Chief CETA Negotiator Says Treaty "Virtually Complete" (freezenet.ca) 99
Dangerous_Minds writes: Steve Verheul, chief negotiator of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), is saying that the agreement is "virtually complete." He also says that translated versions are to be completed by May and that the agreement is likely to be implemented in 2017. CETA contains provisions that would compel countries to implement Internet censorship through site blocking, anti-circumvention laws as seen in the US, and compel border security to seize digital storage devices (i.e. cell phones) at the border for the purpose of looking for copyright infringement.
And how exactly (Score:1)
Are we supposed to prevent this from going through? "calling our representatives" certainly does not seem to help.
This is no rethorical complaint: *HOW* do we fight this? What can be done, specifically, to make those happily pushing this through *STOP*?
Legal methods and comments about their ethics and morality (or complete perversions thereof) certainly don't work... So what about stooping to their level? What can we do to make this disappear decisively?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we supposed to prevent this from going through? "calling our representatives" certainly does not seem to help.
This is no rethorical complaint: *HOW* do we fight this? What can be done, specifically, to make those happily pushing this through *STOP*?
Legal methods and comments about their ethics and morality (or complete perversions thereof) certainly don't work... So what about stooping to their level? What can we do to make this disappear decisively?
Vote Sanders. He's not perfect, but he's the closest option in the US to a candidate who favors the people over the special interests.
Re: (Score:1)
You realize that CETA is a treaty between Canada and the EU, right? Bernie Sanders has absolutely nothing to do with this because it doesn't involve the United States. Sanders certainly could do something about the TPP, but CETA is something he has no control over.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're in the US, vote Sanders, because it applies to other treaties and because the US strongly supports pro-copyright treaties because of its entertainment industry.
The principle is the same if you're elsewhere, including in a country directly affected. Find the candidates (or better yet, advocacy groups) who most actively support the cause you're interested in. There's a reason people give to the EFF.
Re: And how exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isn't who is in office; the problem is a system where (a few) individuals are able to exert their will over the rest of the planet.
I believe we've dispensed with the myths that they:
* know what's best
* have our best interests at heart / are working for the betterment of humanity
* govern on behalf of the people
* govern with the consent of the people
What remains? That they have forced their way into power?
Re: (Score:2)
While we're at it, can we dispel with the notion that Barrack Obama doesn't know what he's doing?
I don't know anyone who thinks Obama doesn't know what he's doing. There does, however, seem to be sharp disagreement over whether his intent is good or evil with respect to the welfare of the nation.
Re: (Score:2)
Worse, a lot of people don't even understand that the President is insulated from interference in law enforcement, and can only hire and fire the top guy... and isn't legally allowed to use that power to control law enforcement. There were legislative reforms after Watergate that sought to prevent it happening again, but the average Joe on the street doesn't even know about them. But political opponents do; half the stuff related to copyright enforcement that people blame on Obama, he'd land in court if he
Re: (Score:1)
It's well known where I stand. I type a lot. I've said this before. I'll say it again.
Vote Sanders, folks. He's the only chance you've got for meaningful change. If he doesn't run as a Democrat, you help him run as an Independent. I'll do what I can but nobody listens to me. I'm used to it. Hell, I should try reverse psychology.
Seriously, I'm a Libertarian. If I'm telling you to vote Sanders then, well... That says something about every single other candidate. I'm not even going to write a *big* novella. If
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sanders is a US candidate, and there was just recently an election in Canada. Your advice... isn't.
Get them strip-searched and swatted a few times a month at least; after all, they "have nothing to hide" as they're so adamant in informing us, and if we don't know the contents of their urethra and smartphone's intestines on a regular basis, then the terrorists have won.
Force-feed them their own medicine until they choke.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, it is easy to understand: Sanders is nearly a hippie, so they just assume he's a Pinko.
I'm assuming "criminal" refers to... I'm drawing a blank on that. I guess he just hates the Constitution and presumes an accusation is equivalent to a conviction, and being investigated and not charged or even accused is also the same as being convicted? Some people just hate Freedom.
Neo-fascist is easy, Trump proposes policies that would violate the Constitution left and right.
Re: (Score:2)
The idea of calling Trump, who is an uber-capitalist, a "fascist" is retarded.
Re: (Score:3)
Have you actually listened to the crap that Trump says?
As for "criminal," I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton, but the Plutocrat Party has made it abundantly clear, through more than 20 years of flinging crap at her in hopes that something will stick, that they have nothing.
As for "communist," cue Iñigo Montoya.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I've listened to 5-6 of Trump's rally speeches. There's nothing fascist in there.
Apparently, "enforcing the laws of the country" is now "fascist." He's not the one begging for new government authority like Sanders who wants to control healthcare and education. But say you'll enforce the immigration laws we already have on the books and that's "fascist."
Re: (Score:2)
The main tenet of fascism was the merger of the functions of business and state, combined with totalitarianism. Duh. You seem exceptionally ignorant of the Italian position leading up to WWII.
