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  1. #1
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    Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA

    White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight

    Paul Joseph Watson
    Infowars.com
    Thursday, January 26, 2012

    Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

    The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was signed by Obama on October 1 2011, yet is currently the subject of a White House petition demanding Senators be forced to ratify the treaty. The White House has circumvented the necessity to have the treaty confirmed by lawmakers by presenting it an as “executive agreement,” although legal scholars have highlighted the dubious nature of this characterization.

    The hacktivist group Anonymous attacked and took offline the Federal Trade Commission’s website yesterday in protest against the treaty, which was also the subject of demonstrations across major cities in Poland, a country set to sign the agreement today.

    Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.

    A country known for its enforcement of harsh Internet censorship policies like China could demand under the treaty that an ISP in the United States remove content or terminate a website on its server altogether. As we have seen from the enforcement of similar copyright policies in the US, websites are sometimes targeted for no justifiable reason.

    The groups pushing the treaty also want to empower copyright holders with the ability to demand that users who violate intellectual property rights (with no legal process) have their Internet connections terminated, a punishment that could only ever be properly enforced by the creation of an individual Internet ID card for every web user, a system that is already in the works.

    “The same industry rightsholder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens’ Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the “Three Strikes” /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers,” reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.



    The treaty will also mandate that ISPs disclose personal user information to the copyright holder, while providing authorities across the globe with broader powers to search laptops and Internet-capable devices at border checkpoints.

    In presenting ACTA as an “international agreement” rather than a treaty, the Obama administration managed to circumvent the legislative process and avoid having to get Senate approval, a method questioned by Senator Wyden.

    “That said, even if Obama has declared ACTA an executive agreement (while those in Europe insist that it’s a binding treaty), there is a very real Constitutional question here: can it actually be an executive agreement?” asks TechDirt. “The law is clear that the only things that can be covered by executive agreements are things that involve items that are solely under the President’s mandate. That is, you can’t sign an executive agreement that impacts the things Congress has control over. But here’s the thing: intellectual property, in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, is an issue given to Congress, not the President. Thus, there’s a pretty strong argument that the president legally cannot sign any intellectual property agreements as an executive agreement and, instead, must submit them to the Senate.”.

    26 European Union member states along with the EU itself are set to sign the treaty at a ceremony today in Tokyo. Other countries wishing to sign the agreement have until May 2013 to do so.

    Critics are urging those concerned about Obama’s decision to sign the document with no legislative oversight to demand the Senate be forced to ratify the treaty.
    http://www.infowars.com/obama-signs-...rse-than-sopa/

  2. #2
    Ridill
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    Change.

  3. #3
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    Wow.

  4. #4
    Pied Piper of the Homos
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    Quote Originally Posted by Milkster View Post
    • Read the authentic version of the ACTA text as of 15 April 2011, as finalized by participating countries here: ACTA Finalized Text
    • Follow the history of the treaty’s formation here: ACTA history
    • Read letters from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden wherein he challenges the constitutionality of ACTA: Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Read the Administration’s Response to Wyden’s First Letter here: Response
    • Watch a short informative video on ACTA: ACTA Video
    • Watch a lulzy video on ACTA: Lulzy Video
    • Reuters: ACTA signed in Tokyo: Article
    • United States ACTA: Read
    • European Union Trade Commission ACTA: Read
    • Australian Gov’t ACTA: Read
    • Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic: Read
    • ACTA Undermines Access to Medicines: Article



    Looks like V for Vendetta is real and going worldwide at this rate.
    What is ACTA?

    In October 2007, the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA. Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada have joined the negotiations. Although the proposed treaty’s title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines) what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope and in particular will deal with new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology”.
    In recent years major U.S. and EU copyright industry rightsholder groups have sought stronger powers to enforce their intellectual property rights across the world to preserve their business models. These efforts have been underway in a number of international fora including at the World Trade Organization the World Customs Organization at the G8 summit at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement and at the Intellectual Property Experts’ Group at the Asia Pacific Economic Coalition. Since the conclusion of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Issues of Intellectual Property in 1994 (TRIPS) most new intellectual property enforcement powers have been created outside of the traditional multilateral venues through bilateral and regional free trade agreements entered into by the United States and the European Community with their respective key trading partners. ACTA is the new frontline in the global IP enforcement agenda.
    To date, disturbingly little information has been released about the actual content of the agreement. However despite that it is clearly on a fast track, treaty proponents wanted it tabled at the G8 summit in July and completed by the end of 2008.
    Why You Should Care About It

    ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce and for developing countries’ ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development.
    ACTA is being negotiated by a select group of industrialized countries outside of existing international multilateral venues for creating new IP norms such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and (since TRIPs) the World Trade Organization. Both civil society and developing countries are intentionally being excluded from these negotiations. While the existing international fora provide (at least to some extent) room for a range of views to be heard and addressed no such checks and balances will influence the outcome of the ACTA negotiations.
    The Fact Sheet published by the USTR together with the USTR's 2008 "Special 301" report make it clear that the goal is to create a new standard of intellectual property enforcement above the current internationally-agreed standards in the TRIPs Agreement and increased international cooperation including sharing of information between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies. The last 10 bilateral free trade agreements entered into by the United States have required trading partners to adopt intellectual property enforcement obligations that are above those in TRIPs. Even though developing countries are not party to the ACTA negotiations it is likely that accession to and implementation of ACTA by developing countries will be a condition imposed in future free trade agreements and the subject of evaluation in content industry submissions to the annual Section 301 process and USTR report.
    While little information has been made available by the governments negotiating ACTA a document recently leaked to the public entitled "Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement" from an unknown source gives an indication of what content industry rightsholder groups appear to be asking for – including new legal regimes to "encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material" criminal measures and increased border search powers. The Discussion Paper leaves open how Internet Service Providers should be encouraged to identify and remove allegedly infringing material from the Internet. However the same industry rightsholder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens' Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the "Three Strikes" /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers. While mandating copyright filtering by ISPs will not be technologically effective because it can be defeated by use of encryption efforts to introduce network level filtering will likely involve deep packet inspection of citizens' Internet communications. This raises considerable concerns for citizens' civil liberties and privacy rights and the future of Internet innovation.
    What You Can Do

    Despite the potentially significant harmful impact on consumers and Internet innovation and the expedited timeframe in which the treaty is being negotiated the citizens that stand to be directly affected by the treaty provisions have been given almost no information about its real contents and very little opportunity to express their views on it.
    But there is still time to do something to change that! If you live in the US tell your Senators to demand more transparency in ACTA!

    This thread was already made.

  5. #5
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    Dot dot fucking dot.

  6. #6
    Mr. Anna Kendrick
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    When Obama calls out Romney in the Dem vs Rep faceoff for saying "Corporations are people too" Im going to say, "Fuck you Obama, you do too." Cause clearly this dude ignored an overwhelming 1-sided movement against these bills and other ideas.

    Can't believe I voted for this guy, I mean McCain would've been worse regarding SOPA/PIPA and many other issues (and Newt will surely be worse, with Romney being maybe not worse, maybe worse), but god damn do we need more than just a "lesser of two evils" 2 party system.

  7. #7
    Salvage Bans
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    Never mind on that second term guys.

  8. #8
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    I also love how the Chinese are all over enforcing these kinda of laws when they constantly shit all over everyone else's IP laws by just not giving a fuck.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vincento View Post
    Never mind on that second term guys.
    pretty fucking much

  10. #10
    Brown Recluse
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    He mentioned this is his State of the Union speech. My wife turned to me during the Speech and asked if any other Politicians would have not signed it. Sadly, I dont think there are any.

  11. #11
    Relic Weapons
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    The people he pisses off with piracy acts and shit like that aren't a demographic he is interested/cares about voting wise I'm sure.

  12. #12
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    What is this, I dont even.

    Yet another reason to hate mr obama puppet. Thanks for voting him in guys.
    You would think with the overwhelming support against SOPA like bills, he wouldnt implement something like this.

    But im sure the big companies are going to love him for this.
    Go go shit on the little man.

  13. #13
    Jet fuel can't melt steel beams
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sepukku View Post
    When Obama calls out Romney in the Dem vs Rep faceoff for saying "Corporations are people too" Im going to say, "Fuck you Obama, you do too." Cause clearly this dude ignored an overwhelming 1-sided movement against these bills and other ideas.

    Can't believe I voted for this guy, I mean McCain would've been worse regarding SOPA/PIPA and many other issues (and Newt will surely be worse, with Romney being maybe not worse, maybe worse), but god damn do we need more than just a "lesser of two evils" 2 party system.
    Vote Ron Paul maybe?

  14. #14
    Brown Recluse
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  15. #15
    Relic Shield
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    Isn't infowars.com Alex Jones' site?

  16. #16
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    More hope and change you can believe in.

  17. #17
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    ahahahahahahaha everyone who voted for Obama. We would have been better off with McCain.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dimmauk View Post
    My wife turned to me during the Speech and asked if any other Politicians would have not signed it. Sadly, I dont think there are any.
    This needs to be quoted for everyone cursing the people that voted in obama. If you think any of the other candidates wouldn't have signed it... I doubt it.

  19. #19
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    Can we just go find a new planet to live on? Fuck this gay Earth.

  20. #20
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    mayans were right

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