The provisions of UK’s anti-piracy law (under the island’s Digital Economy Act) have been postponed again until 2014. The “three strike” graduate response system was designed to cut off repeat copyright infringers and file-sharers.
Among the measures included within the three-strikes system, we find broadband limitations, but it is only applied as a final solution for extreme offenders. Ofcom, the Kingdom’s communication regulator, had said in a previous statement that it would start sending out notification letters to file-sharers starting with the middle of 2013.
In the meantime, UK’s most prestigious broadband providers TalkTalk and BT intervened, arguing that the law was breaching European laws unsuccessfully. Furthermore, the UK government had faced criticism after questions were raised in a Parliamentary committee pertaining to the evidence for the bill.
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament have just announced that they will reject the controversial treaty called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). “Although we unambiguously support the protection of intellectual property rights, we also champion fundamental rights and freedoms. We have serious concerns that ACTA does not strike the right balance,” announced Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE group leader.
“Civil society has been extremely vocal in recent months in raising their legitimate concerns on the ACTA agreement which we share. There are too many provisions lacking clarity and certainty as to the way they would be implemented in practice,” Verhofstadt noted. “Furthermore, ACTA wrongly bundles together too many different types of IPR enforcement under the same umbrella, treating physical goods and digital services in the same way,” said Verhofstadt. “We believe they should be approached in separate sectoral agreements, and following a comprehensive and democratically debated mandate and impact assessment.”
“A right balance between the fight against intellectual property infringements and the rights to privacy and data protection must be respected. It appears that ACTA has not been fully successful in this respect.”
In a February announcement, EU trade chief Karel De Gucht said that following discussion with fellow Commissioners, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The plan was to ask the ECJ to look at ACTA and decide if it conflicts with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression and right to privacy.
The European Committee is due to vote on whether to approve ACTA in June,
“If ACTA dies in European Parliament, then it’s a permakill, and the monopoly lobbies will have to start fighting uphill,” said Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge in a comment. “If ACTA passes, the same monopolists get tons of new powers to use, and close the door for the foreseeable future behind the legislators for a very necessary reform of the copyright and patent monopolies.”
What is a Facebook article doing in the pages of The Zuphorian? I shall endeavour to answer;
Update: Before reading this article which I wrote, well a while back, I would like if you could take the time to listen to a recording I found and was going to do a followup to this article with.
Recently my youngest Daughter requested could she have a Facebook account, when I asked her why? her reply was, “All her friends are on Facebook”. Now, I myself have long since closed (deactivated) my Facebook account. I have issues with their privacy policies, and that was way before the privacy farce that they have in place now.
I know, this article would be very short if that was my only conclusion. With that in mind I decided to do a little research, and the results of my research I have tried to portray within this article.
A little history goes a long way;
Facebook in 2005
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.
Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as “People From Work” or “Close Friends”. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.
Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.The Web site’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University.
It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, according to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site’s terms of service.
Amazing as it sounds to some people there are dozens, nay hundreds of other social network sites on the web which are dedicated to Tweens and Teens. And with almost 13 million users violating the terms of Facebook, I can’t help but ask myself how this can be? Sites such as; Habbo – Hi5 – Imbee – KidSocial all cater for tweens and teens in more ways than Facebook ever could. Come on parents, don’t you realize that Facebook not alone is selling all Your data and posts to advertising agencies, but now you’re allowing them to do the same to your children.
The Legality of it all;
The following is a direct quote from COPPA – {Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998}. The full act can be found HERE.
(1) IN GENERAL.—It is unlawful for an operator of a website or online service directed to children, or any operator that has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from a child, to collect personal information from a child in a manner that violates the regulations prescribed under subsection (b).
This act is in place to protect our children. Parents by, in essence lying on their children’s registration to Facebook are giving up their children’s right to this act. Now I would like to point out that this act pertains to the United States. In Europe such laws are covered under the Data Protection Directive. Recently The European Commission joined forces with technology firms including Apple, Facebook and Google to improve the protection of children online.
The coalition, which includes 28 companies, will develop an age-based online ratings system and aims to strengthen privacy settings. It also plans by the end of next year to make it easier to report inappropriate content.
