Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Sempre nel quarto Reich entra in vigore ACTA

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Today, the European Union and 22 member states signed the 
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Japan's Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs announced. They have now joined the US and seven other nations that 
signed the treaty last October.
 
This signing ceremony merely formalized the EU's adoption of ACTA last 
month, during a completely unrelated meeting on agriculture and fisheries, 
reports TechDirt.
 
Though initiated by the US, Japan is the official depository of the treaty.
 
Removal of the Three Strikes clause, in which users accused of three counts 
of piracy would be barred from the internet, paved the way for the EU to 
adopt ACTA last month.
 
Related to ACTA, a chapter in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) 
"would have state signatories adopt even more restrictive copyright measures 
than ACTA," reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
 
Both ACTA and TPP were developed without public input and outside 
international trade groups, like the World Trade Organization and the 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
 
 
 
Leaked cables published by WikiLeaks in 2009 exposed early drafts of ACTA, 
resulting in a firestorm of controversy. Those cables, coupled with later 
releases, showed that ACTA negotiationsbegan in 2006 and were controversial 
even to participating states.  An historical summary of the treaty's 
progress through December can be found here.
 
ACTA Violates Magna Carta and US Constitution
 
Like PIPA and SOPA, two domestic internet censorship bills that prompted 
major websites to blacken their name or website in a Jan. 18th protest, ACTA 
allows accusers of copyright infringement to bypass judicial review.  Lack 
of "due process" makes these bills and ACTA unconstitutional and violates 
the Magna Carta, a charter signed in 1215 on which most Western law is 
based, including the US Constitution.  It is often cited as the most 
important legal document in the history of democracy.
 
(The USA PATRIOT Acts, Obama's assassination program, and the National 
Defense Authorization Act that allows indefinite detention are among many 
recent laws passed in the US which directly breach the Magna Carta.)
 
"The Constitution states only one command twice," explains Peter Strauss of 
Cornell University Law School, further elaborating:
 
The Fifth Amendment says to the federal government that no one shall be 
'deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.' The 
Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, uses the same eleven words, called 
the Due Process Clause, to describe a legal obligation of all states. These 
words have as their central promise an assurance that all levels of American 
government must operate within the law ('legality') and provide fair 
procedures.
Not only due process, but US adoption of ACTA also violates Article II, 
Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that the president "shall 
have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make 
Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur."
The Senate never voted on ACTA.
 
During the Jan. 18 internet blackout, Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduced OPEN, 
(H.R. 3782, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act). 
Heather Callaghanpoints out that even though OPEN targets foreign-based 
websites,
 
[T]he bill's wording is wide open to pursue American sites. Just one 
example: when describing an infringing site, it starts with those 'that are 
accessed through a non-domestic domain name,' but continues in section 
(8)(A)(ii) for any site that 'conducts business directed to residents of the 
United States.'
As this slew of internet censorship bills and treaties make their way into 
law, "the United States fell 27 places on the Reporters Without Borders 
tenth annual Press Freedom Index of 2011 to 47th overall," reports Activist 
Post.
 
Today's signatories included the EU, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech 
Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, 
Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, 
Sweden and the United Kingdom.
 
Last October, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, 
Singapore and the United States signed ACTA.
 
Though involved in early ACTA negotiations, Switzerland and Mexico have not 
yet ratified it.  However, "Since the agreement remains open to signature 
until May 2013, it is possible that other states may make a move to join it 
as well," said Maira Sutton of EFF.
 
This article first appeared at Activist Post
 
 

 
Un vero golpe.
Atto legislativo frutto di trattative tra compagnie e comissari del PCUS 
europeo.
Nessuna discussione parlamentare, informazione quasi zero.
 
Dettano le loro leggi, le corporations.
 
 
      In the wake of a public outcry against internet regulation bills such 
as SOPA and PIPA, representatives of the EU have signed a new and far more 
threatening legislation yesterday in Tokyo. Spearheaded by the governments 
of the United States and Japan and constructed largely in the absence of 
public awareness, the measures of theAnti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 
(ACTA) dramatically alter current international legal framework, while 
introducing the first substantial processes of global internet governance. 
With complete contempt towards the democratic process, the negotiations of 
the treaty were exclusively held between industry representatives and 
government officials, while excluding elected representatives and members of 
the press from their hearings.
 
