back to article MPs demand UK government end secrecy over ACTA

MPs across the political spectrum are demanding that the UK government should release details regarding ongoing international negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). As we reported last week, UK.gov refused to give MPs access to papers on talks about copyright enforcement on the web and at national …

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  1. Dave Bell

    Getting Mandy Ratty

    Since this agreement will obviously supersede new laws on internet content, it would be pointless, in the limited Parliamentary time before an election, to pass the new laws,

  2. Rob Crawford

    Seems Mandy

    doesn't like any scrutiny for anything he is involved in does he?

    No wonder the house of commons spent so much time working on rules to prevent Mandy returning to the HOC from the Lords (minimum of 5 years between resigning as a lord & being able to stand as an MP).

    He would be like a rubber ball,

    Mandy becomes a peer,

    Resign as peer when safe seet is available

    Stand in a safe seat

    Become MP

    Get kicked out for something dodgy (again)

    & repeat ad nausium

  3. LawLessLessLaw
    Boffin

    MP's rights?

    > MPs have a right to know what is being decided.

    Hey govn'r the PEOPLE have the right to know what's being debated, then we tell YOU what to do about it

    Oh my utopian dream

  4. Chris007
    FAIL

    (untitled)

    out of over 600 MP's only 12 have signed the EDM

    that's as worrying

    FAIL: To those MP's not sticking up for democracy

    1. John G Imrie

      My MP isn't on the list

      I'll write to him tonight.

      I suggest you do the same.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Go

        Just written to mine

        I have just written to mine through the handy WriteToThem website. I urge anyone with an ounce of common sense to do the same.

  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Go

    So the Dark Lord's word is not law.

    Who'd have thought it.

    I'd still like a list of which countries are *so* shy and retiring on this point.

  6. Roger_Melly
    Big Brother

    Drinking the US KoolAid yet again

    "other countries wanted details of the talks kept secret."

    Specifically; the United States do not want anyone else to find out what they are trying to ram down everyone elses throat. The US is desperately hoping to ram through harsh and US favourable IP laws everywhere and anywhere they can. IP, just another abstract legal term along the same ilk as software patents, a generic idea without substance or form so that the proposed legislation can be as broad as possible.

    Mandy will do whatever his corporate masters ask him to and there's fuck all we can do about it because that drippy prick is not even an elected representative. Make no mistake about it, ACTA is all about further restricting your freedoms for the benefit of mega-corps; and the nanny-state and spy-masters; and very little to do with actual copyright infringement.

    1. Mike Street
      FAIL

      Secrets?

      "other countries wanted details of the talks kept secret."

      Why didn't we just say:

      "Actually, we in the UK are a democracy. We do not take part in secret talks which may be against the interests of our citizens (if not, why are they secret?). So if the talks are to be secret, we won't be involved."

      I mean, I know why we didn't say that, because it's not true. But I wish it was...

    2. Graham Wilson
      Big Brother

      @ Roger_Melly - Drinking US KoolAid. RIGHT, SECRECY STINKS!

      WELCOME TO NAZISM(c) EVERYBODY

      THE NEW MACH-III VERSION

      (c) Copyright: Once-liberal Western Democracies*

      * US, UK, Australia, NZ, Canada, France etc. etc.

      MACH-III NAZISM(c) REVISION NOTES - KEY CHANGES:

      1. Nuremberg-style rallies are now held in secret (doesn't frighten the horses).

      2. Intergovernmental meetings are now held in secret - even knowledge of such meetings should be kept secret until after the event and decisions made. Reason: must continue the facade of democracy until new propaganda model is fully deployed, as there are remnants of population who still don't have the new plasma version of Big Brother (and we've yet to make them succumb).

      3. Many large corporations and organizations are now integrated into government. Reason: Lobbying was getting tedious and we always agreed with them anyway so it was better to incorporate them within the government structure.

      4. Democracy has been phased out although, to keep up appearances, we're still running with the democracy delusion until 2020.

      5. Secret Proprietary aspects of Mach-III Nazism. Reason: we don't have to give a reason.

      =========================================================

      The damn hide of governments to hold these ACTA negotiations in secret.

      Fuck them!

      I can only partially understand why the population doesn't rise up over the way our governments are throwing our democratic rights out the window without we citizens having any say in the matter whatsoever. It is truly unbelievable.