Other measures include improving parental controls and enhancing cooperation among law enforcement and hotline authorities to remove online material showing sexual abuse.
In 1980, in an effort to create a comprehensive data protection system throughout Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued its “Recommendations of the Council Concerning Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Trans-Border Flows of Personal Data.” The seven principles governing the OECD’s recommendations for protection of personal data were:
Notice—data subjects should be given notice when their data is being collected;
Purpose—data should only be used for the purpose stated and not for any other purposes;
Consent—data should not be disclosed without the data subject’s consent;
Security—collected data should be kept secure from any potential abuses;
Disclosure—data subjects should be informed as to who is collecting their data;
Access—data subjects should be allowed to access their data and make corrections to any inaccurate data; and
Accountability—data subjects should have a method available to them to hold data collectors accountable for following the above principles.
The OECD Guidelines, however, were nonbinding, and data privacy laws still varied widely across Europe. The US, meanwhile, while endorsing the OECD’s recommendations, did nothing to implement them within the United States. However, all seven principles were incorporated into the EU Directive.
Third countries is the term used in EU legislation to designate countries outside the European Union. Personal data may only be transferred to third countries if that country provides an adequate level of protection.
The Working Party negotiated with U.S. representatives about the protection of personal data, the Safe Harbor Principles were the result. According to critics the Safe Harbor Principles do not provide for an adequate level of protection, because they contain fewer obligations for the controller and allow the contractual waiver of certain rights.
In July 2007, a new, controversial, Passenger Name Record agreement between the US and the EU was undersigned.
In February 2008, Jonathan Faull, the head of the EU’s Commission of Home Affairs, complained about the US bilateral policy concerning the P.N.R. The US had signed in February 2008 a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Czech Republic in exchange of a visa waiver scheme, without first consulting Brussels.
The tensions between Washington and Brussels are mainly caused by the lower level of data protection in the US, especially since foreigners do not benefit from the US Privacy Act of 1974. Other countries approached for bilateral Memoranda of Understandings included the United Kingdom, Estonia, Germany and Greece.
If you would like to read more on the above paragraph, there is an article on Wikipedia which discloses this in its entirety. You can find that article HERE. In the US The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, is urging kids: Don’t post information about yourself online that you don’t want the whole world to know.
The Internet is the world’s biggest information exchange: many more people could see your information than you intend, including your parents, your teachers, your employer, the police — and strangers, some of whom could be dangerous.
They have a very in dept article entitled “Social Networking Sites: Safety Tips for Tweens and Teens”. You can find that article HERE, I would advise all parents no matter where you are in the world to read that article.
And so to Facebook, and it’s ever-increasing privacy issues;
Facebook has been dogged with controversies and privacy issues since, well almost its launch. There are a wide variety of blogs and articles across the internet on why you should not have a Facebook account. Like! (pardon the pun) eHow Tech’s Jason Spindle’s excellent article “Reasons Not to Have a Facebook Account” or Dan Yoder from Business Insider’s “10 Reasons To Delete Your Facebook Account“. Or the compiling article in Gizmodo entitled “Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook”.
This author is not going to add to the ever-increasing Blogs as to why you should not have a Facebook account. Instead, I will show facts obtained thru Wikipedia on the reasons why I don’t have an online Facebook account and let you be the judge.
In August 2007, the code used to generate Facebook’s home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public, according to leading internet news sites. A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served legal notice by Facebook.
In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a system (discontinued in September 2009) where third-party websites could include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played were published in the user’s news feed.
On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called “News Feed” and “Mini-Feed”. The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member’s home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of the member’s friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member’s profile page.Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings can control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.
Government authorities rely on Facebook to investigate crimes and obtain evidence to help establish a crime, provide location information, establish motives, prove and disprove alibis, and reveal communications. Federal, state, and local investigations have not been restricted to profiles that are publicly available or willingly provided to the government; Facebook has willingly provided information in response to government subpoenas or requests, except with regard to private, unopened inbox messages less than 181 days old, which require a warrant and a finding of probable cause under federal law.
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook on May 31, 2008, based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). University of Ottawa law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein, and Jordan Eric Plener, initiated the “minefield of privacy invasion” suit. Facebook’s Chris Kelly contradicted the claims, saying that: “We’ve reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors — most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users.”
