TPPA and internet censorship

LEAKED! TPP: the Son of ACTA will oblige America and other countries to throw out privacy, free speech and due process for easier copyright enforcement

Cory Doktorow

BoingBoing,

25 August, 201

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the son of ACTA, a secretive copyright and trade treaty being negotiated by the Pacific Rim nations, including the USA and Canada. As with ACTA, the secretive negotiation process means that the treaty's provisions represent an extremist corporate agenda where due process, privacy and free expression are tossed out the window in favor of streamlined copyright enforcement. If this passes, America will have a trade obligation to implement all the worst stuff in SOPA, and then some. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Carolina Rossini and Kurt Opsahl explain:

TPP article 16.3 mandates a system of ISP liability that goes beyond DMCA standards and U.S. case law. In sum, the TPP pushes a framework beyond ACTA[1] and possibly the spirit of the DMCA, since it opens the doors for:

* Three-strikes policies and laws that require Internet intermediaries to terminate their users’ Internet access on repeat allegations of copyright infringement

* Requirements for Internet intermediaries to filter all Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material

* ISP obligations to block access to websites that allegedly infringe or facilitate copyright infringement

* Efforts to force intermediaries to disclose the identities of their customers to IP rightsholders on an allegation of copyright infringement.

Incredibly, it gets worse:

If the copyright maximalists have their way, the TPP will include a “side-letter,” an agreement annexed to the TPP to bind the countries to strict procedures enabling copyright owners to insist material are removed from the Internet. This strict notice-and-takedown regime is not new—in 2004, Chile rejected the same proposal in its bi-lateral trade agreement with the United States. Without the shackles of the proposed requirements, Chile then implemented a much more balanced takedown procedure in its 2010 Copyright Law, which provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s copyright safe harbor regime.

Instead of ensuring due process and judicial involvement in takedowns, the TPP proposal encourages the spread of models that have been proven inefficient and have chilling unintended consequences, such as the HADOPI Law in France or the DMCA.

Protests against ACTA

On Saturday thousands protested across Europe against ACTA

Digital Journal,

12 February, 2012

On 11 February 2012, many thousands took to the streets throughout Europe in a co-ordinated protest against ACTA - the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

After the demise of the SOPA and PIPA bills, ACTA has attracted several petitions, with many 1000’s of people signing to prevent what they say will be a direct attack on freedom of speech online. The supporters of the agreement, however insist it will not change existing laws and will provide protection for content creators against piracy.

And now people across Europe have taken to the streets to voice their objections.

While the biggest marches were held in Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, there were marches in Austria, Bulgaria, Spain, Lithuania and London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, UK. In London approximately 200 protesters gathered in the centre of the city outside the offices of several major rights holders.

So far, the treaty has been signed by 22 EU members including the United Kingdom, but has not yet been ratified by the European Parliament, where a debate is set to happen in June this year. The controversial treaty also affects the USA, Australia, Canada and Japan.

Germany delayed signing the agreement on Friday to "give us time to carry out further discussions". The spokesman said that three member states in Europe are now looking as if they do not want to sign. Slovakia, Poland the Czech Republic have already delayed the process after significant pressure from mostly young people in those countries.

The spokesman also said "It's lacked scrutiny, it's setting up dangerous new pressures to censor the internet to remove users and put pressure on Internet Service Providers to start policing for copyright.”

For article GO HERE

The Kim Dotcom travesty

I wonder whether KIm Dotcom has been arrested under the provisions of ACTA which has been signed by New Zealand.


If this is the case, he probably doesn't stand a hope in hell of a fair day in court and his extradition to the US on what should be basically a civil case is a fait accompli and fascism has triumphed in this country.


Let it be clear. I do not have any particular interest in Kim Dotcom or Megaupload.


But I do have a stake in democratic rights for all.

Kim Dotcom has all money seized BEFORE his day in court and bail denied by ludicrous “justice system”

by OZHOUSE on FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Ozhouse,

5 February, 2012

This man is being crucified like he is the Norwegian mass murderer. 

He provided a legitimate service that many people used to transfer large files. I myself used his service to transfer project files as I do a little audio engineering work here and there. Because some people used his service inappropriately, he is now public enemy number one. 

