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ACTA stop it now!

oldbootz

Active member
Veteran
Dear friends,

Last week, 3 million of us beat back America's attack on our Internet! --- but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good.

ACTA - a global treaty - could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties -- even prison sentences -- against people they say have harmed their business.

Europe is deciding right now whether to sign ACTA -- and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering -- let's give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition -- we'll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet_tech_b/?tta

It's outrageous -- governments of four fifths of the world’s people were excluded from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations and unelected bureaucrats have worked closely with corporate lobbyists to craft new rules and a dangerously powerful enforcement regime. ACTA would initially cover the US, EU and 9 other countries, then be rolled out across the world. But if we can get the EU to say no now, the treaty will lose momentum and could stall for good.

The oppressively strict regulations could mean people everywhere are punished for simple acts such as sharing a newspaper article or uploading a video of a party where copyrighted music is played. Sold as a trade agreement to protect copyrights, ACTA could also ban lifesaving generic drugs and threaten local farmers' access to the seeds they need. And, amazingly, the ACTA committee will have carte blanche to change its own rules and sanctions with no democratic scrutiny.

Big corporate interests are pushing hard for this, but the EU Parliament stands in the way. Let's send a loud call to Parliamentarians to face down the lobbies and stand firm for Internet freedom. Sign now and send to everyone you know.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet_tech_b/?tta

Last week, we saw the strength of our collective power when millions of us joined forces to stop the US from passing an Internet censorship law that would have struck at the heart of the Internet. We also showed the world how powerful our voices can be. Let's raise them again to tackle this new threat.

With hope and determination,

Dalia, Alice, Pascal, Emma, Ricken, Maria Paz and the rest of the Avaaz team

More information:

If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...t-sopa-was-bad-just-wait-until-you-meet-acta/

ACTA vs. SOPA: Five Reasons ACTA is Scarier Threat to Internet Freedom
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/286...ons-scarier-threat-internet-freedom.htm?cid=2

What's Wrong With ACTA
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.1/whats-wrong-with-ACTA

The secret treaty: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and Its Impact on Access to Medicines
http://www.msfaccess.org/content/se...greement-acta-and-its-impact-access-medicines
 

Pepé The Grower

Member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
We're fucked...unless we move our ass fast...and sign up this petition!Liberty is a right,be it on the internet or in "real" life...don't let those corporates bitches steal what belong to us!:hotbounce
 

bozga

Member
Poor and untruthful decision from the top of world's power pyramid.

Now ACTA wants to put new borders on almighty Internet. It's always about the borders cause people with borderline mental disorders are making such laws. They want us to buy more and to come into our homes and take all we got cause they are greedy bastards.
And all started in US as a great PR and social networking SPIN.
First, SOPA. Then, ACTA.

They know it's very critical there in US so they want to prevent civil war. And they are experimenting already and probably they have now even more advanced technology.
 
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popeyesailorman

New member
Big business wants control over the net. This is just one more power grab. They want to control all our thoughts, and the free flow of ideas is not going to make them any profit. Any attempt to censure free flow of ideas between people, are the attempts of the powers that be, to control and profit from us. Keeping the masses in their place at the bottom of the ladder, is all that this law is about.
The idea that it is a protection from some evil, dishonest, or dangerous threat is a lie. The censorship of any form of communications is what they are after and if we let them get away with a little, they will have won total control.
 

budlover123

Member
ACTA is the latest threat to freedom we face, the internet developed to quickly for the robber barrons and control freaks to wrap there stupid little heads around how to bastardize it, now they are working harder than ever to get the internet working only for them like practically all other systems that are in place.
 
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Payaso

Original Editor of ICMagazine
Veteran
Howdy Folks!

We feel this is such an important topic that everyone should know about it, if this passes they will be able to shut us down, thereby removing our freedom to post about cannabis.

All postings here are welcome, as long as they stay on the topic at hand, which is ACTA. Please don't think that this is an open forum for discussion of all things politics, or a venue to express your hatred for one thing or another.

As long as we can stay on the topic of ACTA, and what is actually happening with this proposed legislation we will leave the thread open, and stickied at the top of this forum.

Do remember, it's all about Cannabis Freedom here!
 

