8 ms·

ACTA "internet enforcement" chapter leaks

80 points by dantheman 17y ago

dangrossman 17y ago
I am always depressed when I read virtually any proposed law dealing with the internet. My only hope is that eventually the generations that grew up with computers will age into politics as previous generations age out, and we'll stop seeing these types of proposals.
- randomwalker 17y ago
  But the rate of technological progress is accelerating, and sadly we can only expect the gap between policy and technology to get bigger with time. By the time the new generation gets into politics, maybe Internet regulation won't be the hot-button issue; but I'd bet it's going to be something even worse — for a random example, how about the ability to tinker with the genome to make new life-forms. I can't imagine that's going to be unregulated for too long.
- m0nty 17y ago
  "the generations that grew up with computers will age into politics as previous generations age out" With respect, I keep hearing things like this, usually framed as "things won't get better until the Baby Boomers die out." It's wrong. Greed and stupidity are not correlated with age. There are young greedy and stupid people out there as well as the old ones.
  - cabalamat 17y ago
    > I keep hearing things like this, usually framed as "things won't get better until the Baby Boomers die out." I don't think that means the same thing. Baby boomers are people over 50 or so; digital natives are people under 25. Just about everyone turning 18 today is a digital native -- someone who's grown up with the internet and takes it for granted. Very many of these people have no time for crap like ACTA. Incidently, over half of male voters under 25 in Sweden voted for the Pirate party in the European parliamentary election. If this is a glimpse of the future, I welcome it.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - m0nty 17y ago
      > digital natives are people under 25 I'm a digital native and I'm 43. Not a boomer, but still. And I'm becoming probably more radical in my viewpoints as I get older, not more conservative. Seriously, age has got nothing to do with it and the future won't automatically get better just because some people get older and some people die off.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    I think the issue is this. I see the problems with current politics; I personally think I could do a lot to fix it. I've even been close to stepping up and trying to actually do something the last few months. Problem is I can see that fire slipping away already. I can see how much effort it would take just to give it a shot where on the other hand I know I can live comfortably, start and provide for a family within my current career. Why step up when no one else will. This is the problem: Im sure there are thousands of individuals of my generation with the drive, passion and (crucially) common sense to fix the mess in the future generation of politics. But they all lose interest or faith in the system. So we end up with the second raters in charge (while the smart ones go off and do cool stuff)
    - m0nty 17y ago
      > So we end up with the second raters in charge (while the smart ones go off and do cool stuff) Sir John Harvey-Jones was the one-time chairman of ICI who said he went into business because he saw it as a more effective way to make a difference in the world. I don't think doing cool stuff is incompatible with influencing political decision-making. I dare-say, if you can afford to purchase a few politicians (which is what is really wrong with the system) you could make plenty of changes.
- cabalamat 17y ago
  > we'll stop seeing these types of proposals. We'll stop seeing them when politicians get the message that they are vote losers.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - olefoo 17y ago
    Actually the whole reason that this particular pile of excrement is being negotiated behind closed doors is that treaties are an end run around the legislature. For the US, treaties are binding law of the land once ratified by a two-thirds vote of the senate (not the house of representatives) and signed by the president. So long as the interests driving a piece of legislation can keep it out of the news until it's a _fait accompli_ , it's not going to cost any Senator votes he hadn't already lost.