‘End of the road’ for ACTA in Europe as EC withdraws court appeal over treaty.

‘End of the road’ for ACTA in Europe as EC withdraws court appeal over treaty.(RT).The European Commission has withdrawn its request to review ACTA’s compatibility with the EU law in the European Court of Justice. The move virtually ensures the treaty will never be adopted in the Union.

­The European Comission’s move was reported by MEPs from the Socialists and Democrats alliance.
“I welcome this news from the Commission today,” said SD Euro MP David Martin, the author of the parliamentary report on ACTA, as cited by The Register. 

“The EU cannot be party to an agreement without European Parliament ratification. MEPs overwhelmingly rejected ACTA in July and I am pleased that the Commission has acknowledged this is the end of the road for ACTA in the EU thanks to the Parliament.”

The European Commission made the appeal to the court in July, after ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) had received a knockout blow from the European Parliament. At the time MEPs roundly rejected the treaty with 478 votes against, and only 39 in favour.
Even before that, in February this year the adoption of ACTA was suspended due to mass protests against it, with critics slamming the agreement for its breaches of human rights, that it would protect copyright at the expense of freedom of speech on the Internet.
Intended as a global treaty, ACTA started to be developed in 2007 as a means to target copyright violations in a wide range of industries.ACTA has been signed by the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, South Korea and 22 EU member states. Of all those countries, only Japan has ratified it so far. The treaty will come into force for the countries which ratified it when at least 5 more pass the relevant legislation.Read the full story here.

Canada-EU Trade Agreement Replicates ACTA’s Notorious Copyright Provisions.

Canada-EU Trade Agreement Replicates ACTA’s Notorious Copyright Provisions.(EFF).By Carolina Rossini.The shadow of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is back in Europe. It is disguised as CETA, the Canada-European Union and Trade Agreement. As reported by EDRI, a rather strange and surprising e-mail was sent this summer from the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union to the Member States and the European Commission. The e-mail explained that the criminal sanctions provisions of the draft CETA are modeled on those in ACTA.

A comparison of the leaked draft Canada-EU agreement shows the treaty includes a number of the same controversial provisions, specifically concerning criminal enforcement, private enforcement by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and harsh damages. These provisions are particularly problematic, and were the key reasons why the European Parliament rejected ACTA.

However, given the lack of transparency associated with the CETA discussions (both Canada and EU insist that the draft text remain secret), the concerns that CETA may replicate ACTA appear to be very real despite denials from some members of the European Commission.

CETA is a trade agreement designed to strengthen economic ties between Canada and the EU through “free” trade and increased investment. However, hidden within this treaty are provisions that were essentially lifted from ACTA word-for-word. And just like its close cousins, ACTA, KORUS, and TPP—and other trade agreements that are applauded by the entertainment industry for carrying expansive intellectual property provisions—CETA is being negotiated in secret.

Jérémie Zimmermann declared:

The only hard evidence on which we can base our analysis suggests the worst: once again, the European Commission and the EU Member States governments are trying to impose repressive measures against cultural practices online. (…) This trend of sneaking repressive measures through negotiated trade agreements must stop.

This cut-and-paste strategy was confirmed yesterday by La Quadrature du Net, which had representatives present in a workshop on October 10th, where Philipp Dupuis, the European Commission negotiator, bragged that ACTA-like criminal sanctions were still in the CETA draft. Following the workshop, La Quadrature du Net sent letters to Mr Pierre Moscovici, Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance, requesting clarifications and demanding that the criminal measures be removed from CETA.

The 92% of the European Union Parliament who voted against ACTA in July 2012 demonstrated that the EU was overwhelmingly against provisions like this, and many expected that it would be the end of the matter. Sadly, that assumption appears to have been unfounded. Despite this there are encouraging signs of resistance—including that the Dutch government has stated that it would not accept CETA moving forward this way.

Civil society, which has mobilized and filled streets of France, Poland, and others, is calling on citizens to demand that their governments remove copyright provisions from CETA during the upcoming round of negotiations next week in Brussels.

The Consolidation of Policy Laundering and Increasing Secrecy in International Negotiations

The copyright lobbies have consolidated on the use of foreign and international forums as an indirect means of pushing policies—a strategy known as policy laundering—like those ones in CETA that might never win direct approval through the regular domestic political. The move from fora like the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the World Trade Organization (WTO) to bilateral and regional trade agreements confirms it. Policy laundering takes advantage of the fact that the institutions nations have created for ensuring democratic control and input into the bureaucratic policymaking process have not yet been instituted into most international bodies and negotiation venues. And of course, the entertainment lobby applauds this. It is well known for instance, that provisions of the US DMCA were the result of policy laundering. This should not be the way we build 21st century agreements.

International negotiations are abstract and it’s hard to see how they may eventually affect one's life. When a trade agreement or treaty is signed by a country and later ratified however, it does manifest itself into national law. Therefore, the time to act is from the very beginning of such initiatives, not later. Secrecy around negotiations is not democratic, violates the open government principles many of the negotiating countries have signed onto, and purposefully makes taking action much more difficult.