And "uber-capitalist" is exactly another word for "fascist."
Especially if you read Adam Smith, and know what Capitalism is! (hint: Capitalism is the system where the government uses regulation to ensure a "level playing field" which is what allows "capital" to be the important factor is starting a new business. Prior t
Re: (Score:1)
Wikipedia has an interesting article on "Fascism." One of the big points of the first four (I think) paragraphs is that it's hard to pin down what, exactly, it is that makes up a fascist - and many definitions have been used. It goes on to give some things that it should look like if it is 'fascism.' But I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate. I'm quite comfortable changing my views.
If you two want to actually have a meaningful dialogue, you might want to agree on a definition. It is like any other political term,
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
...communist or fascist, which to choose, which to choose .....
If you don't know what either word means, I can see how the false-choice would fail to look like a real choice. But you might not be very close to understanding your feelings on the issue.
Re: (Score:1)
CETA is the blueprint for TTIP. However, CETA is only between the EU and Canada. Voting Sanders might help for TTIP (so please do if you are a US citizen). However, in the EU and I assume in Canada, there are many protest initiatives. Ask them and post the answer here. As a European please send money to protest organizations so they can make more noise, support these groups, call and or write to your Member of the EU Parliaments, do the same with your local parliament, write to the EU Commission (the EU pro
Re:And how exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
"What can we do to make this disappear decisively?"
Cripple the internet to the point that global economy can no longer happen, and force a global economic collapse.
In other words, all you network engineers and people running the backbones need to step up and protest.
Re: (Score:2)
Cripple the internet to the point that global economy can no longer happen, and force a global economic collapse.
In other words, all you network engineers and people running the backbones need to step up and protest.
Tracer Tong: Hello JC, could you overload the experimental anti-matter reactors?
Re: (Score:2)
J.C Denton: What good's an honest soldier if he can be ordered to behave like a terrorist?
It was a game a head of it's time.
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, all you network engineers and people running the backbones need to step up and protest.
I thought you said backhoes...
Re: (Score:1)
Are we supposed to prevent this from going through? "calling our representatives" certainly does not seem to help.
That's right. You have to vote them out. If it doesn't happen, I guess you're just going to have to live with it and adapt. C'est la vie...
Re: (Score:2)
Your children - if you have any - will not live to see it end.
Given western birthrates, the whole 'future for my grandchildren' thing kind of goes out the window. The corporate system also relies on having an uneducated populace grateful for scraps, unfamiliar with western philosophies and traditions of liberty. The system is rigged such that current, productive middle class populations of western nations cannot afford to have children or are demoralized into not doing so. They are then replaced by third world immigrants from cultures where they are used to authoritar
Re: (Score:1)
Legal methods and comments about their ethics and morality (or complete perversions thereof) certainly don't work...
There you almost answered it yourself - illegal methods.
Bad laws can be broken, "site blocking" is usually possible to get around.
As for searching phones/laptops:
1. Whenever politicians (or any supporters of this - like Hollywood people) travel, call in anonymous tips that they're bringing illegal stuff on their phones. In other words, let them get stopped and feel the pressure of their own stupid laws. You may occationally overdo it and claim they have a bomb in their laptop - they always act on that sort
Re: (Score:1)
I have told you guys how to do it. You don't even need to shed a drop of blood. You just need some solidarity. Can you get 1,000,0000 people? Find a day when Congress is in session and the President will be in town. Everybody, work your GPS backwards. Everybody set it to arrive at 1600 PA Ave, DC at 1500 (EST -5 GMT) on Friday afternoon. Everyone try to get as close to it as you possibly can - and all at the same time - 1,000,000 cars. When you can not get any closer (which might be as far as 20 miles away
Re: (Score:2)
Realize the ending of 1984 was prophetic. That the future will not be better than the past and that technology has given despots and ideologies the perfect tools to keep their people in control. That the future is a boot stomping on a human face forever. That you, as a peon, have three choices. Agree, be silent, or have your face stomped on.
Re: (Score:2)
Orwell wrote Animal Farm, about how a totalitarian state gets established. Then 1984, about what one looks like when it is. He intended to write a third book about how one gets demolished but died before he was able to.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure you will have all the same opportunities to stop this before it goes through that your Pacific neighbours had with the TPP.
Sure it does... If you can afford to buy yourself some representatives.
remember Benito (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:remember Benito (Score:5, Informative)
These fascists need the Benito treatment.
Umm, before we advocate the summary execution and public hanging [wikipedia.org] of those involved, I might like to get a wee bit more information about what we're discussing. Stuff that, you know, the summary might have actually included such as:
It's also worth noting that the story has only one link, to a blog which is politically opposed to the treaty. A cursory Google search would point you to a much [wikipedia.org] wider [techdirt.com] range [euractiv.com] of viewpoints on the agreement. Some are pro-treaty, some against, but they all provide much better context than the linked article. I don't particularly care one way or another, but any story with only one viewpoint expressed is usually a sign of either a lazy editor or an agenda.
