The ACTA Fight Returns: What Is At Stake & What You Can Do

An anonymous reader writes "The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. and elsewhere, but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia). Michael Geist has a full rundown on what is at stake and what you can do, wherever you live."

Obama!

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll change... oh wait... no fuck that.

Signing is only the start of the battle

[Elektroschock]

Signing does not mean a thing because the European Parliament still has to decide whether to give its consent, and when a single nation asks the European court of Justice, or the Constitutional court then it's dead, because it is against EU Treaties/constitutions. it's not too late to get involved [ffii.org].

Re:What you can do?

[Microlith]

This is why those scumbags let SOPA sputter so easily. They knew this was in the pipe.

ACTA was signed by the US months ago. They were trying to pile SOPA on top of it.

White House "Petitions"

[oneiros27]

Assuming that the White House actually takes the petitions seriously [whitehouse.gov], the current ACTA related petitions are:

• Submit ACTA to the Senate for a vote [whitehouse.gov]
• End ACTA [whitehouse.gov]

... and, not ACTA related, but as I'm an ALA member, there's also one that needs another 6k signatures by next week for funding for school libraries [whitehouse.gov]. (although, personally, I'd rather it go to regular public libraries, so they have access over the summer)

BTW

[sycodon]

he signed it a few months ago. [inquisitr.com]

online petitions

[blackest_k]

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/ [avaaz.org]
Acta petition to the EU with over 600,000 people signing up and growing fast.

http://stopsopaireland.com/ [stopsopaireland.com] Trying to stop Irelands version of sopa being written in to law next week with not even a debate in the house just a junior ministers signature. Recent news suggests there may be a debate since pressure has been building all this week.

Both petitions need a lot more signatures if they are going to influence the respective politicians.

Well who'd thunk?

[3seas]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/technology-news/120127/top-eu-official-kader-arif-resigns-protest [globalpost.com]

Re:BTW

[rahvin112]

Presidents routinely sign treaties that aren't later ratified by Congress, there is nothing special about what Obama did compared to any of the other dozen treaties that Congress never ratified.

Re:What benefits do these countries get from signi

[qbast]

When in Poland a parliament commission approved resolution asking prime minister to postpone signing ACTA, official from US embassy called demanding explanation why it was voted and who voted for it. Here [googleusercontent.com] is translated link from Polish source.

Re:Signing is only the start of the battle

[Wowsers]

You will get blank stares because if you're like the UK, not one word has been mentioned in the press about the ACTA treaty. Even today, you can watch foreign news on protests in a few countries (there's a week long protest going on in Poland who signed the treaty), but despite the UK signing the ACTA treaty - not one word in the British press about it or that there are even protests abroad about ACTA, no mention of how devastating it will be for internet freedom democracy and rule of law.

No mentions in the press is censorship and just what proponents of ACTA like.