Secrecy impacts civil society’s ability to comment or analyze agreements, just as it does with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) and other FTAs. It’s hard enough to work within the participation system at places like WIPO, but at least there we are given some opportunity to observe and participate in the official discussions. When trade negotiators and copyright maximalists get together to launder IP rights expansion through secret agreements, we lose that small but vital voice that lets us speak truth to power.

Additional Resources:
Europe: La Quadrature du Net: http://www.laquadrature.net/en/CETA
Europe: EDRI http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.17/ceta-acta-criminal-sanctions
Canada: Michael Geist blog on ACTA http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_tags&task=view&tag=acta&Itemid=408

Video - Kim Dotcom attacks Obama with new song "Mr. President"

Video - Kim Dotcom attacks Obama with new song "Mr. President".(RT).Megaupload's Kim Dotcom — the man behind one of the most well-known file sharing sites — has a message for US President Barack Obama: where is your promise to keep the Internet free?
Dotcom, the 38-year-old founder of Megaupload.com, has come forth with his latest attempt to make a splash in the same industry that has employed every tactic in the book to put him behind bars. Even after being targeted by an international witch-hunt spearheaded by the Recording Industry Association of America, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and selected members of the US Congress, Dotcom has dropped a new musical number of his own.
And, of course, Dotcom has made the song available free of charge all over the Internet.
“Mr. President,” a bouncy, 4-minute-long request meant for Washington, was released on Friday, and Dotcom doesn’t hold back in his appeal for Internet freedoms. Dotcom may have been made the poster boy of online piracy thanks to an array of enemies in the RIAA, Hollywood and Capitol Hill, but in his latest number he embraces that allegations that he has facilitated copyright infringement and asks for his fans to demand a chance with the ways the Web is governed.
“The war for the Internet has begun,” Dotcom declares over a simplistic synthesizer lead. “Hollywood is in control of politics / The Government is killing innovation / Don't let them get away with that.”
Dotcom has been a central figure in Washington’s war on online piracy for years now, but a highly publicized raid of his New Zealand mansion on January 20 has propelled him to near-iconic status. The FBI alleges that, by masterminding the operations of Megaupload, Dotcom cost Hollywood upwards of half a billion dollars in lost revenue. Since those allegations were delivered, though, Dotcom has spent six months mostly hulled up in his home, yet still jumping on just about every opportunity to attack America and its justice system.
Only days before “Mr. President” was released, Dotcom’s attorneys filed a rebuttal against the federal prosecutors involved in the copyright case that calls out America’s attorneys for inventing their own rules to try to build up charges against Megaupload, a hugely popular file-storage site that was shut down by the FBI in conjunction with January’s raid.
In his latest tune, Dotcom declares over a redundant German dance beat that, “[I]f we don’t do anything. . . they will just blame it on the copyright,” and that advocates for a free and open Internet need to “Keep this movement going,” “Keep this movement tweeting” and “Keep this movement moving” in order to erode attempts from Congress and other legislative bodies across the world that are running a campaign against online freedoms.
During the course of the song, Dotcom’s compliments the tune’s repetitive dance phrases by combining it with images of protesters from across the globe, frequently donned in the Guy Fawkes mask adopted by the Anonymous movement, to showcase how other advocates have successfully killed ACTA — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that aimed to establish new standards for governing intellectual property rights in countries around the globe, including the US, New Zealand, Canada and the European Union. Thanks in part to a massive social media campaign — to which Dotcom encouraged — ACTA was killed just weeks ago.
In a tweet sent earlier this month, Dotcom celebrated the end of ACTA and similar American legislation aimed at regulating the Internet by writing to his followers, “SOPA is dead. PIPA is dead. ACTA is dead. MEGA will return. Bigger. Better. Faster. Free of charge & shielded from attacks. Evolution!”
Elsewhere in the number, Dotcom reaches out directly to President Obama, insisting that the “change” that was promised during his 2008 campaign for the White House turned out to be nothing more than an attempt to bring difference to the Web by way of regulation. “What about free speech, Mr. President?” Dotcom asks. “What happened to change, Mr. President? Are you pleading the fifth, Mr. President? Are you going to fix this, Mr. President?”
Dotcom then deters his lyrical attacks to take aim at the entertainment industry representatives who have largely pushed for SOPA and PIPA, whose clout on Capitol Hill almost cost the rest of the country their Internet freedoms.
“Hollywood marionettes [are] taking over our Internet,” he sings. “Don't let them get away with that.”
Before the song concludes, Dotcom asks his listeners to “Keep sharing this song.”
“If you can't blog – tweet. If you can't tweet – like. But by all means – keep sharing.”

SOPA Being Reintroduced Through Creation of Copyright Commissars.

SOPA Being Reintroduced Through Creation of Copyright Commissars.(AP).By Joe Wright.The battle rages on between lovers of the free Internet and a big government hellbent on controlling the only semblance of a fair and balanced media that still exists.