I hate to keep dredging up the "Slashdot flame bait post because it has no actual 'editors'" trope, but damn. I imagine that if I submitted a story that said "Apple CEO advocates eating puppies" and linked to a blog somewhere that suggested it, the story would be published immediately and without actual review or "editing." Which is, you know, what an "editor" is supposed to do.
Re: (Score:1)
"I don't particularly care one way or another, but any story with only one viewpoint expressed is usually a sign of either a lazy editor or an agenda."
Except when it's not, the idea that all viewpoints are valid and the truth is found in between "the extremes" is false.
Copyright keeps extending forevermore thanks to clueless people like the above poster [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, before we advocate the summary execution and public hanging [wikipedia.org] of those involved, I might like to get a wee bit more information about what we're discussing. Stuff that, you know, the summary might have actually included such as:
You're completely missing the points:
a) This is a slippery slope, they haven't finished yet (they're probably already discussing the next one...)
b) None of what they're doing is based on evidence (or even common sense). It's based on lobbying and bribes from people who professionally rip musicians off and want to keep it that way.
c) None of it will have the slightest effect on copyright infringement. All it does is take away civil liberties and allow people to shut down _any_ web site they don't like with n
no guns = SOL (Score:1)
Re: no guns = SOL (Score:2)
The UK has four million legally held firearms and plenty of illegal ones too. Try again.
Re: (Score:2)
Whereas murdering schoolchildren is heroic?
Re: (Score:1)
More guns are not a solution to this problem. In the US the country which has the biggest military world wide some strange militia people think that they can bring down the government. It is not working that way. If you want to change something in your country vote for liberal and social democratic candidates. However, most in the US who vote vote for Republicans or Democrats which are either neo conservative, racist, stupid, and in the pocket of Big Oil, the Industry and Wall Street, or neo liberal and in
Re: Timing (Score:1)
WHERE ARE YOUR PAPERS!!?
Re: (Score:3)
Nope (Score:2)
I believe that trade agreements would include clauses about site blocking. I do not believe that they include clauses compelling border security guards to check for copyright infringement. There's no way
Re: (Score:3)
I don't trust that this is an accurate representation of what the treaty actually says, any more than I trusted Republicans about the whole Obamacare "death panels" B.S. Hell, the thing is filed under "Censorship" this site, and flat out, combating the piracy of musicians cannot be described as that. Slashdot may not like it, but are legitimate reasons for some forms of copyright laws.
When they have a less one-sided summary, post it. It might be interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Nope (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but what?
Have you missed the part where every treaty the US is involved in pushes corporate interests because the US government is in the back pocket of the copyright cartel?
The US lets the copyright lobby write the text of laws and treaties, and does what they're told. The US government is on the fucking payroll ... and I really wish I was exaggerating.
The US wouldn't be negotiating a treaty which didn't push draconian copyright measures. That's kind of what they do these days.
Seizing Cell Phones? (Score:5, Insightful)
compel border security to seize digital storage devices (i.e. cell phones) at the border for the purpose of looking for copyright infringement
How exactly is that going to work? Everyone with a laptop holds up the line for 30 minutes while their hard drive gets imaged? What if it's encrypted? What do they do about devices with dead batteries? The poorly-trained Little Hitlers in customs aren't going to know how to operate the variety of digital devices they'll encounter.
Ok let's say they just seize everything and send it off to a central location for processing, and then ship it to wherever the traveler is staying when they're done. How are they going to judge if a file is infringing copyright, and not a fair-use format-shift? Hash video files and compare to known scene releases? Good luck doing anything similar for music; there are legit ways of ripping CDs that produce identical files every time, the same encoding software will give these perfect rips an identical hash for everyone who goes through the process; some music stores use unwatermarked files, everyone gets the same copy. This is ignoring the issue of locked phones.
If by 'seizing digital storage devices' they mean 'seizing spindles of burned discs coming from China with movie titles Sharpied on them' then I could see this making sense.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well if it's anything like the electronics they steal at airports...
They take it.
And in a year or two when their kids have worn them out or broken them...
You get it back.
Rarely in one piece.
But don't worry! They've long since replaced it with the newest model. It was recently christmas after all!
Re: (Score:3)
Everyone with a laptop holds up the line for 30 minutes while their hard drive gets imaged? What if it's encrypted? What do they do about devices with dead batteries?
[...]
Ok let's say they just seize everything and send it off to a central location for processing, and then ship it to wherever the traveler is staying when they're done.
You're being strangely optimistic. I very much doubt that the laptops/phones will be shipped back to their owners. The owners will be required to get their devices back in person several weeks later (so that they can easily be questioned, fined, or arrested, because of the content found on their devices).
This is not to say that a significant portion of those devices won't get disappeared/damaged/withheld indefinitely in the process. And this is not to say that this process will apply to everyone, if you're
Re: (Score:2)
A better description (Score:1)
A better description is "Countries enforcing US protectionism, again"
Fight Big Money Corruption (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Trudeau to the rescue? (Score:2)