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If you are unaware of the existence and nature of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) this article “ACTA — A Patriot Act For the Internet” by James Love in the Huffington Post is a good one for getting your spidey sense tingling. Some choice quotes:

“The term “counterfeiting” is designed to demonize the agreement critics as friends of organized crime, much like the name of the Patriot Act seemed better than the “Elimination of Civil Liberties Act.”

…

“[On the subject of ACTA] The entire U.S. tech sector has been publicly silent”

…

“If you are a lowly member of the public, the text is secret. The names of persons who attend the meetings are secret. The titles of the documents are secret. If you represent a big firm or law firm — pretty much any big firm it seems, the U.S. government will show you documents after you sign a non-disclosure agreement - curbing your right to speak out on the contents of the documents you see.”

…

“There is a lot at stake. Civil rights, privacy, rules for injunctions and damages against businesses and individuals, chilling of speech, the first sale doctrine, the global movement of medicines and other commodities, etc, will all be impacted by this ridiculously secret negotiation.”

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/acta—-a-patriot-act-for_b_345000.html

Concerned yet? I thought so. Anyone living within a putative democracy would be.

Given that the article is so short, my quotes almost certainly stretch the (endangered) notion of “fair use” to breaking point. As should be obvious, I am making no attempt to pass off the above as my writing, I run no adverts on this blog and do not gain commercially from it in any way. The quotes above are from an article that is, in effect, a political rallying cry and I reproduce them here in that spirit. The ACTA conspiracy (for that’s what it is) is a cynical betrayal of the culture of democracy, transparency and openness. Please forward links to the Huffington Post article, or any of those listed below, to people that you know.

Other useful articles on ACTA (in no particular order) that have been published in the last few days:

• The Great ACTA Lie Revealed
• More ACTA Details Leak: It’s An Entertainment Industry Wishlist
• Leaked ACTA Internet Provisions: Three Strikes and a Global DMCA
• The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together
• ACTA: Choking Digital Economy By Increasing Liability Risks For Intermediaries.
• ACTA’s All-out Assault on the Internet
• WIPO Boss: ACTA Should be Open, Transparent
• Copyright Treaty Is Policy Laundering at Its Finest

To understand what’s really behind the furore over MPs’ expenses, it’s necessary to understand that it’s not primarily about whether or not it’s right to claim for moat-cleaning, or even about whether or not claiming for non-existent mortgage payments is fraud. It’s about a conspiracy (sic) to hide the workings of parliament from the people it serves, from the people who fund it. Tin-foil hat stuff? Have a read of the following. It explains the background to this whole sorry saga.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/15/mps-expenses-heather-brooke-foi

EDIT: After alluding to it in the title above, I neglected to mention the following jaw-dropping quote in the article above from the head of the House of Commons Fees Office, Andrew Walker: “Transparency will damage democracy.” Given the sustained assault on civil rights and personal liberty that members of parliament have been responsible for over the last decade or so, that they and their officers can display indignation over what they perceive as an invasion of MPs’ privacy, is quite stunning hypocrisy and arrogance.

Certainly madam, if you’d just like to first smile for the video camera…

“Hell is where the cooks are German, the lovers Swiss, the mechanics French, the organizers Italian, and it’s all policed by the British” (1)

Guess which story is currently at the number 2 spot on reddit.com? Yep, the censored Guardian memos — and in the same submission title, the name <cough>Wikileaks</cough>.