An onslaught of bills have been introduced worldwide which seek to criminalize the fundamental way that information is freely shared. Among the most comprehensive:

ACTA - Recently struck down by the European Parliament in a 478 to 39 vote after street protests swept across Europe. However, ACTA has already been signed in the United States. 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. (Source)

PIPA - A massive protest in January generated over 7 million petition signatures, which caused the bill to be postponed. Some of the most popular websites on the planet blackened their pages to protest the PROTECT IP Act, (S. 968), which threatens free access to information on the Web by allowing accusers to shut down an entire website - even shared platforms like Twitter, WordPress and YouTube, because of a single copyright violation. (Source)

OPEN - Darrell Issa (CA-R) and 24 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 3782. The bill claims to only target foreign websites for digital trade violations, while keeping Americans free to surf and post, but the bill's wording was wide open to pursue American sites. (Source)

CISPA - The grandaddy of cyber legislation, ushering in fascism to the Internet by giving full control to the Department of Defense and all of its satellite federal agencies and private contractors to surveil and wage cyberwar. (Source)

Resistance has been strong, but Big Brother remains motivated to move in by stealth if necessary, as evidenced by a new related bill that seeks to sneak a previously defeated piece of SOPA past an unsuspecting public.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been at the forefront of keeping the public informed about the myriad ways that our (s)elected representatives are attempting to usher in tyranny to the free market of ideas known as the World Wide Web.As Adi Kamdar writes:

Even after millions rallied against the passage of SOPA/PIPA, the House is still quietly trying to pass a related bill that would give the entertainment industry more permanent, government-funded spokespeople. The Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on Lamar Smith's IP Attaché Act (PDF), a bill that increases intellectual property policing around the world. The Act would create an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, as well as broaden the use of IP attachés in particular U.S. embassies. (The attachés were notably present in Sec. 205 of SOPA—which was also introduced by Smith.) [Source]

Kamdar rightly states that this empowers Hollywood with "traveling foot soldiers" that become content commissars by virtue of being "IP Attachés." - or world ambassadors for Internet censorship. In so doing, it creates yet another pyramid of control and intimidation that seeks to corral content through the ever-present threat of copyright violations.

So far, private copyright trolls have been repeatedly defeated (here and here for a couple recent examples), as judge after judge has ruled their lawsuits to be completely without merit. However, with this new piece of legislation, the federal government very well could create its own copyright troll goon squad at the behest of establishment lobbyists and their easily bought-and-paid-for congressmen.

Please continue following any mention of Internet regulation no matter how slick the veneer, as the final nail in the coffin of free expression and sharing of information contrary to the establishment media could arrive at any time, cloaked in ways we might not yet suspect.

It is clear that despite overwhelming public outcry, there are those in Congress such as Lamar Smith who clearly serve a different master.Read the full story here.

European Parliament rejects ACTA in landslide vote, what's next?

European Parliament rejects ACTA in landslide vote, what's next?(SG).European Parliament voted on July 4 to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the international treaty that internet freedom groups say opens the door for tight policing of online content. In a decisive win for opponents of the treaty, 478 MEPs voted against ACTA, with 39 votes in favour and 165 abstentions. European Parliament has the final authority on whether the 27-state bloc joins international treaties. The vote effectively kills the treaty’s ratification in the 22 member states that signed the agreement in Tokyo in January, since individual member states cannot join ACTA once the EU officially rejects it.
But it is not necessarily a killing blow for the treaty altogether, since ACTA needs ratification in by six signatory parties to go into effect. Other than the EU and its various member states, the agreement was signed by the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Morocco. However, with the EU out, other developed countries would find it difficult to push acceptance of the treaty onto developing and underdeveloped nations. “I am very pleased that Parliament has followed my recommendation to reject ACTA,” British MEP David Martin, the EP’s rapporteur on the issue, said. He reiterated the concerns that ACTA was too vague, open to misinterpretation and could therefore jeopardise citizens’ liberties, emphasising the need to find alternative ways to protect intellectual property in the EU, as the “raw material of the EU economy”. MEPs decided against waiting for the opinion of the European Court of Justice, to which the European Commission referred ACTA in May, as proposed by the treaty’s defenders. La Quadrature du Net, one of the many advocacy groups defending the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet who vehemently opposed ACTA, called the vote a major victory for “the multitude of connected citizens and organizations who worked hard for years, but also a great hope on a global scale for a better democracy.” “On the ruins of ACTA, we must now build a positive copyright reform, taking into account our rights instead of attacking them,” the group said in a statement on its website.Hmmmm.......But...how about the Obama Admin who approved ACTA?Read the full story here.More here.

Microsoft backs away from CISPA support, citing privacy.