There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. The Facebook privacy policy once stated, “We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile.” However, the policy was later updated and now states: “We may use information about you that we collect from other Facebook users to supplement your profile (such as when you are tagged in a photo or mentioned in a status update). In such cases we generally give you the ability to remove the content (such as allowing you to remove a photo tag of you) or limit its visibility on your profile.” The terminology regarding the use of collecting information from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, and instant messaging services, has been removed.
Concerns were also raised on the BBC’s Watchdog programme in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual’s personal information in order to facilitate identity theft. However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends – if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user’s name, gender, profile picture, networks, and user name.
In August 2011 the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) started an investigation after receiving 16 complaints by europe-v-facebook.org which was founded by a group of Austrian students. The DPC stated in first reactions that the Irish DPC is legally responsible for privacy on Facebook for all users within the European Union and that he will “investigate the complaints using his full legal powers if necessary”. The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who are not residents of the United States or Canada have a contract with “Facebook Ireland Ltd”, located in Dublin, Ireland. Under European law Facebook Ireland is the “data controller” for facebook.com, and therefore, facebook.com is governed by European data protection laws. Facebook Ireland Ltd. was established by Facebook Inc. to avoid US taxes.
The group europe-v-facebook.org made access requests at Facebook Ireland and received up to 1.200 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that Facebook was holding about them, including data that was previously removed by the users.Despite the amount of information given, the group claimed that Facebook did not give them all of its data. Some of the information not included was “likes”, data about the new face recognition function, data about third-party websites that use “social plugins” visited by users and information about uploaded videos.
The 16 complaints target different problems, from undeleted old “pokes” all the way to the question if sharing and new functions on Facebook should be opt-in or opt-out. The most severe could be a complaint that claims that the privacy policy and the consent to the privacy policy is void under European laws. It is reported that the group is planning to file more complaints, including one against the “Like” button.
In an Interview with the Irish Independent a spokesperson said, that the DPC will “go and audit Facebook, go into the premises and go through in great detail every aspect of security”. He continued by saying: “It’s a very significant, detailed and intense undertaking that will stretch over four or five days. Then we’ll publish a detailed report and Facebook will respond”. This means that the investigation by the DPC might become one of the most severe investigations into Facebook’s privacy practice in the past years.
Social networks, like Facebook, can have a detrimental effect on marriages with users becoming worried about their spouse’s contacts and relations with other people online, leading to martial breakdown and divorce. In the UK, between 20 to 33 percent of divorce petitions cite Facebook as a cause.
Facebook’s software has proven vulnerable to likejacking. On July 28, 2010 the BBC reported that security consultant Ron Bowes used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles to collect data of 100 million profiles. The data collected was not hidden by the user’s privacy settings. Bowes then published the list online. This list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID. Bowes said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook claimed it was already public information.
And the list goes on and on … Envy, Stress, Identity theft, Defamation, Anorexia and bulimia, Holocaust denial, Pro-mafia groups, Trolling –
On March 31, 2010, the Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls’ subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a “suicidal slut”, and posting graphic images on her Facebook memorial page. The segment also included an exposé of a 2006 accident, in which an eighteen-year-old student out for a drive fatally crashed her father’s car into a highway pylon; trolls e-mailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.
Conclusion;
I started this article with a question from my Daughter about having her own Facebook account. She is 13 yrs old, and because of my knowledge about Facebook and it’s many many reasons not to have an account, I believe that for me (and her) Facebook is not the way to go. If you ask yourself or any of your kin, “Why Do You Want/Have a Facebook account?”. And the answer you get is “All my friends are on it!”. Then isn’t it time you looked elsewhere on the web for a more secure and better engineered social network to share you deepest secrets with. A friends joke comes to mind. “Before Facebook came along, you’d have to phone your friends to tell them what you had for dinner.”
Resources;
Wikipedia : The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a United States proposed law introduced on November 30, 2011 by U.S. Representative Michael Rogers (R-MI) and 29 co-sponsors (Companies).
The bill would give the U.S. government additional options and resources to ensure the security of networks against attacks and enforce copyright and patents. The bill was reported out of committee on December 1, 2011 and has yet to be debated or brought to a vote.