DoobieDuck

Senior Member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Thanks Payaso for allowing this important topic to stay open. Thank you OldBootz for posting.rep to you buddy...DD
 

Skip

Active member
Veteran
The fact that the governments are negotiating IN SECRET with corporations, creating their OWN LAWS in secret is completely undemocratic, and is nothing less than CORPORATOCRACY, rule by corporations who are only interested in their own profits, not freedom.

And of course this whole thing is designed to set precedents including letting corporations and governments decide which websites should be shutdown, who should be thrown in jail, without due process. The Megaupload guy is just the beginning, that's the big start to their new campaign against Internet freedoms.

The level of secrecy involved here on an International level, should alarm everyone and move people to action.

The people are united more than ever now.

You know it, and they fear it.

That is why things are being done in secret.

Decisions are being made, laws are being created in secret, the public be damned, freedom be damned.

This is because the public and the corporations are now at odds and things will get worse if the people are complacent.

Let's all come together around the world with the same voice and let that voice be the one that politicians and corporations obey.

Greed must become obsolete before everyone can be free and properous.

Laws like ACTA hide a deeper agenda giving governments and corporations more control over the Internet, creating more criminals. Remember those poor web surfers who downloaded a few songs and got sued by corporations? This will give them even more power over us.

Corporatocracy = Fascism.

And don't think that ICMag isn't already a target in their scopes. Sites like this make it harder for them to continue their War on Drugs. They don't want people to know all about marijuana. It makes it harder for the public to buy the big LIE.

This law could give them just the authority they need to shutdown marijuana websites around the world on whatever pretext they can come up with.

I'll bet that right now the DEA is on a full-court press with countries pressuring them to approve this legislation. That's along with all the bought politicians and corporate executives doing the same.

Fortunately we have many allies in this, probably the biggest, a huge corporation, Google.

Kudos also must go to the EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other free speech groups who are working tirelessly to get the word out and lobby politicians.

And the Dutch are fighting this by refusing to act upon anything that is not made public, thereby stopping action due to the secrecy. Let's see if the Dutch remain firm on this. They do have a tradition of Free Speech, so it'll be interesting.
 

Skip

Active member
Veteran
Speaking of the EFF, here is their take on it. Their own copyright on this allows anyone to republish it without charge, according to the Creative Commons Attribution License. You might want to look around their site and see what they do. They are amazing.

This doc is found here:
https://www.eff.org/issues/acta

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
What is ACTA?

In October 2007, the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA. Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada have joined the negotiations. Although the proposed treaty’s title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines) what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope and in particular will deal with new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology”.

In recent years major U.S. and EU copyright industry rightsholder groups have sought stronger powers to enforce their intellectual property rights across the world to preserve their business models. These efforts have been underway in a number of international fora including at the World Trade Organization the World Customs Organization at the G8 summit at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement and at the Intellectual Property Experts’ Group at the Asia Pacific Economic Coalition. Since the conclusion of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Issues of Intellectual Property in 1994 (TRIPS) most new intellectual property enforcement powers have been created outside of the traditional multilateral venues through bilateral and regional free trade agreements entered into by the United States and the European Community with their respective key trading partners. ACTA is the new frontline in the global IP enforcement agenda.

To date, disturbingly little information has been released about the actual content of the agreement. However despite that it is clearly on a fast track, treaty proponents wanted it tabled at the G8 summit in July and completed by the end of 2008.
Why You Should Care About It

ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce and for developing countries’ ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development.

ACTA is being negotiated by a select group of industrialized countries outside of existing international multilateral venues for creating new IP norms such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and (since TRIPs) the World Trade Organization. Both civil society and developing countries are intentionally being excluded from these negotiations. While the existing international fora provide (at least to some extent) room for a range of views to be heard and addressed no such checks and balances will influence the outcome of the ACTA negotiations.

The Fact Sheet published by the USTR together with the USTR's 2008 "Special 301" report make it clear that the goal is to create a new standard of intellectual property enforcement above the current internationally-agreed standards in the TRIPs Agreement and increased international cooperation including sharing of information between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies. The last 10 bilateral free trade agreements entered into by the United States have required trading partners to adopt intellectual property enforcement obligations that are above those in TRIPs. Even though developing countries are not party to the ACTA negotiations it is likely that accession to and implementation of ACTA by developing countries will be a condition imposed in future free trade agreements and the subject of evaluation in content industry submissions to the annual Section 301 process and USTR report.