Microsoft backs away from CISPA support, citing privacy.(CNet).Microsoft is no longer as enthusiastic about a controversial cybersecurity bill that would allow Internet and telecommunications companies to divulge confidential customer information to the National Security Agency.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved CISPA by a 248 to 168 margin yesterday in spite of a presidential veto threat and warnings from some House members that the measure represented "Big Brother writ large." (See CNET's CISPA FAQ.)
In response to queries from CNET, Microsoft, which has long been viewed as a supporter of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, said this evening that any law must allow "us to honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers."" Microsoft added that it wants to "ensure the final legislation helps to tackle the real threat of cybercrime while protecting consumer privacy." That's a noticeable change -- albeit not a complete reversal -- from Microsoft's position when CISPA was introduced in November 2011. In a statement (PDF) at the time, Microsoft vice president for government affairs Fred Humphries didn't mention privacy. Instead, Humphries said he wanted to "commend" CISPA's sponsors and "Microsoft applauds their leadership." He added: "This bill is an important first step towards addressing significant problems in cyber security." That wasn't exactly an full-throated endorsement of CISPA, but it was enough for the bill's author, House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), to list Microsoft as a "supporter" on the committee's Web site.
And it was also enough for news organizations, including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, to list Microsoft as having an unqualified pro-CISPA stand.
To be sure, Microsoft's initial reaction to CISPA came before many of the privacy concerns had been raised. An anti-CISPA coalition letter (PDF) wasn't sent out until April 16, and a petition that garnered nearly 800,000 signatures wasn't set up until April 5.What makes CISPA so controversial is a section saying that, "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information with Homeland Security, the IRS, the NSA, or other agencies. By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA's drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing federal and state laws, including ones dealing with wiretaps, educational records, medical privacy, and more.CISPA would "waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity," Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, said during yesterday's floor debate. Its sponsors, on the other hand, say it's necessary to allow the NSA and Homeland Security to share cybersecurity threat information with the private sector.
What Microsoft appears to favor is a Senate bill introduced in February called the Cybersecurity Act.
At a Senate hearing in February, Microsoft vice president Scott Charney was more effusive about the Cybersecurity Act than his colleague was about CISPA three months earlier. The Senate bill provides "an appropriate framework to improve the security of government and critical infrastructure systems," one which will be "flexible enough to permit future improvements to security" over time, Charney said (PDF).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been active in an anti-CISPA coalition, welcomed Microsoft's new statement.
"We're excited to hear that Microsoft has acknowledged the serious privacy faults in CISPA," said Dan Auerbach, EFF staff technologist. "We hope that other companies will realize this is bad for users and also bad for companies who may be coerced into sharing information with the government." Read the full story here.

CISPA passes House in unexpected last-minute vote.

CISPA passes House in unexpected last-minute vote.(RT).The House of Representatives has approved Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act with a vote count of 248-168. The bill is now headed for the Senate. President Barack Obama will be able to sign or cancel it pending Senate approval.
Initially slated to vote on the bill Friday, the House of Representatives decided to pass Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) Thursday after approving a number of amendments.
Apart from cyber and national security purposes, the bill would now allow the government to use private information obtained through CISPA for the investigation and prosecution of “cybersecurity crime,” protection of individuals and the protection of children. The new clauses define “cybersecurity crime” as any crime involving network disruption or hacking.
“Basically this means CISPA can no longer be called a cyber security bill at all. The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a 'cybersecurity crime.' Basically it says the Fourth Amendment does not apply online, at all,” Techdirt's Leigh Beadon said.
Declan McCullagh, correspondent from CNET News, says CISPA will cause more trouble than is immediately apparent.
“The most controversial section of CISPA is the language – that notwithstanding any other portion the of law, companies can share what they want as long as it’s for what they call a ‘cyber security purpose,'" he told RT.
The CISPA battleground in numbers
CISPA was introduced in the House last November. Critics chided the bill, saying its broad wording could allow the government to spy on individual Internet users and block websites that publish vaguely defined ‘sensitive’ data.

The White House issued a statement Wednesday saying President Barack Obama would be advised to veto the bill if he receives it. Apparently, Obama will again pose as an opponent by threatening to veto, like he did with NDAA, before signing it under cover of night.The Obama administration denounces the proposed law for potentially giving the government cyber-sleuthing powers that would allow both federal authorities and private businesses to sneak into inboxes and online activities in the name of combating Internet terrorism tactics.Read the full story here.

Video - CISPA Bill Picking Up Sponsors Ahead of Vote Next Week.

Video - Worse than SOPA? CISPA to censor Web in name of cybersecurity.