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      We can still control this. We can refuse to elect anyone that allocates money to the enforcement. We can lobby to amend the Constitution. We can elect a President that will put someone opposed to this on the Supreme Court. We can sit on juries and find anyone charged with these crimes "not guilty". With enough organization, anything is possible. The real issue here is two-fold; nobody cares about this particularly ("laws only apply to other people, not me!"), and that voters tend to act against their own self-interest (remember "joe the plumber"? too poor to have health insurance, but didn't want the government to give it to him for free? what!?) Personally, I'm working on technical solutions to ensure that people "infringing on copyright" can't be prosecuted. (Or rather, so that their network providers and their own machines can't provide evidence against them.) Things like IPredator are a good start. I can almost guarantee that if you use that service for Bittorrent, you won't be going to jail for your file sharing. Tor is even better (but very very slow). I hate technical solutions to legal problems, but right now, they work very well. That's why nobody really cares about this; people will pay their $10/month for an untraceable account in some country that hates the US (there are plenty), and they will continue to "steal" TV shows and movies. (Until the movie industry starts pricing movies correctly, of course. Make non-DRM'd new-releases a 99 cent download, and piracy will be gone overnight.)
- dantheman 17y ago
  I'm hoping that the changing mindsets will result in more systems thinking & realizing the limits of control.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "My only hope is that eventually the generations that grew up with computers will age into politics as previous generations age out, and we'll stop seeing these types of proposals." I thought that might happen with regards to drugs, but yesterday's stoners have become today's busybodies and know-betters. I have no expectation that next-gen grown-ups will be any more enlightened.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - keefe 17y ago
    http://norml.org/ http://norml.org/ med marijuana has made great strides, actually
    - gnosis 17y ago
      I'll give some credit to the stoners for that. But they wouldn't have gotten anywhere if pot didn't actually have significant legitimate medical benefits. And those benefits have mobilized many people suffering from debilitating diseases (and their friends/families), who would otherwise probably never have dreamed of getting involved in a legalization/decriminalization struggle.
      - jamesbritt 17y ago
        Yes, and to be fair, it's not as though nothing has happened, or nothing has changed. But I would have expected far more general social awareness about the pros and cons of assorted drugs, and the problems with prohibition. While there has been some progress, most of society has a fairly reactionary view (at least publicly) on recreational drug use.
- uriel 17y ago
  I thought people said that Obama really understood technology!
  - elai 17y ago
    Obama isn't congress, the senate, or the democrat party. He is not king obama.
    - pyre 17y ago
      True, but I don't believe that Congress is allowed to negotiate foreign treaties. So I would assume that the onus for anything that the US government proposes at these discussions falls on his administration, making it all his responsibility.
    - nhebb 17y ago
      Trade policies are crafted by the Executive branch, and Ron Kirk, the US Trade Representative, is a member of President Obama's Cabinet.
      - _delirium 17y ago
        For some reason, though, they seem to mainly do the same thing under both parties' administrations, which makes me suspect that trade policies are really crafted by a set of career bureaucrats who stay there under all kinds of administrations, aiding a revolving door of people with largely the same political viewpoints. As far as I can tell, ACTA negotiations have been exactly the same under Bush and Obama, such that if you were looking at U.S. politics through them you would barely know there was more than one political party in the US.
    - sailormoon 17y ago
      He is not king obama. I wish he was, actually. Every four years, vote in a new king, with near-unlimited power to do practically anything they want, excepting the extension of their own power. Then he might actually get something done.
ErrantX 17y ago
This whole speculation thing is a mess: the pirates [sic] are probably bigging up the horror as much as the pro-DMCA crowd big up spposed benefits - everyone in the middle is throwing extreme bad/good scenarios too.(I sit in the middle, as it happens, and I reckon it will just be generally bad all round). But what really depresses me is that this is done in secret. That is the thing that concerns me most. I cant see any situation, even if this were a harmless treaty, where such a situation is healthy.
- uriel 17y ago
  It is not done in secret from big content, the RIAA, the MPAA and any lobbyist that wants has full access to the discussions, it is the public that is kept in the dark.
deleted 17y ago
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deleted 17y ago
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80 points by dantheman 17y ago