This controversial bill is already widely criticised by advocates of Internet privacy and neutrality, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Avaaz.org, because it contains few limits on how and when the U.S. Government may monitor private information, and because few safeguards are included as to how the data may be used; they claim that such new powers are likely to be used to find and punish file sharers rather than foreign spies or hackers.
AVAAZ is committed to stopping any and all censorship of the internet. In their own words, “Help Save The Internet From The U.S”. If you would like to show your support and stop the CISTA bill. you can by completing their petition HERE. Avaaz sees the bill as a threat against “Our democracy and civil liberties from the excessive and unnecessary Internet surveillance powers it grants. The Internet is a crucial tool for people around the world to exchange ideas and work collectively to build the world we all want”.
Congress is set to act on Cyber-Security legislation that has been making its way through committees in both chambers for several years. The House is set to vote on these bills during the week of April 23, dubbed “Cybersecurity Week.” The Senate will take action soon after.
A lot of important work has gone into these bills that are intended to strengthen both the government and civilian response to cyber threats. This in theory is an amicable notion. Yet parts of these bills are alarming because, if passed, any information we put online, work, play, personal and sensitive could be put at risk.
The broad language means there is no explicit restriction about the type of information being shared between government and companies, so long as it could somehow be linked to cyber-threats. That’s very worrisome on privacy grounds, since it makes it easier for companies to hand over any information the government asks for and not worry about getting sued.
Under Rogers, once your personal information is in the hands of the government it can be used for any national security purpose, including to track patterns of communications to decide whether to seek authorization to wiretap you. It can be used to prosecute you for any crime.
So why is the House leadership trumpeting the Rogers bill and why are so many companies lining up to support it?
For companies, the answer is easy: there is freedom to share information with whatever entity they please, blanket immunity for sharing, blanket immunity for a recipient of shared cyber-security information who fails to take protective measures even when they are clearly needed, and no regulatory burdens are imposed.
For House leadership, the answer seems to be that it is not listening to Internet users.
“Perhaps it’s time for us to shout our objections more loudly?”
A number of companies and groups dear to our web hearts support these bills including – Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Facebook, and Verizon – you can find a full list that support CISPA HERE. And it’s co-sponsors can be found HERE.
The bill describes cyber threat as a “vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or private entity, including information pertaining to the protection of a system or network from either ‘efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network;’ or ‘theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.'”.
How would this play out in the real world? As Government Computer News reported, “Companies and government agencies alike are using tools to sweep the Internet–blogs, websites, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter feeds–to find out what people are saying about, well, just about anything.” Maybe even The Zuphorian.
“Not surprisingly,” GCN’s Patrick Marshall wrote, “intelligence agencies have already been looking at social media as a source of information. The Homeland Security Department has been analyzing traffic on social networks for at least the past three years.”
Due to the opposition the bill has experienced, the co-sponsors are planning to amend the bill to address many of the concerns of its opponents – including limiting its use to a more limited definition of cyber-threats, and stating that the “theft of intellectual property” refers to the theft of research and development. In addition, there will now be penalties if private companies or the government uses data from CISPA for purposes “unrelated to cyberthreats.”
Do you agree or disagree with CISPA? Do you believe the internet has too many monitoring bodies? What views on this article? all comments either for or against the points raised within this artlcle are welcome.
” The European Parliament’s international trade committee has rejected a proposal by David Martin, an MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on ACTA. Martin wanted to ask the European Court of Justice for its opinion on the controversial anti-piracy treaty, but the committee decided yesterday that wasn’t needed and will now vote in June on whether to approve ACTA. Opponents of the treaty see the development as a victory.
In a February announcement, EU trade chief Karel De Gucht said that following discussion with fellow Commissioners, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The treaty, which is aimed at harmonizing global copyright enforcement globally, has largely been formulated behind closed doors and its critics fear it will only lead to censorship and surveillance of Internet users.
The plan was to ask the ECJ to look at ACTA and decide if it conflicts with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression and right to privacy.
Separately, David Martin, a UK MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on ACTA, made a proposal to put ACTA before the European Court of Justice to get its opinion, but the committee decided yesterday that wasn’t needed and will now vote in June on whether to approve ACTA.
