Dead on arrival? Dutch Parliament kills ACTA before EU vote

RT.com, 29 May, 2012

Protesters wearing Anonymous Guy Fawkes masks take part in a
 demonstration against controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
(ACTA) (AFP Photo/Jean-Philippe Ksiazek)

Lawmakers in Holland have voted to strike down the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), slammed by many as a free speech and information access choker. Dutch MPs have also ruled the government will never sign any such agreement.

The Dutch parliamentarians have opted not to wait for the EU’s vote on ACTA which is set for June, with consultations kicking off already this Thursday.

"The treaty should be taken off table, whatever the decision the European Parliament should take," said MP Kees Verhoeven, a major sponsor of Tuesday’s motion in the Dutch Parliament.

Lisa Neves Goncalves, a spokeswoman for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, said the government had earlier this year stated it would not sign off on the treaty until it was clear it did not breach the Dutch or EU constitution.

As the controversial bill is making its slow way through the EU Parliament, the UK Pirate Party, the Open Rights Group (ORG) and the French La Quadrature Du Net are calling for more anti-bill rallies.

"The votes this Thursday, in three of the Committees responsible for offering 'Opinions' on the treaty, will really affect whether the European Parliament ultimately rejects ACTA or not. It is important that your MEP understand people's concerns. And calling your MEP will help make this happen," says the Open Rights Group in a blog post.

ACTA is an international agreement aimed at protecting intellectual property. It somewhat resembles the US’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was shelved by lawmakers after protests.

The European Union suspended efforts to ratify the treaty in February amid a storm of protest from activists who say the agreement would stifle free speech and access to information. 

Thousands demonstrated across the EU against giving big firms the power to ban people from using the Internet for illegally swapping files. Twenty-two countries in the bloc signed up to the agreement, with a vote on its ratification due this summer in Brussels.

The US, most of the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and several other countries have signed the ACTA treaty, but none of these signatories' parliaments have yet ratified it. This last step would make the agreement viable. As soon as ACTA is ratified by any six nations, the convention will come into force.

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New threat to internet freedom

RNW, 15 May 2012, by Willemien Groot

 (Vladimir Kazanevsky)

        

Out of public view, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, is working on a proposal to give governments more control over the internet. The effort is supported by a number of countries including Russia, Brazil and China, and if it’s successful it could mean the end of internet freedom.

After the WikiLeaks-affair and the Arab Spring, an increasing number of countries would like to ‘democratise’ the internet. China India, Brazil and South Africa all use the ITU as a platform to advance their plans, says Dieuwertje Kuijpers from the Telders Foundation, a research agency connected with the pro-market VVD party.

“It’s a useful platform for them, enabling them to set rules about what is and is not allowed on the internet.” That includes rules for both acceptable behaviour and internet regulation.

Trivial

Russia and China were the first UN members to propose setting up the International Code of Conduct for Information Security. The code lists the rights and responsibilities of states when it comes to the web. The rules also make it possible to fight internet criminals and extremists attempting to undermine the ‘economic and political stability of the state’ - in other words, bring order to the chaos. The first thing was to get rid of ‘trivial’ aspects like the right to anonymity and privacy on the web. The proposal was considered somewhat laughable in US and Europe but the controversial code of conduct is now getting a second chance.

India, Brazil and South Africa are calling for the creation of a new UN organisation to monitor and protect equal access to the internet. The UN Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) would consist of 50 member states, along with four advisors from the business world and society. Many people don’t realise that this committee would mean the end of the so-called multi-stakeholder principle that everyone has a say in the internet. The 50 countries represented would decide how around 6 billion people are allowed to use the internet.

Control

Dutch Green Left MP Arjan El Fassed believes that restraint is necessary:

"The growth and development of the internet is possible precisely because it belongs to everyone and no one. Many different groups would like to control aspects of the internet, from the entertainment industry to governments. The danger is that regulation will be used to disguise attempts to take control. That’s bad for everyone.”

The United Nations is the last body that should be dealing with this issue, according to Dieuwertje Kuijpers: "The UN is too bureaucratic and opaque. That makes it almost creepy.” It’s also impossible to make this kind of agreement on the basis of consensus.

The ITU has proven its usefulness in the past. The agency facilitated the liberalisation of the internet in the late eighties, guaranteeing access for everyone without restrictive international frameworks. National governments are responsible for the rules of usage. Independent organisations such as ICANN ensure the technical standards and stability of the internet.

Radical

It’s unclear exactly what the proponents of government control actually wish to accomplish. Clearly, cyber security, privacy and data storage concerns are part of their agenda, but so far the draft text has not been released to the public. Given the radical nature of the proposal, the public has a right to know more about the plan.