I am always depressed when I read virtually any proposed law dealing with the internet. My only hope is that eventually the generations that grew up with computers will age into politics as previous generations age out, and we'll stop seeing these types of proposals.

randomwalker 17y ago
But the rate of technological progress is accelerating, and sadly we can only expect the gap between policy and technology to get bigger with time. By the time the new generation gets into politics, maybe Internet regulation won't be the hot-button issue; but I'd bet it's going to be something even worse — for a random example, how about the ability to tinker with the genome to make new life-forms. I can't imagine that's going to be unregulated for too long.
m0nty 17y ago
"the generations that grew up with computers will age into politics as previous generations age out" With respect, I keep hearing things like this, usually framed as "things won't get better until the Baby Boomers die out." It's wrong. Greed and stupidity are not correlated with age. There are young greedy and stupid people out there as well as the old ones.
- cabalamat 17y ago
  > I keep hearing things like this, usually framed as "things won't get better until the Baby Boomers die out." I don't think that means the same thing. Baby boomers are people over 50 or so; digital natives are people under 25. Just about everyone turning 18 today is a digital native -- someone who's grown up with the internet and takes it for granted. Very many of these people have no time for crap like ACTA. Incidently, over half of male voters under 25 in Sweden voted for the Pirate party in the European parliamentary election. If this is a glimpse of the future, I welcome it.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - m0nty 17y ago
    > digital natives are people under 25 I'm a digital native and I'm 43. Not a boomer, but still. And I'm becoming probably more radical in my viewpoints as I get older, not more conservative. Seriously, age has got nothing to do with it and the future won't automatically get better just because some people get older and some people die off.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  I think the issue is this. I see the problems with current politics; I personally think I could do a lot to fix it. I've even been close to stepping up and trying to actually do something the last few months. Problem is I can see that fire slipping away already. I can see how much effort it would take just to give it a shot where on the other hand I know I can live comfortably, start and provide for a family within my current career. Why step up when no one else will. This is the problem: Im sure there are thousands of individuals of my generation with the drive, passion and (crucially) common sense to fix the mess in the future generation of politics. But they all lose interest or faith in the system. So we end up with the second raters in charge (while the smart ones go off and do cool stuff)
  - m0nty 17y ago
    > So we end up with the second raters in charge (while the smart ones go off and do cool stuff) Sir John Harvey-Jones was the one-time chairman of ICI who said he went into business because he saw it as a more effective way to make a difference in the world. I don't think doing cool stuff is incompatible with influencing political decision-making. I dare-say, if you can afford to purchase a few politicians (which is what is really wrong with the system) you could make plenty of changes.
cabalamat 17y ago
> we'll stop seeing these types of proposals. We'll stop seeing them when politicians get the message that they are vote losers.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- olefoo 17y ago
  Actually the whole reason that this particular pile of excrement is being negotiated behind closed doors is that treaties are an end run around the legislature. For the US, treaties are binding law of the land once ratified by a two-thirds vote of the senate (not the house of representatives) and signed by the president. So long as the interests driving a piece of legislation can keep it out of the news until it's a _fait accompli_ , it's not going to cost any Senator votes he hadn't already lost.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    We can still control this. We can refuse to elect anyone that allocates money to the enforcement. We can lobby to amend the Constitution. We can elect a President that will put someone opposed to this on the Supreme Court. We can sit on juries and find anyone charged with these crimes "not guilty". With enough organization, anything is possible. The real issue here is two-fold; nobody cares about this particularly ("laws only apply to other people, not me!"), and that voters tend to act against their own self-interest (remember "joe the plumber"? too poor to have health insurance, but didn't want the government to give it to him for free? what!?) Personally, I'm working on technical solutions to ensure that people "infringing on copyright" can't be prosecuted. (Or rather, so that their network providers and their own machines can't provide evidence against them.) Things like IPredator are a good start. I can almost guarantee that if you use that service for Bittorrent, you won't be going to jail for your file sharing. Tor is even better (but very very slow). I hate technical solutions to legal problems, but right now, they work very well. That's why nobody really cares about this; people will pay their $10/month for an untraceable account in some country that hates the US (there are plenty), and they will continue to "steal" TV shows and movies. (Until the movie industry starts pricing movies correctly, of course. Make non-DRM'd new-releases a 99 cent download, and piracy will be gone overnight.)
dantheman 17y ago
I'm hoping that the changing mindsets will result in more systems thinking & realizing the limits of control.
jamesbritt 17y ago
"My only hope is that eventually the generations that grew up with computers will age into politics as previous generations age out, and we'll stop seeing these types of proposals." I thought that might happen with regards to drugs, but yesterday's stoners have become today's busybodies and know-betters. I have no expectation that next-gen grown-ups will be any more enlightened.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- keefe 17y ago
  http://norml.org/ http://norml.org/ med marijuana has made great strides, actually
  - gnosis 17y ago
    I'll give some credit to the stoners for that. But they wouldn't have gotten anywhere if pot didn't actually have significant legitimate medical benefits. And those benefits have mobilized many people suffering from debilitating diseases (and their friends/families), who would otherwise probably never have dreamed of getting involved in a legalization/decriminalization struggle.
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      Yes, and to be fair, it's not as though nothing has happened, or nothing has changed. But I would have expected far more general social awareness about the pros and cons of assorted drugs, and the problems with prohibition. While there has been some progress, most of society has a fairly reactionary view (at least publicly) on recreational drug use.
uriel 17y ago
I thought people said that Obama really understood technology!
- elai 17y ago
  Obama isn't congress, the senate, or the democrat party. He is not king obama.
  - pyre 17y ago
    True, but I don't believe that Congress is allowed to negotiate foreign treaties. So I would assume that the onus for anything that the US government proposes at these discussions falls on his administration, making it all his responsibility.
  - nhebb 17y ago
    Trade policies are crafted by the Executive branch, and Ron Kirk, the US Trade Representative, is a member of President Obama's Cabinet.
    - _delirium 17y ago
      For some reason, though, they seem to mainly do the same thing under both parties' administrations, which makes me suspect that trade policies are really crafted by a set of career bureaucrats who stay there under all kinds of administrations, aiding a revolving door of people with largely the same political viewpoints. As far as I can tell, ACTA negotiations have been exactly the same under Bush and Obama, such that if you were looking at U.S. politics through them you would barely know there was more than one political party in the US.
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    He is not king obama. I wish he was, actually. Every four years, vote in a new king, with near-unlimited power to do practically anything they want, excepting the extension of their own power. Then he might actually get something done.

ErrantX 17y ago

This whole speculation thing is a mess: the pirates [sic] are probably bigging up the horror as much as the pro-DMCA crowd big up spposed benefits - everyone in the middle is throwing extreme bad/good scenarios too.(I sit in the middle, as it happens, and I reckon it will just be generally bad all round). But what really depresses me is that this is done in secret. That is the thing that concerns me most. I cant see any situation, even if this were a harmless treaty, where such a situation is healthy.

uriel 17y ago
It is not done in secret from big content, the RIAA, the MPAA and any lobbyist that wants has full access to the discussions, it is the public that is kept in the dark.

deleted 17y ago

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deleted 17y ago

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