While little information has been made available by the governments negotiating ACTA a document recently leaked to the public entitled "Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement" from an unknown source gives an indication of what content industry rightsholder groups appear to be asking for – including new legal regimes to "encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material" criminal measures and increased border search powers. The Discussion Paper leaves open how Internet Service Providers should be encouraged to identify and remove allegedly infringing material from the Internet. However the same industry rightsholder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens' Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the "Three Strikes" /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers. While mandating copyright filtering by ISPs will not be technologically effective because it can be defeated by use of encryption efforts to introduce network level filtering will likely involve deep packet inspection of citizens' Internet communications. This raises considerable concerns for citizens' civil liberties and privacy rights and the future of Internet innovation.
What You Can Do

Despite the potentially significant harmful impact on consumers and Internet innovation and the expedited timeframe in which the treaty is being negotiated the citizens that stand to be directly affected by the treaty provisions have been given almost no information about its real contents and very little opportunity to express their views on it.

But there is still time to do something to change that! If you live in the US tell your Senators to demand more transparency in ACTA!
 

Skip

Active member
Veteran
We should also realize that once Big Pharma has patented all the cannabinoids, anyone making a copy containing them could be considered a criminal and prosecuted under ACTA or SOPA.

That's a good laugh, eh? Oh, but no one is supposed to profit from marijuana...

The US gov't has already patented a cannabinoid (saying it has medical use, of course).
 

oldbootz

Active member
Veteran
how can you patent a cannabinoid on a shedule 1 list that accepts the substance has no medical use?
 

PoopyTeaBags

State Liscensed Care Giver/Patient, Assistant Trai
Veteran
how can you patent a cannabinoid on a shedule 1 list that accepts the substance has no medical use?



well thats e z the dea down graded synthesized cannibinoids to a stage 3 not a stage one... took care of that pretty e z lol....
 

MadBuddhaAbuser

Kush, Sour Diesel, Puday boys
Veteran
from the ibtimes link above.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/286...ons-scarier-threat-internet-freedom.htm?cid=2

scary fucking shit my friends.

By Connor Adams

January 24, 2012 2:26 PM EST

ACTA may be scarier than SOPA, Internet freedom advocates say, and outrage over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement treaty is growing as it gains international prominence in the wake of the U.S. Congress shelving the Stop Online Piracy Act last week.

Both the ACTA treaty and the SOPA bill are ostensibly aimed at limiting counterfeiting and piracy, but opponents argue that they would have the adverse effects of limiting Internet freedom, quashing innovation and possibly even censoring the Internet.

Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and other websites staged a successful SOPA blackout on Jan. 18, bringing the web together in opposition to the bill, and causing the Congress to have to go back to the drawing board on an anti-piracy bill.

And now ACTA opponents, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the Anonymous hacktivist collective are colaescing in opposition to the treaty as well.

Despite these key similarities, the ACTA vs. SOPA debate usually ends up with opponents ruling that ACTA is scarier in terms of what its worldwide impacts would be. Here are five of these reasons why these opponents believe ACTA is the greater threat to the Internet as we know it:

1. Scope: The key reason why ACTA is scarier to many Internet freedom advocates is the fact that it is an international treaty. SOPA was a bill before the U.S. Congress, and though it would have had some worldwide implications as it was aimed at stopping web piracy at overseas sites like Sweden's Pirate Bay torrent site.

ACTA, meanwhile, would set up an international legal framework to deal with issues of counterfeiting, piracy and other crimes. Instead of dealing with individual nation's laws regarding these issues, if ACTA is passed, countries would be able to adjudicate these crimes in a new governing body that would exist outside of the purview of the United Nations and other international institutions.


This opens up the possibility for ACTA to be used to crack down on Internet activity worldwide by a coordinated authority that rests outside of any country. SOPA, meanwhile, would have been enforced by existing American agencies, and would have been subject to legal scrutiny and constitutional challenges within the U.S. judiciary system.

2. Transparency: The SOPA debate took place mostly outside of the public eye at first, but because it was taking place in the halls of the U.S. Congress, Internet freedom advocates were able to monitor the proceedings, view draft bills and related materials and monitor the proceedings.

But the ACTA treaty is being negotiated almost entirely behind closed doors. If it were not for the advent of WikiLeaks, which released documents revealing details of the negotiations and draft versions of the treaty, the world community would still have very little knowledge of what exactly the treaty might entail.

