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[Neonivek]

Hmm, I thought those things were only happening in Britain.

What The United Kingdom is currently doing is unfortunately a lot less interesting when you look into it a bit further.

[Itnetlolor]

I think ever since Obama took out Workerdrone's livestream of XCOM because of 'Too Many Buttons', there was a security leak, and the government doesn't want to go through a ton of red tape to get their job done.

This will only make the cut-outs a little easier to handle at a "legal" scale.

[Aqizzar]

Not that I'm saying there's no possibility that it won't be passed, but... you guys are seriously saying it has to be fake because there's no chance that the same national government that passed the Patriot Act without a national vote could do this?

Hahaha.  Again, I'm not saying there's no chance it's fake, but if you guys think it COULDN'T be real... I call that denial.

Firstly, it's 2009, not 2006.  The situation in Congress is quite different, and they have in the past and recently again shot down several pieces of legislation that would have expanded ISP's power over connections and content (remember all that Net Neutrality boojum?).

And the Patriot Act is a pretty good example of why I'm not worried.  Essentially, the CIA conned the Congress into making the phone companies wire effectively (copies of) all telephone communications through one room at Langly.  Do you know what they've done with that extraordinary information?  Exactly nothing, because it's way beyond the capability of even the CIA, much less whatever pitiful organization this responsibility would get shafted to, to wrangle all that content.

I'm all for cynicism, but don't take the flying leap over to conspiracy theories.

I think ever since Obama took out Workerdrone's livestream of XCOM because of 'Too Many Buttons', there was a security leak, and the government doesn't want to go through a ton of red tape to get their job done.

Although I obviously could be wrong...

[Leafsnail]

It's pretty similar, really.  Spying on everyone to prevent piracy.  Personally, I think that if the music industry are so broke, they should stop spending millions of pounds taking Peter Mandelson on trips on their yachts lobbying the government.

[DennyTom]

How can you make whole-world law?

The UN already does this (or tries), up to and including ordering countries not to research nuclear warfare and other weapons. Why should you be so surprised when quote-on-quote 'worldwide' treaties are made to regulate other things?

That is pretty crazy analogy. You cannot force the whole world to use US copyright inquisition rules with one US law. How would you force the whole world to adopt it?

I also would like to see whole unedited material. I am not saying it is not true, it is just a "too-bad-to-be-true" story.

[Neonivek]

Though there was one thing that was interesting.

Isn't there controvercy with Cable companies having the ability to charge whatever they want for certain channels including local? Effectively it means that public/local channels could be driven into the dust.

Oddly enough when the Local channels lost (or won) they now want a peice of the money the cable companies earn.

[Lord Dullard]

Well, I'll be waiting for Snopes to reply on this. I highly doubt an entire conference in Seoul was just imagined up by some conspiracy theorists, man. I completely understand your caution in buying into the idea that our government is going to be monitoring our every keystroke or whatever, but frankly I do not find the idea that they are trying to put more restrictive laws on the flow of information and copyrighted material in place. No, this isn't the world of 1984, but it sure as hell isn't the world of Sesame Street, either. 

DennyTom: I doubt they actually expect the entire world to go along with whatever 'treaty' they end up signing. As Aqizzar said, even if it is passed, it probably won't be enforced word per word. I would think it would just be a way to lower the legal hurdles involved in trying to prosecute people for copyright infringement.

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTA_treaty

Yeah, I'm still waiting on Snopes to reply, but I'm fairly sure this is legit. Look at the wiki link.

[Tack]

How can you make whole-world law?

The UN already does this (or tries), up to and including ordering countries not to research nuclear warfare and other weapons. Why should you be so surprised when quote-on-quote 'worldwide' treaties are made to regulate other things?

That is pretty crazy analogy. You cannot force the whole world to use US copyright inquisition rules with one US law. How would you force the whole world to adopt it?

I also would like to see whole unedited material. I am not saying it is not true, it is just a "too-bad-to-be-true" story.

Funny how everyone is laughing at Australia cos' we're getting our porn blocked, and now you're getting your everything blocked.

