCA look like a good idea. (Bill C-61)
It went away when the Canadian Conservative party called an election this fall, but now that's done with, it's expected to come back with a vengeance.
This ACTA thing seems to be phase 2, and you can bet it is NOT AT ALL about free speech, but rather the exact opposite.
Expect your internet connection box to turn you in for crimes against the state in a few years.
Re:I Know!! (Score:4, Informative)
How about this? [opensecrets.org] He was only in the Senate for 3 of those years, yet he still managed to rank second!
Or maybe this? [abcnews.com]
Or this? [greenchange.org]
I could go on all day, but what's the point? You're just going to make up some ridiculous excuse.