EU Privacy Chief Says ACTA Violates European Law 136
An anonymous reader writes "Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, has issued a 20-page opinion expressing concern about ACTA (PDF). Michael Geist's summary of the opinion notes that it concludes that the prospect of a three-strikes and you're out system may violate European privacy law, that the possibility of cross-border enforcement raises serious privacy issues, and that ACTA transparency is needed now."
I Think I Know Why They Left Him Out (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with him but it sounds like he would be opposed to anything they could dream up. And maybe that's the way it should be
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the country with the most stringent policies suddenly be the equivalent of the patent troll district in Texas?
They already are. That is why they came up with ACTA in the first place.
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the side: There's a Facebook group I started in the hope to raise awareness, with the ultimate goal being to petition / lobby governments. Feel free to join, it's called We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.
Re:Secret laws are illegal anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Most countries also prefer to avoid having anything to do with the men threatening western civilization instead of fighting them.
Yes, because if EU had declared war on the USA while Bush was in power, it would have caused WW3. The nicer approach was to just wait for his term as a president to finally run out.
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>data-sharing for enforcement purposes among countries that have different criminal punishments for copyright law is hard to justify
Not really. The U.S. member states constantly share information across borders and it's justified as "being tough on crooks". The EU member states will likely do the same, if not now, then in the near future.
What I'm surprised he did not address is the violation of the Right to a trial by your peers (jury). The 3-strike law presumes guilt without any requirement that the state prove its case FIRST. Although this may sound harmless, I can easily imagine the state government, or a progressive leader, using the 3-strike law to silence bloggers/reporters he doesn't like by making false 3-strike claims. In such a case the connection gets cut automatically (presumed guilt), the blogger is silenced, and the leader smiles.
Re:I Think I Know Why They Left Him Out (Score:5, Insightful)
it seems that without reading the full extent of ACTA he is dead set against it.
How is one supposed to read the full extent of a paper that is not only secret but unfinished? How about this:
(rest of list redacted)
How can I be against this list when I've only seen three items?
If what you see of a list is 100% evil, it is fair to assume that not only is the rest of the list evil, but so are the people writing the list.
The very fact that MNOs are writing laws for the world's governments puts ME squarely against it, even if they're supporting sunshine and flowers. NOTHING matters to an MNO except profits; they are amoral and nonsocial. They do not care about human rights, only profits, and any politician in any country that supportst this travesty should be voted out of office.
will say that my representative and senators had better damn well represent the majority of the population and I hope that majority is with me on this.
I agree completely. But even if the majority of my state's voters are for inhumane copyright legislation, I personally will vote against any politician that votes for it.
The corporations have too much power; they should have none at all.
Re:I Think I Know Why They Left Him Out (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is the problem. We've got these top secret negotations that are clearly secret, because there will be massive opposition to them, (else there'd be no reason to keep them secret)
I don't quite agree with you there. People have all sorts of different reasons for keeping legislation secret until it is proposed ranging from strategically hiding it from your opposition thereby reducing their reaction time to simply not having a solid foundation built yet. If you've got a shaky idea of what all the players want out of this deal, you shouldn't be publishing the initial draft of the documentation. This leads to confusion and gives opponents fodder. Let's say the countries that came to the table eventually reject the international three strikes rule but later have problems passing a better version of ACTA that actually tries to achieve a solution without invading privacy. Even the opinion piece acknowledges a need for a solution:
The EDPS acknowledges that the cross-border trade in counterfeit and pirate goods is a growing concern that often involves organized criminal networks, which calls for the adoption of appropriate cooperation mechanisms at international level in order to fight against this form of criminality.
No matter how good that amended solution may be, you and I aren't going to care. We're only going to remember the stories on Slashdot and know that ACTA = EVIL. So with this early exposure, the thing is dead before it can be reformed and amended.
On top of that, how do you get all the big players to the table if the documentation is floating around that angers the hell out of their constituents. "If so and so goes to that summit, I'm never voting for her/him again" is what one might say.