Worse than SOPA? CISPA to censor Web in name of cybersecurity.(RT).
H.R. 3523, a piece of legislation dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short), has been created under the guise of being a necessary implement in America’s war against cyberattacks. But the vague verbiage contained within the pages of the paper could allow Congress to circumvent existing exemptions to online privacy laws and essentially monitor, censor and stop any online communication that it considers disruptive to the government or private parties.
Critics have already come after CISPA for the capabilities that it will give to seemingly any federal entity that claims it is threatened by online interactions, but unlike the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Acts that were discarded on the Capitol Building floor after incredibly successful online campaigns to crush them, widespread recognition of what the latest would-be law will do has yet to surface to the same degree. Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology tells RT that Congress is currently considering a number of cybersecurity bills that could eventually be voted into law, but for the group that largely advocates an open Internet, she warns that provisions within CISPA are reason to worry over what the realities could be if it ends up on the desk of President Barack Obama.
So far CISPA has been introduced, referred and reported by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and expects to go before a vote in the first half of Congress within the coming weeks. “We have a number of concerns with something like this bill that creates sort of a vast hole in the privacy law to allow government to receive these kinds of information,” explains Burman, who acknowledges that the bill, as written, allows the US government to involve itself into any online correspondence, current exemptions notwithstanding, if it believes there is reason to suspect cyber crime.
As with other authoritarian attempts at censorship that have come through Congress in recent times, of course, the wording within the CISPA allows for the government to interpret the law in such a number of degrees that any online communication or interaction could be suspect and thus unknowingly monitored. In a press release penned last month by the CDT, the group warned then that CISPA allows Internet Service Providers to “funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls. The bill does not specify which agencies ISPs could disclose customer data to, but the structure and incentives in the bill raise a very real possibility that the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand would be the primary recipient,” reads the warning. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, another online advocacy group, has also sharply condemned CISPA for what it means for the future of the Internet. “It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity'’ exemption to all existing laws,” explains the EFF, who add in a statement of their own that “There are almost no restrictions on what can be collected and how it can be used, provided a company can claim it was motivated by ‘cybersecurity purposes.’” 
What does that mean? Both the EFF and CDT say an awfully lot. Some of the biggest corporations in the country, including service providers such as Google, Facebook, Twitter or AT&T, could copy confidential information and send them off to the Pentagon if pressured, as long as the government believes they have reason to suspect wrongdoing. In a summation of their own, the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, explains that “efforts to degrade, disrupt or destroy” either “a system or network of a government or private entity” is reason enough for Washington to reach in and read any online communiqué of their choice. The authors of CISPA say the bill has been made “To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities,” but not before noting that the legislation could be used “and for other purposes,” as well — which, of course, are not defined. “Cyber security, when done right and done narrowly, could benefit everyone,” Burman tells RT. “But it needs to be done in an incremental way with an arrow approach, and the heavy hand that lawmakers are taking with these current bills . . . it brings real serious concerns.”Read the full story here.

Police state Comes to the Internet: Introducing CISPA.

Police state Comes to the Internet: Introducing CISPA.(AP).After nearly unprecedented pushback against bills SOPA and PIPA, their apparent defeat cannot yet be claimed. Most skeptics presumed that the defeat of the aforementioned would only serve to offer a compromised "SOPA light" at some point to circumvent criticism over government censorship. Well, it didn't take long. In addition to OPEN and ACTA to combat supposed piracy issues in the U.S. and Europe respectively, we now have been presented with a full-on fascist template for Internet control where government and private corporations will work hand in hand under the very broad definition of cybersecurity.

The CISPA acronym is probably the most honest of those proposed thus far, and certainly is self-explanatory: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Cybersecurity initiatives themselves are framed in such a way as to declare the free and open Internet to be subsumed into national security infrastructure, thus giving it over to the Pentagon, NSA, and other agents for use in surveillance and even offensive war. However, CISPA goes one step further to suggest that all information transmitted on this national security infrastructure is fair game for the prying eyes of the State. Most likely the private sector must bow to any and all demands made, or face being labeled as supporters of terrorism.

Both House and Senate are due to address CISPA (H.R. 3523) in the last weeks of April -- we had better make noise ten times louder than what was made against previous attempts to hijack the Internet. Once the Internet is co-opted openly by the military-industrial-surveillance complex, there will be very little chance for regaining what will be lost.Hmmm.............How conveiniant : The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say).Read the full story here.

March 31: Operation Global Blackout: Anonymous Hackers Intend to Shut Down the Internet by Disabling Core DNS Servers.

March 31: Operation Global Blackout: Anonymous Hackers Intend to Shut Down the Internet by Disabling Core DNS Servers.(SHTF).By Dan Graziano.The hacking group known as Anonymous intends to attack the core servers that control the routing of all internet traffic. DNS, or Domain Name Servers, are a critical backbone of the web and make it possible for internet surfers to reach web site destinations by typing in a domain name in their browsers. Once a particular web site is requested, a query is sent to a domain name server, which then redirects that web address to a specific IP address on the web. Without these servers, access to web sites through traditional means (typing in a ‘dot com’) becomes impossible, because there is no way to direct the traffic to the appropriate web site destination.
According to a statement released by Anonymous, it is these servers that will come under fire on Saturday, March 31. Anonymous says they do not intend to ‘kill’ the internet completely, but rather, the end game of Operation Blackout 2012 is a temporary take down of the internet where “it hurts most.” According to the group, the operation is being carried out to protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, on March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down,” the group stated last month. “Remember, this is a protest, we are not trying to ‘kill’ the Internet we are only temporarily shutting it down where it hurts the most.” Read the full story here.


 

"To boldly go where no other server went before".Pirate Bay to Fly 'Server Drones' to Avoid Law Enforcement.