This opens up major concerns for people who would like to ensure that the treaty does not infringe on people's rights or limit internet freedom in ways that would be detrimental to the web's status as a place where information flows freely.

3. Ease of Approval: The SOPA bill was derailed because it required both houses of the U.S. Congress to pass it, and for President Barack Obama to sign it. Once approved, it would have been subject to challenge and could have been changed by future congresses.

ACTA, on the other hand, was already signed by the United States on Oct. 11, 2011, and Obama was not required to get the approval of any outside authority to do so: not the Congress, not the Supreme Court, and not the American public.

Now that it has been signed, the legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government also have little ability to challenge or amend the treaty, and Americans would be subject to a whole new scheme of laws, restrictions and regulations that could have them facing fines or jail through a process that would likely exist entirely outside the scope of the American justice system.

4. Level of Support: Even before the efforts of opponents brought down the controversial legislation, SOPA had only 31 co-sponsors in Congress, meaning it was never a wildly-popular bill to begin with. Despite the loud cries that SOPA was threatening the Internet as we know it and that Congress was about to pass it, it was never really that close to being made into law.

ACTA, on the other had, is an international treaty, meaning that it requires unilateral signatures, not votes based at least in part on public opinion. And the Obama administration already signed the treaty for America on Oct. 11, 2011. Critics, including Democratic U.S. Senator, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, have questioned the constitutionality of Obama being allowed to sign an international treaty of this sort without gaining approval from the U.S. Congress, but America remains a full signatory to this day.

And the United States is not alone in having signed on to ACTA: During the same Oct. 11 signing ceremony in Tokyo, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea also signed the treaty, while the European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland have said they plan to do so in the near future. This means many of the world's largest nations not only support the treaty, they have gone so far as to have already signed it.

The G8 has also come out with a statement in support of the ACTA treaty, offering the following remarks on the topic in a July 2008 communique: "We encourage the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year."

5. Visibility: The campaign to stop SOPA began relatively early on in its development. By the time it was even able to go to mark-up in the House Judiciary Committee, opponents were already loudly making their opinions known to a large slice of the Internet-using public.

ACTA, on the other hand, is largely off most people's radars, though it has been under official negotiation for about five years. Efforts against it in the United States are modest at best, and the U.S. has already signed the bill anyway. But they do persist, as a petition on WhiteHouse.gov with more than 6,000 signatures is currently on file with the Obama administration, calling on it to "end ACTA and protect our right to Internet privacy."

But ACTA's visibility is rising in nations that have yet to sign the bill. Poland announced last week that it will sign the treaty on Jan. 26, drawing the ire of Polish groups opposed to the law, including representatives of the Anonymous collective. The opposition groups have threatened to stage a Web blackout that day similar to the SOPA blackout if the Polish government goes through with the signing. On Sunday the hacktivist collective shut down the Polish prime minister's Web site in order to demonstrate its opposition to ACTA, Poland's TheeNews.pl reported.

its kind of weird living in a democratic dictatorship.
 

StRa

Señor Member
Veteran
politicians against ACTA in Poland

W500px_poland-vote-of-no-confidence-picture-of-the-day-2701.jpg
 

gaiusmarius

me
Veteran
politicians against ACTA in Poland

W500px_poland-vote-of-no-confidence-picture-of-the-day-2701.jpg

that is so cool, i know they are in the process of trying to ratify it in Poland. lets hope the outrage is big enough to stop this outrage.

apparently the US has already signed up to this agreement, so this seems even more a danger then sopa was. just imagine politicians signing a international treaty without knowing what it will all do exactly. crazy world...
 

gaiusmarius

me
Veteran
wow i'm shocked at the lack of outrage at this ACTA bs, it's like people got tired out by sopa and are now just ignoring the subject of ACTA, which is actually worse in some ways.

this site will be finished if acta passes internationally, sites with content thats deemed illegal can be shut down from the country it's deemed illegal in. or if some member posts a link to a copy righted ebook or documentary, we get three strikes and then the site is shut down. do you realize the amount of extra work it would need to moderate every post before its let appear on the site? but anyway even having info about growing will be enough to make ips stop your access to such sites. i can't believe there is so little discussion going on about this secret treaty our world leaders are being lobbied and bribed in to passing.
 

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