      If you are a corporation in our Western democracies you get special treatment, corporations and organizations are the new citizens. A week or so ago, similar matters came up on El Reg on the topic of 'Record-fine Napsterer wants retrial with RIAA discussion' where in the feedback post I mentioned some of the underlying issues which are the cause of this secrecy in the post titled: 'Soon, murder and terrorism will be lesser crimes than sharing music'. Here's the link:

      http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/01/05/tenenbaum_files_for_retrial/#c_659154

      Therein I discuss the fact that corporate influence on governments is now so powerful the corporations are essentially setting the agenda for our laws--steal a song from a big corporation and the ramifications so high that soon the punishment will be in the same league as murderer. Sure there's some hyperbole here but this sort of distortion of our legal systems in Western countries is making an mockery of the myriad of gains we've made in the past, since Magna Carta, The Enlightenment and so on. We're now going backwards as far as our democratic freedoms are concerned.

      For the first time in my life I'm genuinely worried about Democracy. In years past, I put these aberrations down to corrupt individual politicians and incompetent stuff-ups. However, with ongoing secrecy governments have shown over ACTA and WIPO etc. as well as secrecy across a broad spectrum of other government activities down to the stuff that is considered 'commercial in confidence', it's clear we citizens are now just bit-players. We have to be because we're told bugger-all of anything of significance. Now I'm getting the sense of what it must have been like to live in Nazi Germany in the 1930 where citizens had no say in Government whatsoever.

      The situation is that we citizens have had no say in these ACTA international trade negotiations but after the secret deals are done with other governments we are just presented with a fait accompli and we're expected to unquestioningly accept the outcome. The same happened with the WIPO negotiations too.

      Of course, large corporations have no trouble lobbying government and they also get what they what, especially in the area of so-called intellectual property law. ACTA for example is essentially a front for large corporations which initially called for it to be set up.

      A more sinister issue of recent years has been governments' insistence on increased superannuation across the board--right, a good thing in itself but... Superannuation funds of millions of citizens are invested in these mega corporations, thus governments have very successfully nuked any criticism of them from large sections of the population which have their money invested with them. Criticism, effectively, has been white-anted from within. Talk about a brilliant strategy to keep potential complainers quiet, it just about deserves the Nobel Prize for economics. Essentially, governments have thrown away the keys to effective regulation of large multinational corporations.

      Where the hell have we all been whilst this has been happening? Why the hell didn't we see it coming earlier?

      It's a totally unacceptable situation but I'm damned if I know what to do about it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Anti -what

    Would our unwanted government like to explain exactly what an Anti - COUNTERFEITING treaty has to do with alleged copyright infringement ?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Mandleson... vote of No Confidence

    Unfortunately, it seems like a vote of No Confidence for Mr. Mandleson will be required.

    We elected people to represent us. Without transparent information to adequately make decisions, they will be unable to do so in beneficial ways.

    If Mr. Mandleson continues to keep our representatives unaware of specific pertinent details, he will find that directly not to his benefit.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    come clean?

    You would have to dip him in a vat of bleach. Why make it public when you can keep it secret for your friends?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why so secret...?

    It's fairly obvious. The words "Mandy" and "30 pieces of silver" spring almost immediately to mind.

    Having this unelected, disgraced and disgraceful, political creep shot down in flames could do more than just preserve a few of our remaing liberties. It could be the boost to pre-election Parliamentary trust this country needs, so go to it people...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    How enforceable these 'laws'?

    In the UK our laws are 'made' by the two houses of Parliament - the Commons and the Lords. If these laws are made by neither, then how enforceable can they be in British courts?

    The only other law we are party to is EU law - that handed down by the European Parliament (not the unelected European Council who the new EU 'President' is the head of). Are the EU Parliamentarians involved in these ACTA discussions?

    I'd wager these new 'laws' could be successfully challenged in both British courts and the European Court of Human Rights given that our own national lawmakers were denied access to the talks surrounding ACTA.

    Simple truth though. If you want to hit these big players where it hurts, stop consuming their products. Instead look to purchase your music directly from independent musicians like me. Help us, the real 'struggling' artists and deny big media their blood money. If we starve them through perfectly legal means, and nobody is 'counterfeiting' (actually, just sharing) their product, then they'll die and their laws will die with them.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Very Enforceable

    The Digital Economy Bill will allow the Secretary Of State to create new laws and adjust existing ones ad-hoc. It is a bedrock law that will allow any new laws created by the ACTA negotiations to be quickly rubber stamped.

    The DEB is a very dangerous law not for what it proposes now (which is repugnant) but for what it makes it possible for a State Secreatary to do should they wish.

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