"To boldly go where no other server went before".Pirate Bay to Fly 'Server drones to Avoid Law Enforcement.(USNews).
The world’s largest and most resilient BitTorrent site plans to redefine “cloud computing” with a plan to move at least some of its servers onto unmanned drones miles above Sweden.
In a Sunday blog post, The Pirate Bay announced new "Low Orbit Server Stations" that will house the site's servers and files on unmanned, GPS-controlled, aircraft drones.
One of the sites administrators, MrSpock, said with the advent of miniature computers such as the Raspberry Pi, a $35 micro computer the size of a thumb drive that includes a WiFi and SD card slot for storage, the site can take its servers far from any law enforcement.
“We’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air,” MrSpock wrote. “This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.”
The Swedish site has operated since 2003 by an “anti-copyright organization” and despite numerous raids, remains one of the most popular music and movie pirating sites on the web. The site hosts thousands of “torrent” files—tiny files that allow users to connect to and download files from other users. The system is one of the most popular ways to anonymously share large files and often comes under fire from copyright holders, who argue that the service allows people to easily share copyrighted movies, music, games and software.“We can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore,” MrSpock wrote. “When time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy’s most resilient system.”Hmmmm......To boldly go where no other server went before"?Read the full story here.

Aren't you glad you voted for Obama?American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 12.

Aren't you glad you voted for Obama?American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 12.(Rawstory).
If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.
Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.
That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.
Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.
The July 12 date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.
The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.Hmmmm........Not the kind of "CHANGE" you had in mind....did you?Read the full story here.

" Yes We Can! " - EU suspends ACTA ratification, refers treaty to European Court of Justice.

" Yes We Can! " - EU suspends ACTA ratification, refers treaty to European Court of Justice.(RT).The EU has suspended the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and referred the text to the European Court of Justice to investigate possible rights breaches.
The European Commission decided on Wednesday to ask the EU’s top court “to clarify that the ACTA agreement and its implementation must be fully compatible with freedom of expression and freedom of the internet.

The ACTA debate “must be based upon facts and not upon the misinformation or rumor that has dominated social media sites and blogs,” says EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. The EU will not ratify the international treaty until the court delivers its ruling, he added.

De Gucht insists the treaty will change nothing in the bloc, but help protect the creative economy.

European countries were quick to sign US- and Japan-lobbied ACTA agreement in Tokyo just a month ago. Ratification of the controversial agreement, however, is not going so smoothly.

ACTA faced fierce opposition by the Europeans, who saw it as an anti-democratic move. People took their anger to the streets in a synchronized protest, saying it violates their rights. About 200 cities participated in an anti-ACTA march on February 11.

The initial goal authorities pursued was to protect intellectual property and copyright, but human rights activists fought to prove its bias in favor of those in power. They argue it violates freedom of expression on the internet and allows unprecedented control of people’s personal information and privacy.

Some critics have been saying ACTA is a somewhat-disguised SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).

ACTA has so far been signed by the EU as a bloc, 22 EU members as individual states, and also by the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea and some other countries. The total number of signatories to the treaty is 31.

The European Parliament is set to vote on ACTA in June. In parallel, the accord has to be ratified by all the 27 EU member states. Germany, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Estonia and Slovakia have not put individual signatures under the treaty as such and, in the wake of the mass anti-ACTA protests in Europe, are not eager to proceed with it.
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Latvia suspended the ratification process, while Poland on the second thought refused to ratify the accord all together.

Wednesday’s decision means ACTA’s ratification in the EU could be delayed for months.

Bob Beschizza, the managing director of online magazine and group blog Boing Boing, says nothing can stop Internet file swapping.

“What the industry needs to do when it considers how it makes entertainment products – music, movies and so on – available, is make it so that people can easily buy them. People don’t want to be thieves. They don’t want to take things they are not entitled to,” he told RT.

Beschizza believes that legislative initiatives like ACTA never do anything to stop piracy.

“The way the Internet works [is], as long as two computers can connect to each other, people are going to find a way to share files. The Internet works by copying data,” he said. “So what we foresee is when these laws are passed, there’ll be all this social harm and there’ll be no actual prevention of piracy.”Hmmmm..........I wonder if king President Obama will refer ACTA to Congress and Senate?Read and see the full story here.

Germany delays signing ACTA treaty as opposition mounts.