 
      Under the guise of protecting intellectual property rights, the treaty 
introduces measures that would allow the private sector to enforce sweeping 
central authority over internet content. The ACTA abolishes all legal 
oversight involving the removal of content and allows copyright holders to 
force ISPs to remove material from the internet, something that presently 
requires a court order. ISPs would then be faced with legal liabilities if 
they chose not to remove content. Theoretically, personal blogs can be 
removed for using company logos without permission or simply linking to copy 
written material; users could be criminalized, barred from accessing the 
internet and even imprisoned for sharing copyrighted material. Ultimately, 
these implications would be starkly detrimental toward the internet as a 
medium for free speech.
 
 
      The Obama Administration subverted the legal necessity of allowing to 
US Senate to ratify the treaty by unconstitutionally declaring it an 
"executive agreement" before the President promptly signed it on October 1, 
2011. As a touted constitutional lawyer, Barack Obama is fully aware that 
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, mandates Congress in dealing 
with issues of intellectual property, thus voiding the capacity for the 
President to issue an executive agreement. The White House refused to even 
disclose details about the legislation to elected officials and civil 
libertarians over concern that doing so may incur "damage to the national 
security." While some may hang off every word of his sorely insincere 
speeches and still be fixated by the promises of hope offered by 
brand-Obama, his administration has trampled the constitution and introduced 
the most comprehensive authoritarian legislation in America's history.
 
 
      In addition to imposing loosely defined criminal sanctions to average 
web users, the ACTA treaty will alsoobligate ISPs to disclose personal user 
information to copyright holders. The measures introduce legislative 
processes that contradict the legal framework of participant countries and 
allows immigration authorities to search laptops, external hard drives and 
Internet-capable devices at airports and border checkpoints. The treaty is 
not limited solely to internet-related matters,
 
      ACTA would prohibit the production of generic pharmaceuticals and 
outlaw the use of certain seeds for crops through patents, furthering the 
corporate cartelization of the food and drug supply.
 
 
      ACTA would allow companies from any participating country (which 
include EU member states, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New 
Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Morocco) to shut down websites 
without any explanation. Hypothetically, nothing could prevent private 
Singaporean companies from promptly taking down American websites that 
oppose the Singapore Air Force conducting war games on US soil,such as those 
conducted in December 2011. By operating outside normal judicial framework, 
exporting US copyright law to the rest of the world and mandating private 
corporations to conduct surveillance on their users, all prerequisites of 
democracy, transparency and self-expression are an afterthought.
 
 
      The further monopolization of the existing resources of communication, 
exchange and expression is ever present in the form of deceptive new 
articles of legislation that unanimously call for the implementation of the 
same austere censorship measures. Even if the ACTA treaty is not 
implemented, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TTP) between 
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Vietnam and the 
United States offers more extensive intellectual property regulations. 
Leaked documents prepared by the U.S. Business Coalition (which have been 
reportedly drafted by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufactures of 
America, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Motion Picture Association of 
America) report that in addition to ACTA-style legislation, the TTP will 
impose fines on non-compliant entities and work to extend the general period 
of copy write terms on individual products.
 
 
      Under the sweeping regulations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, 
individual infringers will be criminalized and sentenced with the same 
severity as large-scale offenders. Within the United States, the recently 
announced Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) H.R. 
3782 regulation seeks to install policies largely identical to SOPA and 
PIPA. The Obama administration is also working towards an Internet ID 
program, which may be mandatory for American citizens and required when 
renewing passports, obtaining federal licenses, or applying for social 
security. Spreading these dangerous measures to other countries 
participating in these treaties would necessitate a binding obligation on 
the US to retain these policies, averting any chance of reform.
 
 
      The ACTA will become law once it is formally ratified and cleared by 
the European Parliament in June. Bypetitioning members of the European 
parliament and educating others about the potential dangers imposed by this 
legislation, there is a chance of the treaty being rejected. Upon closer 
examination of the human condition with all of its inequalities, food 
insecurity and dire social issues, our governments have lost their 
legitimacy for giving such unwarranted priority to fighting copyright 
infringement on behalf of lobbyists from thepharmaceutical and entertainment 
industries. The existence of ACTA is a clear statement that surveillance, 
regulations and securing further corporate centralization dwarfs any 
constructive shift towards stimulating human innovation and self-sufficient 
technologies.
 
 
      When former US National Security Advisor and Trilateral Commission 
co-founder, Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke before the Council on Foreign 
Relations in 2010, he warned of a global political awakening beginning to 
take place. Technology such as file sharing, blogging, and open source 
software has the potential to undermine the oligarchical governing interests 
seeking to centrally control our society and enforce the population into 
being entirely dependent on their commodities. The following excerpt from 
Brzezinski's book Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era, 
provides invaluable insight into the world being brought in; "The 
technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled 
society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by 
traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous 
surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files 
containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files 
will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities."
 
 
       Global Research Articles by Nile Bowie