The European Parliament’s trade committee rejected the plan with 21 MEPs voting against, 5 in favor and 2 abstention. This means that ACTA could now be put before Parliament in a matter of months. Had ACTA been immediately referred to Europe’s highest court, it would have meant a delay of one, maybe two years.
This, according to activists, would have dampened the momentum of their anti-ACTA work which reached unprecedented levels and Europe-wide protests earlier this year.
“Referring ACTA to the court is no substitute for the political procedure needed to check this agreement and determine democratically whether its entry into force is in the European interest,” said Pirate Party MEP and Shadow rapporteur on ACTA for the GreensAmelia Andersdotter.
“Only a democratic ratification process via the European and national parliaments is able to provide such a judgment, and we therefore welcome today’s decision to continue with this process,” she concluded.
ACTA will now be pushed through committees in the European Parliament during April and May and then to a final full Parliament vote at its June plenary session.
“If ACTA dies in European Parliament, then it’s a permakill, and the monopoly lobbies will have to start fighting uphill,” said Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge in a comment. “If ACTA passes, the same monopolists get tons of new powers to use, and close the door for the foreseeable future behind the legislators for a very necessary reform of the copyright and patent monopolies.”
After its existence was first discovered by the public in 2008 after documents were uploaded to Wikileaks, ACTA’s opponents now have just 10 weeks to pull out the stops.” This article is a fan duplication, you can view the entire article and it’s related comments at TorrentFreak.com or just click HERE!
The Opte (pronounced op-tee) Project is a project started by Barrett Lyon that seeks to make an accurate representation of the extent of the Internet using visual graphics.
Internet Censorship Thru Fear:
Internet censorship is the control or suppression of the publishing of, or access to information on the Internet. It may be carried out by governments or by private organizations either at the behest of government or on their own initiative. Individuals and organizations may engage in Self-Censorship on their own or due to intimidation and fear. —>
Fearing the power of the new technologies, authoritarian states have devised subtle and not-so-subtle ways to filter, monitor, and otherwise obstruct or manipulate the openness of the internet. Even a number of democratic states have considered or implemented various restrictions in response to the potential legal, economic, and security challenges raised by new media.
Critics Claim ACTA Threatens Internet Freedom:
The Netherlands this week imposed delays on the ratification of the ACTA international anti-piracy agreement, which critics claim threatens Internet freedoms. Opponents say the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement puts users’ privacy at risk while the European Commission contends the measure doesn’t change existing data protection laws and is needed to mount a long-term global fight against copyright theft.
Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have already delayed the international trade agreement’s ratification process, citing the same privacy concerns highlighted during a wave of anti-ACTA protests throughout Europe last week. The Netherlands joined that group Tuesday, when the Dutch lower house of Parliament backed a motion from the Green Left party calling on the Netherlands to refrain from signing onto ACTA, Radio Netherlands reported. —>
Europeans Have Given Up Freedom of Speech:
Americans think of Europeans as essentially like themselves. They believe European societies are like their own-rooted in the rule of law, freedom of religion, democratic government, market competition, and an unfettered press. In recent years, however, Europeans have given up an essential liberty: freedom of speech. It is true that in the United States prevailing orthodoxies on some questions are ruthlessly enforced but it is still legal to say just about anything. Not so in much of Europe. In the last decade or so countries we think of as fellow democracies-France, Germany, Switzerland and others-have passed laws that limit free speech for the same crude ideological reasons that drove the brief, unsuccessful vogue of campus speech codes in the United States.
World Map of Internet Censorship.
Today in Europe there are laws as bad as anything George Orwell could have imagined. In some countries courts have ruled that the facts are irrelevant, and that certain things must not be said whether they are true or false. In others, a defendant in court who tries to explain or defend a forbidden view will be charged on the spot with a fresh offense. Even his solicitor / lawyer can be fined or go to jail for trying to mount a defense. In one case a judge ordered that a bookseller’s entire stock-innocent as well as offending titles-be burned!
