Christian Engstrom, Pirate Party Member of European Parliament (MEP), attended a European Commission Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) meeting this week to gain information about the treaty to share with the public. He was promptly turned away.
ACTA is an international treaty agreement that is intended to unite nations in the battle against piracy and counterfeiting. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the treaty thus far due to a high-level of secrecy surrounding negotiations.
It has been speculated that developing BitTorrent or peer to peer technology, and circumventing DRM, will all become criminal offenses under the new treaty. There have also been reports that the EU, and possibly the US, will move to imprison file-sharers and ban free speech pertaining to piracy leaks.
Engstrom left the recent meeting after becoming frustrated with the lack of answers to his questions regarding the contents of the treaty. He was reportedly told that he would be forbidden to publicly share any details about the meeting, and was even threatened with prosecution if he failed to comply with the European Commission’s wishes.
"There is no sensible reason why the ACTA negotiations should be carried out in secret, or why Members of the European Parliament should not be allowed to discuss information about ACTA with their constituents,” Engstrom told the media. “In a democracy, new laws should be made by the elected representatives after an open public debate. They should not be negotiated behind closed doors by unelected officials at the Commission, in an attempt to keep the citizens out of the process until it is too late."
ACTA negotiators released an edited draft of the treaty to the public in April, after a copy had already been leaked to the press. Several more official meetings have taken place since then, and there have likely been numerous changes to the document. There has been no mention of plans to release an updated version.
I am, frankly, deeply saddened and angry that our government would go to such lengths, and cast aside citizens’ legal rights, in an attempt to combat piracy. Unfortunately, I won’t be surprised if the speculated scenario becomes a reality.