I mean, the leaked documentation is damning but you have to consider that bills proposed here in the USA always have flaws that get worked over and over before it's passed. To claim otherwise is a bit disingenuous.
Re:I Think I Know Why They Left Him Out (Score:4, Insightful)
Any aspect he has heard of (most likely through Doctorow or Geist) he makes a case for it being a violation of privacy. Without even reading all of it, he knows it's illegal.
Could you please post a link to all the ACTA documents? If not, all we can assume is it just as bad as the naysayers say.
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:3, Insightful)
Although on a practical note, there's no reason bands can't do tat themselves. There's plenty of platforms available for it.
And that's exactly the reason you'll never see anything like this happen by the big studios. Offering this business model poses the (quite real) threat that it just might work out. And then even the dimmest bands can easily see that there is zero reason to dump the lion's share of their revenue down the mouth of the studios.
Re:Secret laws are illegal anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
That might even be illegal in most countries. But you may rest assured it becomes "public" a nanosecond before the vote. Since politicians rarely if ever read the laws they vote on anyway, they won't even bother to find out just since when they could read the law and go for the usual way they walk when tasked with voting on some law: Asking their party leaders how to vote.
I really wonder why we need so many representatives. It's not like they do anything but raise their hand whenever the party says they should.
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the side: There's a Facebook group I started in the hope to raise awareness, with the ultimate goal being to petition / lobby governments. Feel free to join, it's called We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.
That's great. How do you propose we go about it? Just sitting around in a Facebook group bitching won't accomplish anything.
Who do we write to? Who do we call? What are they in charge of? What power (realistically) do they have over the situation? Do we tell them that we back them, or that we're against their support of ACTA?
We need actionable information, or pointers to where we can find it. Anyone know where to start?
Re:I Think I Know Why They Left Him Out (Score:5, Insightful)
No Kiddin' (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:3, Insightful)
You forgot to add, that the ACTA is designed to make every country behave like That Texas District [wikipedia.org].
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>As for your concern...using the 3 strikes law to silence a blogger/reporter seems like a tiny risk compared to the others. What's to stop said reporter/blogger from walking over the nearest newspaper/tv-station and getting his story out that way?
>>>
Well if we imagine that the person who was cut-off was an anti-government blogger/reporter like Alex Jones of infowars.org, then he really does NOT have the recourse to ask the pro-government organizations like BBC or NBC or CBS to carry his report, does he? He has been silenced.
There's a line from Star Trek, about how even one trampled freedom or right forges the first link in a chain that will eventually bind us all. It is correct. Leaders should not have the ability to simply say, "That guy violated the 3-strike law," and silence them without benefit of trial.
>>>Ah, I see you're a fan of Glenn Beck.
And Judge Napolitano, and Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and Andrew Jackson, and anyone else who (wisely) thinks neither government nor its leaders can be trusted with power, and it's time we start enforcing the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
Re:Seems fairly intelligent... (Score:1, Insightful)
There's a line from Star Trek, about how even one trampled freedom or right forges the first link in a chain that will eventually bind us all. It is correct. Leaders should not have the ability to simply say, "That guy violated the 3-strike law," and silence them without benefit of trial.
There's also a line in Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay, about how freedom without limitations is really just a word.
My point is that there are consequences that are a lot less far-fetched than the heroic individual blogger who gets disconnected. Arbitrarily disconnecting soccer moms or Joe Sixpacks is just as bad, and a lot more likely to happen without any ruckus.
As for Glenn Beck, let's just see if he spouts the same rhetoric when it's a "leader" pulling the exact same crap while flying the conservative banner. You do realize ACTA is a big business interest right? Something the left traditionally opposes? The real left, that is?
Re:Secret laws are illegal anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
The nicer approach was to just wait for his term as a president to finally run out.
Right. Because the new guy was going to repeal all those horrible decisions.
Oh wait, he didn't.
Well at least he wasn't going to make the same types of horrible decisions going forward.
Oh wait, he did.
I can't wait for THIS guy's term to run out, so we can deal with the next guy.
I just bet he'll be different...