Just as Eastern Europe is emerging from it, Western Europe has entered the thought-crime era, in a return to the mentality that launched the Inquisition and the wars of religion. It is a tyranny of the left practiced by the very people who profess shock at the tactics of Joseph McCarthy, an exercise of raw power in the service of pure ideology. The desire not merely to debate one’s opponents but to disgrace them, muzzle them, fine them, jail them is utterly contrary to the spirit of civilized discourse. It is profoundly disturbing to find this ugly sentiment codified into law in some of the countries we think of as pillars of Western Civilization. At the same time, these laws cannot help but draw attention to the very ideas they forbid. Truth does not generally require the help of censors. —>
Not All Censorship Is Bad:
A proposed directive on combating sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography will introduce EU-wide requirements on prevention, prosecution of offenders and protection for victims. It would also oblige Member States promptly to remove web sites containing child pornography or, should this prove impossible, allow Member States to block access to them under certain conditions.
The text sets out minimum penalties for about 20 criminal offences – far more than are usually provided for in EU legislation. On-line “grooming” (befriending children via the web with the intention of sexually abusing them) will become a criminal offence across the EU, as will child sex tourism, where the offence is committed on a Member State’s territory or by one of its nationals abroad. The UK and Ireland say they wish to adopt and apply this directive. Denmark is the only Member State not taking part.
The sections of the draft on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA that most interest this article are as follows;
(Section 13) Child pornography, which constitutes sex abuse images, is a specific type of content which cannot be construed as the expression of an opinion. To combat it, it is necessary to reduce the circulation of child abuse material by making it more difficult for offenders to upload such content onto the publicly accessible Web. Action is therefore necessary to remove the content and apprehend those guilty of making, distributing or downloading child abuse images. With a view to supporting the Union’s efforts in combating child pornography, Member States should do their best to cooperate with third countries in seeking to secure the removal of such content from servers in their territory.
(Section 13a) However, despite such efforts, the removal of child pornography content at its source is often not possible where the original materials are not located within the Union, either because the State where the servers are hosted is not willing to cooperate or because obtaining removal of the material from the State concerned proves to be particularly long. Mechanisms may also be put in place to block access from the Union’s territory to internet pages identified as containing or disseminating child pornography. It is understood that the measures undertaken by Member States in accordance with this directive in order to remove or, where appropriate, block websites containing child pornography could be based on various types of public action, such as legislative, non-legislative, judicial or other.
In that context, the provisions of this directive are without prejudice to voluntary action taken by the internet industry to prevent misuse of their services, or to any support for such action by Member States. Whichever basis for action or method is chosen, Member States should ensure that it provides an adequate level of legal certainty and predictability to users and service providers. Both with a view to the removal and the blocking of child abuse content, cooperation between public authorities should be established and strengthened, particularly in the interest of ensuring that national lists of websites containing child pornography material are as complete as possible and of avoiding duplication of work.
Any such developments must take account of the rights of the end users, adhere to existing legal and judicial procedures and comply with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Safer Internet Programme has set up a network of hotlines whose goal is to collect information and to ensure coverage and exchange of reports on the major types of illegal content online.
If you would like to view the full draft, you can find it ‘Here‘. If you would like to understand more regarding Internet Censorship, or get involved in any of the many campaigns against it [See Below]. If you have a comment about this article or any of the issues raised within, feel free to express them in the comment section below.
1. ACTA is a secret agreement. Negotiations were not transparent and conducted“behind closed doors”. The European Parliament was not fully informed.
The text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is publicly available to all. The negotiations for ACTA were not different from negotiations on any other international agreement. It is a fact that such agreements are not negotiated in public, but with the Lisbon Agreement and the revised Framework Agreement there are clear rules on how the European Parliament (EP) should be informed of such trade negotiations. And these have been scrupulously followed.
Trade Commissioner De Gucht has participated in three plenary debates, replied to several dozens of written and oral questions, as well to two Resolutions and one Declaration of the EP, whilst Commission services have provided several dedicated briefings to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) during the negotiations. Likewise, the public was informed, since the launch of the negotiations about the objectives and general thrust of the negotiations. The Commission also released summary reports after every negotiation round and the negotiating text since April 2010.
2. ACTA leads to “harmonisation through the backdoor”. A study ordered by INTAto academics says that ACTA will require changes to EU enforcement legislation and/or to national laws.