Arjan El Fassed thinks the Netherlands should refuse to continue negotiating until the ITU proposal is made public:

"The majority of users will benefit from an open internet, not from more control. The problem with these proposals is that civil society has almost no say. The Netherlands should have the courage to stand up for those users, like other European countries.”

"Member States shouldn’t wait for ratification, they must have a say now,” says Dieuwertje Kuijpers. "This process started back in 2005. There is no earthly reason to be taken by surprise if the proposal is presented at the end of this year at the telecom conference in Dubai.”

Picnic

The ratification of the controversial anti-piracy law ACTA has already demonstrated that politicians have little idea what these agreements entail. Specialists in the field of civil rights and internet freedom had to explain what ACTA means to computer illiterate MPs and civil servants. They cannot afford to be that ignorant this time around, says Kuijpers:

"ACTA was a picnic compared to what the ITU is planning.” 

See also: The Economist - In Praise of Chaos

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Neelie Kroes backs ACTA protests

RNW, 4 May 2012

Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, says she appreciates the protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Speaking at an internet conference in Berlin, the Dutch politician said she thought it unlikely that either the ACTA international anti-piracy agreement or the US Stop Online Piracy Agreement (SOPA) would come into force.

Neelie Kroes, the European
Commissioner for Digital Agenda

ACTA has met with fierce protests in various European countries over the past months. Opponents argue that the part of the agreement aimed at combating illegal downloading endangers internet freedom. The European Parliament’s International Trade Committee is expected to vote on ratification of the agreement in July.

“We have recently seen how many thousands of people are willing to protest against rules which they see as constraining the openness and innovation of the internet,” Mrs Kroes said. “This is a strong new political voice. As a force for openness, I welcome it, even if I do not always agree with everything it says on every subject.”

Mrs Kroes, a member of the Dutch free-market liberal VVD party, described the internet as “the new frontier of freedom”. She said that crime constituted a “tiny minority of online activity”, adding that legislators should avoid an overreaction and “balance liberty and security”. Mrs Kroes went on to argue in favour of “net neutrality”, or openness of access to internet services.

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European Data Protection Official Criticizes ACTA Treaty

PC World, by Jennifer Baker, IDG News, Apr 24, 2012

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Europe's top data privacy watchdog has strongly criticized the international anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA), warning that it could lead to widespread monitoring of the Internet and breaches of individuals' right to privacy.

The agreement is poorly worded, lacks precision about what measures could be used to tackle infringement of intellectual property rights online and could result in the processing of personal data by ISPs that goes beyond what is allowed under E.U. law, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said in a 16-page opinion published Tuesday.

The opinion also says that ACTA does not contain "sufficient limitations and safeguards, such as effective judicial protection, due process, the principle of the presumption of innocence, and the right to privacy and data protection." It also warns that many of the measures to strengthen intellectual property enforcement online could involve "the large scale monitoring of users' behavior and of their electronic communications" including emails, private peer-to-peer file sharing and websites visited.

ACTA aims to enforce intellectual property rights and will enter into force after ratification by six signatory states of the total 11 -- the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the U.S. It was signed by the European Commission and 22 E.U. member states in January, but before it can become E.U. law it must be approved by the European Parliament.

However, the international antipiracy pact has failed to win favor with parliamentarians. And following large civil protests throughout Europe, many E.U. countries are back-pedaling on their decision to sign the agreement. Most have suspended ratification.

In an effort to placate critics, the European Commission, the body responsible for negotiating the agreement on behalf of the E.U., has asked the European Court of Justice to rule on whether the deal is compatible with the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights. But since the court will not evaluate the effectiveness or proportionality of the measures within the agreement, nor the potential outcome, anti-ACTA activists see it as nothing more than a time-wasting exercise.

The Parliament is expected to vote in June without waiting for the court ruling. It seems that it will vote against the agreement, after the parliamentarian charged with evaluating it, David Martin, recommended rejecting it.

The EDPS' opinion puts a further nail in ACTA's coffin. In February 2010, the independent supervisory authority, gave his first opinion on the treaty, which at the time was being negotiated in secret. That opinion raised privacy concerns, but Tuesday's document goes into more detail on the now public text.

ACTA includes permission for countries to create laws whereby an online service provider may be ordered by a "competent authority" to disclose the identity of a subscriber to a right holder. The EDPS points out that the "competent authority" is not defined. There is likewise no definition of "commercial scale" mentioned elsewhere in the text.

Article 23 of ACTA appears to create new categories of criminal offenses without providing for any legal definition of what they are, he continued. Generalized monitoring of Internet users could affect millions of individuals irrespective of whether they are under suspicion.

In short, according to the EDPS, ACTA raises huge privacy concerns.

The anti-piracy proposals have prompted protests
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