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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

The Open Rights Group wiki has a useful guide to writing to your parliamentary representative:

http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Letter_writing

Does our government like us? Henry Porter has his doubts (they’re my doubts too).

The left, at least as we see it in government, gives the impression of not really liking the British people and so finds every possible pretext to chivvy, nudge, monitor, watch and criminalise its behaviour. How else do we explain the 3,500 new criminal offences that have been brought in by Labour or the expensive programmes of surveillance and data capture, which have done nothing to alleviate child poverty or address the wealth gap but a great deal to extend state power?

Source: www.guardian.co.uk The left must think beyond the state

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.

A professional truth massager and key member of a government which is busy building (with voters’ own money) the most comprehensive citizen surveillance and communications monitoring network ever envisaged, complains:

“Imagine if all your emails suddenly became available to people wanting to damage you. That is, of course, the other question that needs to be asked: how were these emails obtained? Was criminal activity and hacking involved? Believe me, these are issues I will be looking at when I return from my holiday. “Blog wars” are one thing but hacking into people’s emails is surely a step too far?” (source)

Simply staggering! What intelligence-insulting, disingenuous hypocrites these people are! Let’s just recap:

“Imagine if all your emails suddenly became available to people wanting to damage you”

Er… that is a joke, right? Is Mr Draper aware that this rhetorical question is routinely asked by  those opposing his government’s draconian, intrusive, liberty-compromising policies? Of course he is, but that’s the purpose of Big Lie strategy, to, David Copperfield style, make the elephant on the table disappear from view.

“how were these emails obtained? Was criminal activity and hacking involved?”

This question from a member of a government that has given itself and the security services powers to comprehensively spy on citizens’ personal communications! Still, they’ve promised not to peak at the actual content of that communication, so I guess we can feel reassured that nothing we ever say or write will ever be used against us at some future date. Can’t we?

“Believe me, these are issues I will be looking at when I return from my holiday”

Believe me, these are issues that will be at the forefront of my mind come the next general election. That is of course assuming the election isn’t “postponed” in order to facilitate the “fight against terrorism”, you know, because the “right” not to be blown up is more important than the right to vote…

“‘Blog wars’ are one thing but hacking into people’s emails is surely a step too far?”

Ha, ha! Now we know he’s taking the piss At least he’s got a sense of humour! Let’s hear it for Derek Draper ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together now…. Seriously, the chief propagandist for a group of authoritarian, intrusive, privacy-destroying, liberty-reducing, integrity-free control freaks is asking for our sympathy because someone other than the intended recipients managed to view his private communication?! “Hello? Hello? Is that the Irony Detector Repair Centre? Please come quickly, we have an emergency!”

As a salve to apoplexy, console yourself by reading the comments at the end of Mr Draper’s post. It reminds me of watching Nicolae Ceauşescu smiling and waving from his balcony while the citizens below were baying for his blood. The main difference is, Ceauşescu was less deluded and/or felt less immune than Mr Draper. He eventually realised he was not wanted and scurried from the balcony. Derek Draper, on the other hand, is still regaling the crowd with his Big Lies as they edge close and closer.

Draper has been professionally distorting reality for so long that he actually thought that this post, with its public comment facility, would help his cause. Instead, it stands as a monument to everything that’s rotten, not only about our current government, but about a political system that necessitates and rewards equivocation, obfuscation, deceit, cynicism, spin, cheating, fabrication, and downright lies.

How much more damage to our moral and political constitution, and our civil rights, are people like this going to help wreak before the election next year?

Insanity, just fucking insanity. The world is going mad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yPmtQDWZ1s

Gestapo > Stasi > Khmer Rouge > Copyright industry: all disrespectors of human rights and enemies of free people and society.

I think it’s about time that people started to refuse to buy copyright governed media from the large copyright holding corporations. Let’s buy direct from independents, cut out the SWAT team-backed “entertainment” corporations who invade our privacy and connive with government, threatening our lives and our families with arrest and prosecution in order that their tired, outmoded and increasingly unfeasible business model can survive.

We need an entertainment equivalent of the Grüne Punkt, a sign that media doesn’t come bundled with trojan horse licensing conditions which, once brought into our homes and lives, then threaten our rights and liberty. “Big content”, from here on in it’s going to be a slippery slope all the way down to your demise.

Oh, and while I’m talking about the copyright Stasi, here’s the latest consumer-rights friendly news from Glyn Moody’s blog:

Why Everyone Hates the PRS

Fantastic, Jake is going to grow up in a world where some black-kevlar clad, combat-fantasizing thug working on behalf of the entertainment industry may end up pointing a Heckler and Koch at his chest, commanding him to “Step away from the iPod”.

Bastards, how dare they do this to us! How dare they betray our hard won freedom like this — and for such trivial reasons!

EDIT: OK, comparing litigious corporate copyright holders to the Khmer Rouge may have been over-egging the rant, just a tad… but I make no apologies for invoking the totalitarian spectres of the Gestapo and the Stasi, certainly not given broader legal and political trends at present.

Henry Porter at LibertyCentral:

There comes a stage in a government’s life when routine assessment concerning competence and managerial efficiency is replaced by questions about sanity. Reading Michael Wills musing about New Labour’s plans for an enhanced bill of rights with all sorts of social and economic rights as well as defined responsibilities, I had that experience of watching an acquaintance descend into whimpering insanity.

New rights from Labour mean nothing

At this rate, it won’t be long before Jake starts reporting me to his teachers for ‘counter-revolutionary’ behaviour. Jack Straw, Jacqui Smith, David Blunket, Alistair Campbell, and the rest, these names really are going to live on in infamy. The sooner we get rid of these dangerous, paranoid politicos, the safer we can sleep in our beds at night.

You won’t find many more deserving recipients of a cup of slime:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/06/mandelson-green-slime-protest

It’ll no doubt be the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit database for the seditious slime-chucker (probably for me too, for being aware of the existence of their website).

Has it always been media policy to blur out the registration numbers of ministerial cars, or did this begin after Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 came into force?

UPDATE: Craig Murray is more pithy.