[Lord Dullard]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTA_treaty

ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that countries can join on a voluntary basis[1] and would create its own governing body outside existing international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the United Nations.[4][12] Citing a fact sheet published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the USTR's 2008 Special 301 report the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) states that the goal of ACTA is to create a new standard of intellectual property enforcement beyond the existing standards in the TRIPs Agreement and to increase international cooperation, including the sharing of information between signatory countries' law enforcement agencies.[2]

According to the European Commission the goal of ACTA is to establish an international framework that improves the enforcement of existing intellectual property right laws. The Commission states that ACTA is to create improved international standards for actions against large-scale infringements of intellectual property. To this end ACTA will have three primary components: "international cooperation"; "enforcement practices"; and "legal framework for enforcement of intellectual property rights". The "ultimate objective" of ACTA is that large emerging economies, "where intellectual property rights enforcement could be improved, such as China, Russia or Brazil, will sign up to the global pact".[8] According to New Zealand ACTA aims to facilitate a "strong and modern legal framework so that law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, and private citizens have the most up-to-date tools necessary to effectively bring counterfeiters and pirates to justice." Areas for possible ACTA provisions include: criminal enforcement, border measures, civil enforcement, optical disc piracy, and Internet distribution and information technology.[13]

Here you go.

ETA: Ah. Also from wiki, here's why there's no hard copy of this thing circulating yet:

The negotiations for the ACTA treaty are conducted in secrecy[4][5][6][7] and are not part of any international organisation.[1] The European Commission, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other government agencies have acknowledged participating in ACTA negotiations, but they have refused to release drafts of the treaty or to discuss specific terms under discussion in the negotiations.[4]

In November 2008 the European Commission stated that thus far there had been three rounds of negotiations: early June 2008 in Geneva, end of July 2008 in Washington, mid October 2008 in Tokyo.[8] A fourth round of negotiations were held in Paris, mid December 2008, and a fifth round in Morocco, in July 2009.[9] Participants at Morocco indicated that they currently sought to conclude the agreement "as early as possible in 2010", and that the next round of negotiations would be held in South Korea in November 2009. [9]

[Akigagak]

Wikipedia as a source.

No.

[Lord Dullard]

If you feel like going through all the sources listed on that page and disputing them all, be my guest... 

ETA: Anyway, I'm just gonna wait for Snopes to reply. If people seriously want to pretend that there's no chance this is real, it's fine with me... but how do you breath, with your head in the sand like that?

[Aqizzar]

ETA: Anyway, I'm just gonna wait for Snopes to reply. If people seriously want to pretend that there's no chance this is real, it's fine with me... but how do you breath, with your head in the sand like that?

No one's saying the treaty discussion didn't happen, and I for one will thank you to keep your sanctimony to yourself.  We're saying that A) it's not what it's being made out to me, and until it's publicly visible that will remain so, and/or B) even if it's real, I'll remunerate all my criticisms of adoption and enforcement from above.

[Lord Dullard]

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/09/digital-rights-groups-sue-for-access-to-secret-acta-treaty.ars

Public statements have indicated that ACTA is meant to be wrapped up by the end of 2008, so groups that want to affect the process need to act quickly. The federal suit asks a judge to force USTR to process the FOIA request, to do so in an expedited manner, and to award attorneys' fees to the plaintiffs.

ACTA is currently being negotiated by the US, Canada, the European Community, Switzerland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates.

'Sanctimony'? I already agreed with you that I don't expect enforcement to be on par with what's actually written. Rather, I was just amazed that even posting something like this gets frank incredulity and skepticism about the poster, not the information itself. So my snarkiness was in response to the 'conspiracy theorist' stuff. I'm not exactly saying the twin towers were detonated by flash charges or something here. 

ETA: FFS, I didn't even claim this stuff was TRUE, I've just thrown up links and said I think it's probably legit. Yeah... I'm out of this discussion, and board, for a while. Ciao.

[DennyTom]

How can you make whole-world law?

The UN already does this (or tries), up to and including ordering countries not to research nuclear warfare and other weapons. Why should you be so surprised when quote-on-quote 'worldwide' treaties are made to regulate other things?

That is pretty crazy analogy. You cannot force the whole world to use US copyright inquisition rules with one US law. How would you force the whole world to adopt it?

I also would like to see whole unedited material. I am not saying it is not true, it is just a "too-bad-to-be-true" story.

Funny how everyone is laughing at Australia cos' we're getting our porn blocked, and now you're getting your everything blocked.

<trolling> And from what do you deduce I (or many other people here) am from US? </trolling>


Using Wiki as a source can be very dangerous. The fact, they list sources DOES NOT mean the article speaks the truth. I agree with waiting for more information.

@Lord Dullard: How do we breath? Pretty easily - internet (well ... real life also) is a place where SO MUCH informations are lies that we are trained to not believe.

[Jude]

I'm gonna wait until I hear about it in the real news media. Otherwise I'll consider it just a bunch more tinfoil-hattery, which is what it appears to be. A secret treaty written at a top secret conference? Who leaked it then, and given how radical this is, why haven't any other media picked it up?

Sure, it COULD be true. So could alien abductions, 9/11 conspiracies, holocaust denial and unicorns. But just because it could be true in theory doesn't make it believable enough for me to buy it.