ACTA provisions are compatible with existing EU law. ACTA will not require any revision or adaptation of EU law and will not require any Member States to review the measures or instruments by which they implement relevant EU law. ACTA is also in line with relevant international law, in particular with the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This has been confirmed in very clear terms by an Opinion of the Legal Service of the European Parliament of 5 October 2011, which was requested by the International Trade Committee (INTA).
The INTA study does not show evidence of any concrete situation where ACTA would contradict, repeal or require the modification of a single provision existing in EU legislation. Instead, it gives two examples (regarding the coverage of all trademark infringements by customs controls and regarding the calculation of damages based on the value of the real goods) where it cautions against the possibility that the EU be found in breach of ACTA due to the interpretation that some of its members may have of the implementation of ACTA’s rules.
3. ACTA moves the balance of rights towards IP right-holders. ACTA eliminatessafeguards and exceptions existing under international law.
Quite to the contrary, ACTA is drafted in very flexible terms and contains the necessary safeguards to allow its Parties to strike an appropriate balance between all rights and interests involved, in line with their economic, political and social objectives, as well as with their legal traditions. All safeguards and exceptions under EU law or under the TRIPs Agreement remain fully preserved.
4. ACTA will lead to limitations on fundamental rights or civil liberties (e.g.controls of laptops of air passengers at borders, monitoring of internet traffic, etc.).
There is no provision in ACTA that substantiates this claim. ACTA is about tackling large scale illegal activity, often pursued by criminal organisations. It is not about limiting civil liberties or harassing consumers. The respect for fundamental rights such as, privacy, freedom of expression and data protection is expressly mentioned as a basic principle of the agreement. There is a provision in ACTA specifically exempting travellers from checks if the infringing goods are of a non-commercial nature and not part of large trafficking.
5. ACTA threatens the legitimate trade in generic medicines and global public health.
There are no provisions in ACTA that could directly or indirectly affect the legitimate trade in generic medicines or, more broadly, global public health. On the contrary, ACTA contains unequivocal language safeguarding access to health and expressly refers to the Doha Declaration on intellectual property and public health. ACTA also excludes patents from criminal and border measures.
6. ACTA will lead to the introduction of a ‘3 strikes’ system for internet infringements, or to demands for internet service providers (ISPs, to monitor or filter the data they transmit.
ACTA does not provide for a “3 strikes” or a “graduated response” system to infringements over the internet. Neither does it oblige Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor or filter content of their users. ACTA is fully in line with the relevant EU legislation, in force since 2000 (E-commerce Directive).
7. ACTA’s provisions on criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights require additional legislation at EU level.
There is no EU legislation on criminal measures. The criminal enforcement provisions of ACTA do not require additional legislation at EU level. A very limited number of Member States may need to adapt their own legislation related to criminal enforcement to comply with the commitments they undertook (ACTA is a mixed EU/Member States’ competence Agreement). This has been confirmed in very clear terms by the Opinion of the Legal Service of the European Parliament of 5 October 2011.
8. The EU will impose the provisions of ACTA to third countries through incorporation of its provisions in free trade agreements.
There is no intention to do so, and this has not been proposed in bilateral trade negotiations conducted by the EU
9. ACTA should only cover counterfeiting (trademark infringements) of goods. It should not cover copyright infringements, particularly on internet.
Providing for enforcement of a broad range of intellectual property rights (IPR) infringements is necessary, since a large spectrum of EU economic operators rely on economic activities that need intellectual property protection (e.g. geographical indications for high quality agricultural products, designs for fashion and design, copyright for the entertainment and culture sectors or patents for innovative industries).This being said, ACTA steered away from a one-size-fits all approach and contains several exceptions to avoid that legitimate goals such as access to medicines are incidentally affected by provisions destined to prevent illegal traffics.
10. ACTA was negotiated as a self-standing agreement to avoid being negotiated at a inclusive multilateral forum, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
The Commission would have preferred to address IPR enforcement problems in the WTO or in WIPO, and made many proposals to that effect. The point is that certain other Members of these organisations opposed any enforcement debate there.
Article taken from The European Commission’s ACTA “fact sheet”
In a February announcement, EU trade chief Karel De Gucht said that following discussion with fellow Commissioners, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