This man is clearly caught in a move designed to scare anyone running a similar service so badly that they will shut down – which has already started to happen. Instantly file-sonic threw in the towel as a direct example. The more they can fuck Kim Dotcom with a ten foot pole & no vaseline, the more effective it will be.

The way they have done this is pure fascism. 

Firstly the US overlords ordered New Zealand to arrest him, then the man had all his money seized before his day in court. 

How the FUCK are you supposed to defend yourself? 

We all know a crap lawyer won’t get you very far, even if you have the truth on your side. Yet somehow at the same time we think we have a real justice system. It is amazing what you can brainwash a public into believing. 

The truth is they do not want him to defend himself to the fullest extent possible and they will break their own laws and rules to do it. If they can do this to him? They can do it to anyone.

heraldsun.com.au

MEGAUPLOAD founder Kim Dotcom had his bid for bail turned down after a court hearing in Auckland, New Zealand.

The 38-year-old founder of the file-sharing website at the heart of a global internet piracy case was refused bail last week because the judge considered him a flight risk, with today’s High Court hearing an appeal against that ruling.

After hearing evidence, the High Court rejected his appeal, TVNZ reported, with Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, to remain behind bars until February 22 when US authorities are expected to file extradition papers.

Dotcom, who was arrested last month on the request of US authorities, testified at the appeal hearing that he had no intention of fleeing the country – potentially back to his native Germany which does not have extradition to the US – because authorities had frozen his accounts, The New Zealand Herald reported.

“I want to be absolutely clear about this, there are no funds left anywhere, everything has been seized,” he said.

More on ACTA

ACTA: The Corporate Usurpation of the Internet

Written by Nile Bowie

27 January, 2012

http://nilebowie.blogspot.com/2012/01/acta-corporate-usurpation-of-internet.html

In the wake of a public outcry against internet regulation bills such as SOPA and PIPA, representatives of the EU have signed a new and far more threatening legislation yesterday in Tokyo. Spearheaded by the governments of the United States and Japan and constructed largely in the absence of public awareness, the measures of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) dramatically alter current international legal framework, while introducing the first substantial processes of global internet governance. With complete contempt towards the democratic process, the negotiations of the treaty were exclusively held between industry representatives and government officials, while excluding elected representatives and members of the press from their hearings.

Under the guise of protecting intellectual property rights, the treaty introduces measures that would allow the private sector to enforce sweeping central authority over internet content. The ACTA abolishes all legal oversight involving the removal of content and allows copyright holders to force ISPs to remove material from the internet, something that presently requires a court order. ISPs would then be faced with legal liabilities if they chose not to remove content. Theoretically, personal blogs can be removed for using company logos without permission or simply linking to copy written material; users could be criminalized, barred from accessing the internet and even imprisoned for sharing copyrighted material. Ultimately, these implications would be starkly detrimental toward the internet as a medium for free speech.

The Obama Administration subverted the legal necessity of allowing to US Senate to ratify the treaty by unconstitutionally declaring it an “executive agreement” before the President promptly signed it on October 1st, 2011. As a touted constitutional lawyer, Barack Obama is fully aware that Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, mandates Congress in dealing with issues of intellectual property, thus voiding the capacity for the President to issue an executive agreement. The White House refused to even disclose details about the legislation to elected officials and civil libertarians over concern that doing so may incur "damage to the national security." While some may hang off every word of his sorely insincere speeches and still be fixated by the promises of hope offered by brand-Obama, his administration has trampled the constitution and introduced the most comprehensive authoritarian legislation in America’s history.

In addition to imposing loosely defined criminal sanctions to average web users, the ACTA treaty will also obligate ISPs to disclose personal user information to copyright holders. The measures introduce legislative processes that contradict the legal framework of participant countries and allows immigration authorities to search laptops, external hard drives and Internet-capable devices at airports and border checkpoints. The treaty is not limited solely to internet-related matters, ACTA would prohibit the production of generic pharmaceuticals and outlaw the use of certain seeds for crops through patents, furthering the corporate cartelization of the food and drug supply.

ACTA would allow companies from any participating country (which include EU member states, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Morocco) to shut down websites without any explanation. Hypothetically, nothing could prevent private Singaporean companies from promptly taking down American websites that oppose the Singapore Air Force conducting war games on US soil, such as those conducted in December 2011. By operating outside normal judicial framework, exporting US copyright law to the rest of the world and mandating private corporations to conduct surveillance on their users, all prerequisites of democracy, transparency and self-expression are an afterthought. 

