Re: In today's news...
Hey, remember SOPA?
What would it be like if it was fucking everywhere?
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OH SHIT.
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The TRULY Effed-up part about ACTA:
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Once you're on the Library of Congress site, do a search for "Anti(-)Piracy Agreement" and see if you can find it in their lists. You won't.
You CAN, however, find "Digital Millenium Copyright" and "Stop Online Piracy". You can not obtain information about ACTA unless you find one of the websites who were able to obtain one of the leaked copies. Our government states that to release the specifics of ACTA would be a threat to our "national security". Such BS. Here is a quote I absolutely love from your link above:
"Third party liability for Internet Server Providers is like making the post office responsible for what is inside the letters they send."
Alexander Alvaro, Member of European Parliament, ALDE, Germany.
On a side note, can anyone find any information about S.780 or S.92--the "Protecting Consumer Phone Records Act"? I'm trying to find if it was ultimately defeated. If so, we need to pressure law-makers to get this back on board.
Actually, this seems quite benign. It forces service providers to keep track of temporary ISPs for a year, but I believe there's a previous ruling in place that says that an ISP is not a person. It may be enough to get a warrant to search your home, but it's not enough to jail or charge anybody by far.
EDIT: I just read some of those summaries. I didn't see any of that in the bill, but I ain't no law scholar. Less benign, to be sure.
The thing is, when you try and put barriers in the way of pirates you have to put the same barriers in front of your legitimate customers. And if/when the pirates manage to find a way through your defenses, the legitimate customers still have to deal with it. I believe someone mentioned earlier they pirated a copy of a game they already owned so they would not have to deal with DRM horseshit. There are a number of people who'd likely forgo the purchase at all in such a case. I can understand the need to try things like copy protection and drm, but all you end up doing is removing functionality from your product and slowly alienating your customer base.
From what I have read, the problem with the "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" is that ISP's are required to store ALL of your online activity for a minimum of twelve months. This includes bank activity, credit card information, physical address and other personal information. Now's here's the kick-in-the-nuts: in order to obtain this information from ISP's...government agencies
need only ask! According to the bill, government agencies would not need a court-issued warrant for this. In fact, they would not even need "probable suspicion" OR "just cause".
Basically, this law allows government agencies to circumvent all the preventative measures that was put in place to protect people's civil rights. A law enforcement agency can't search your house without a warrant, but can obtain most of the information they would need ANYWAY from an ISP online without needing to go through the courts AT ALL.
That is where the true problem is.
Here is some more information from the Library of Congress:
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To protest this Act, go here:
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In the upper left-hand corner, there is a pre-arranged message from the EFF. Please read and adjust as you feel necessary.
Very Important: PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD These privacy invasion laws are getting out of hand. While you're at it, ask your representatives to push for S.780 and S.92--the "Protecting Consumer Phone Records Act". This will directly oppose ACTA(on the phone-side) since smartphones are now so prevalent, as well as prevent companies pulling stunts like Carrier IQ. Here is more info on that:
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We(the people) are going to have to start stepping up to the governments of the world and start speaking out. We can no longer wait on others to do what we all should have been doing from the beginning. Good luck everyone in protecting the future of the internet.
[edit]
Now I have read this law and from what I read it only applies to "anyone who operates a website or online service". The only personal information that is collected is the information you give to the website/online service. Their retaining of financial transactions honestly aren't different from what stores do today.
It also appears that law-enforcement agencies DO require a subpoena to access this information. According to the link I provided from the EFF, the opposite is stated. I am not a lawyer, and the EFF deals with a more law-related issues than I do, but I honestly no longer see what the concern is. If anyone can find anything different, please let me know. I no longer am concerned unless new info comes to light.
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