Germany delays signing ACTA treaty as opposition mounts.(RS).
Opposition has been mounting worldwide to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which would creative a new set of international standards for enforcing so-called “intellectual property” rights. Many opponents see the provisions of the agreement as threatening the integrity of the Internet by promoting censorship and criminalizing everyday online activities.
It was reported on Friday that Germany has delayed its signing of the agreement, joining Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Latvia in displaying doubts about the measure. The Polish government’s decision was particularly noteworthy for having been prompted in part by street protests and online attacks by Anonymous.
The treaty has been gaining increasing attention since a recent wave of online protests in the U.S. against the Stop Online Piracy Act, to which ACTA has many similarities. An additional source of outrage against ACTA, however, is that it was negotiated in secret.  The current focus of the protests in in Europe, where the European Parliament is due to vote on the measure in June. Even in the United States, however, an anti-ACTA petition at whitehouse.gov currently has over 42,000 signatures.
In signing ACTA, President Barack Obama has again leapfrogged over the U.S. Constitution, critics charge. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was signed by the United States and several other countries on October 1 with little fanfare.But even if we let Obama bask in his delusion of signing an “executive agreement,” Constitutional experts say that he still does not have a right to sign it in the matter of copyright and patent laws. In fact, U.S. Constitutional scholars Jack Goldsmith and Larry Lessig said:  The president has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, and there is no long historical practice of making sole executive agreements in this area. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which it charges with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property.
Using this same argument, Senator Ron Wyden (D) from Oregon has been hammering the Obama administration for months for an explanation as to why he bypassed Congress. Finally, the administration issued a response saying, essentially, that the President could sign this treaty because it would not change U.S. law.Wyden then requested a Congressional Research Service’s Analysis of ACTA and found that it may change U.S.law. (What a surprise). The problem with ACTA, like so many bills Obama signs, is that is is so riddled with vague language that its meaning hinges on one's interpretation. As it stands now, I’m convinced that Obama knowingly bypassed Congress and the United States Constitution to sign a treaty that will help to destroy our First Amendment right of free speech. (Thus his "concern" over the problems with SOPA, earlier this month, was just a charade). How long are we going to let him get away with this?Read the full story here and here.

Tell Congress: No Backroom Deals to Regulate the Internet

Tell Congress: No Backroom Deals to Regulate the Internet.(Deeplinks).
Right now, representatives from nine countries including the United States are secretly meeting in a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a trade agreement with the potential to contain intellectual property provisions that go beyond ACTA. These secret meetings could create over-reaching new rules and standards that will choke off the online speech of individuals, websites, and platforms accused of copyright infringement.
But because the meetings are held behind closed doors and the text has not been released to the public, the citizens who will be affected do not know the details and don’t have a voice.

Click here to join EFF in demanding a Congressional hearing so lawmakers can learn what’s in the TPP and hear from all affected stakeholders, not just the content industry.

Yesterday, EFF International Rights Director Katitza Rogriguez checked in with protestors outside ongoing TPP meetings in Los Angeles. Katitza reported:

The energy at the rally was intoxicating. And the people were right to protest: TPP is one more in a long line of global copyright initiatives that are putting Internet users last. All over the world, people are saying enough is enough.

This week of negotiations in Los Angeles is a crucial moment for the TPP. Please contact your lawmakers today and let them know that we will not be left in the dark. Demand to know what's in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.Hmmmm......MPAA head Chris Dodd would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, maybe convened by the White House, to look for a compromise on the much-discussed anti-piracy bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.“The perfect place to do it is a block away from here,” Dodd told the New York Times, pointing from his office in Washington to the nearby White House, the paper said.Read the full story here.

Update: 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^st, 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.

Europe Rises Up Against ACTA.Widespread Protests Are Starting to Turn the Tide Against Anti-Democratic Bill

                                    The number of ACTA protests in Europe is overwhelming

Europe Rises Up Against ACTA(WB).Widespread Protests Are Starting to Turn the Tide Against Anti-Democratic Bill
The widespread protests against the anti-democracy bill ACTA by the Polish people have forced Poland’s prime minister to stall – or perhaps even back out – of the treaty. As TechDirt notes:

Following the growing protests about ACTA in Europe, as well as signs of US meddling, Poland’s prime minister is making it clear that Poland will not ratify ACTA for the time being, leading to speculation that the EU may not actually join ACTA.

Tusk’s backtracking could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union. If Poland or any other EU member state, or the European Parliament itself, fails to ratify the document, it becomes null and void across the union. As it stands, there are already five member countries that have not even signed ACTA.
“I share the opinions of those who from the beginning said that consultations were not complete,” Tusk said, according to a report in Wirtualna Polska. The 54-year-old prime minister added that a Polish rejection of ACTA is now on the table, and admitted that he had previously approached the agreement from a “20th century” perspective, due to his age.

The Slovenian ambassador to Japan has apologized to her country and her children for signing ACTA, saying she signed it because her government told her to, and “out of civic carelessness” in not bothering to understand what ACTA meant before signing it.Bulgarian and Polish MPs wore Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA. Again, from TechDirt.
European Parliamentarian Marietje Schaake writes:

As a Member of the European Parliament, I very much welcome the increased attention the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has received in the past weeks. It has taken a while for massive outcry to emerge, but we are seeing protest voices getting louder and louder.

As Pirate Party found Rick Falvinge reports:

Just look at this map. I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of people all across Europe demanding their freedom of speech and being angry against backroom corporativist deals that steals their most basic civil liberties.
***
This is not Hollywood versus Silicon Valley, as oldmedia likes to frame it. This is Hollywood versus The People. For decades, they have trained us to think in black and white, in good versus evil fighting for domination of the free world. And now, they’ve gone and put themselves in the role of evil villain.
The copyright cartel thought they were battling Google.
They’re not.
They’re waging war against the people, with the help of the politicians.
And we’re not standing for it. We can’t change the copyright cartel, but we can send a clear message to the politicians that 250 million Europeans sharing and preserving contemporary culture is not a problem. It is a power base of 250 million voters that will kick you out of office if you dare so much as touch the net.
And there are visible cracks in the façade, especially seeing Poland falter and the copyright cartels visibly shaken from the SOPA defeat in the US, with the politicians having started to pay attention to what the Internet wants. We can win this.Read the full story here.

Polish PM Caves In to the people their demands, Freezes ACTA Ratification

Polish PM Caves In to the people their demands, Freezes ACTA Ratification.(Novinite).Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk has yielded to mass protests, announcing Friday that his government would put on hold plans to ratify ACTA, the controversial international online anti-piracy accord.
"I consider that the arguments for a halt to the ratification process are justified," Donald Tusk told reporters, as cited by international media."The issue of signing of the ACTA accord did not involve sufficient consultation with everyone who is part of the process," Tusk said, adding that he would hold broad talks on what to do next."The ACTA ratification process will be frozen as long as we haven't overcome all the doubts. This will probably require a review of Polish law. We can't rule out that, at the end of the day, this accord will not be approved," he declared.
Tusk's decision comes in the wake of high-profile protests mostly by young Poles who fear the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) -- aimed at creating international standards for intellectual property protection -- could significantly curtail online freedom.
ACTA was negotiated between the 27-nation European Union, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States.
Bulgaria's Borisov Cabinet has also come under fire for the secret signing of ACTA.
Even though Bulgaria has seen no street rallies, massive outcry by Internet users and ISPs led on Thursday Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov to declare that ACTA will be applied with reservations and will be supplemented by the existing Bulgarian legislation in its part referring to Internet content.Hmmmm.........President Obama could learn a lesson in Democracy from Poland it seems.Read the full story here.

From the wow dept - European Parliament Official In Charge Of ACTA Quits, And Denounces The 'Masquerade' Behind ACTA.

From the wow dept - European Parliament Official In Charge Of ACTA Quits, And Denounces The 'Masquerade' Behind ACTA.(LaQuadrature).
This is interesting. Kader Arif, the "rapporteur" for ACTA, has quit that role in disgust over the process behind getting the EU to sign onto ACTA. A rapporteur is a person "appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue." However, it appears his investigation of ACTA didn't make him very pleased:

I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly. As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.” Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications. This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.

Pretty rare to find such direct honesty in political circles. That's quite a direct and clear condemnation of the entire process. In terms of process, it will be interesting to see if this has an impact. While the EU did sign on to ACTA today, it still needs to be ratified by the European Parliament (more on that in a little while). Having Arif quit makes a pretty big statement, and hopefully makes it easier for Parliament Members to speak out loudly against ACTA... Still, this is an uphill battle. The supporters of ACTA have been working to get ACTA approved for years. To them, this is basically a done deal.Read the full story here.

"The Gloves are off" - Copyright Industry Calls for Broad Search Engine Censorship.

Copyright Industry Calls for Broad Search Engine Censorship.(TF).At a behind-closed-doors meeting facilitated by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, copyright holders have handed out a list of demands to Google, Bing and Yahoo. To curb the growing piracy problem, Hollywood and the major music labels want the search engines to de-list popular filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay, and give higher ranking to authorized sites.It’s no secret that the entertainment industries believe search engines are not delivering enough when it comes to protecting copyright works. Just last month, the RIAA and IFPI accused Google of massively profiting from piracy, while putting up barriers to make life difficult for rightsholders.
If the copyright industry had their way, Google and other search engines would no longer link to sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt. In a detailed proposal handed out during a meeting with Google, Yahoo and Bing, various copyright holders made their demands clear.
The document, which describes a government-overlooked “Voluntary Code of Practice” for search engines, was not intended for public consumption but the Open Rights Group obtained it through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
In short, the rightsholders want the search engines to make substantial changes so that pirated content becomes harder to find, or is de-listed entirely. In addition, they want to boost the rankings of licensed content. Below are the three new measures they propose.

• Assign lower rankings to sites that repeatedly make available unlicensed content in breach of copyright
• Stop indexing websites that are subject to court orders while establishing suitable procedures to de-index substantially infringing sites
• In the document rightsholders explain that they find it inexcusable that some websites – Pirate Bay and Isohunt in particular – are still indexed by all major search engines even though courts have ruled they facilitate copyright infringementPrioritize websites that obtain certification as a licensed site under a recognised scheme.

Hmmmm.......“We would propose that prioritisation be enabled for searches that contain any of the following key search terms: “mp3″, “flac”, “wma”, “aac”, “torrent”, “download”, “rip”, “stream” or “listen”, “free”, when combined with an artist name, song or album title contained on a list to be regularly updated and provided to a search engine by a recognised and properly mandated agency representing rights holders for a particular sector, such as BPI.”Read the full story here.