The further monopolization of the existing resources of communication, exchange and expression is ever present in the form of deceptive new articles of legislation that unanimously call for the implementation of the same austere censorship measures. Even if the ACTA treaty is not implemented, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TTP) between Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Vietnam and the United States offers more extensive intellectual property regulations. Leaked documents prepared by the U.S. Business Coalition (which have been reportedly drafted by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufactures of America, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Motion Picture Association of America) report that in addition to ACTA-style legislation, the TTP will impose fines on non-compliant entities and work to extend the general period of copy write terms on individual products.

Under the sweeping regulations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, individual infringers will be criminalized and sentenced with the same severity as large-scale offenders. Within the United States, the recently announced Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) H.R. 3782 regulation seeks to install policies largely identical to SOPA and PIPA. The Obama administration is also working towards an Internet ID program, which may be mandatory for American citizens and required when renewing passports, obtaining federal licenses, or applying for social security. Spreading these dangerous measures to other countries participating in these treaties would necessitate a binding obligation on the US to retain these policies, averting any chance of reform.

The ACTA will become law once it is formally ratified and cleared by the European Parliament in June. By petitioning members of the European parliament and educating others about the potential dangers imposed by this legislation, there is a chance of the treaty being rejected. Upon closer examination of the human condition with all of its inequalities, food insecurity and dire social issues, our governments have lost their legitimacy for giving such unwarranted priority to fighting copyright infringement on behalf of lobbyists from the pharmaceutical and entertainment industries. The existence of ACTA is a clear statement that surveillance, regulations and securing further corporate centralization dwarfs any constructive shift towards stimulating human innovation and self-sufficient technologies.  

When former US National Security Advisor and Trilateral Commission co-founder, Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations in 2010, he warned of a global political awakening beginning to take place. Technology such as file sharing, blogging, and open source software has the potential to undermine the oligarchical governing interests seeking to centrally control our society and enforce the population into being entirely dependent on their commodities. The following excerpt from Brzezinski’s book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, provides invaluable insight into the world being brought in; “The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

Megaupload

Perhaps it was bigger than this - about internet freedom - trying out ACTA?

Is This The Real Reason Why MegaUpload Was Shut Down?

Forbes,24 January, 2012

The internet is up in arms over the federal crackdown of file-sharing website Megaupload, from irate blog posts to coordinated digital attacks on secure government servers. The move appeared to be a sort of governmental muscle flexing in the wake of the successful internet protest of SOPA and PIPA. But was there another reason? In the weeks before the crackdown, Megaupload was planning on launching a new music sharing website called Megabox that looked like it had the potential to completely transform music distribution, and even find a way to pay musicians in the process.

From TorrentFreak, via Digital Music News:

“UMG [Universal Music Group] knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings,” said MegaUpload founder Kim dotcom.

“We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free,” Dotcom said. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads.  The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works.”

This smacks a little of conspiracy theory, but there may be some truth to the timing. MegaUpload no doubt looked like a good target for FBI attention even before this new development,  considering it was prime hacker territory and its founder was living like a Colombian drug lord in New Zealand. But the timing seems a little serendipitous, especially since MegaUpload had even begun to acquire legitimate partners in the form of 7digital, Gracenote, Rovi and Amazon.

Anonymous fights back

There is a trend emerging. The once invincible (appearing) juggernaut of western, corporate, banking power is showing vulnerability in many places. The world has shown that it can just say no to continued military aggression and domination. And slowly the people of the world are realizing that it is possible to fight back, guerrilla-style. 2012 will certainly be a year of many protests and uprisings. Victories in preventing an attack on Iran and in stopping SOPA/PIPA are teaching that the 99% are not helpless victims. And this year will confirm the growing, underlying awareness that we really have nothing left to lose. -- MCR

ACTA has already been signed up to by New Zealand.  It remains to be seen how this will affect the outcome of the Kim Dotcom/Megaupload case here

Anonymous Targets World Governments in Wake of SOPA

Wired

Over the last week, Anonymous has launched unprecedented string of attacks on government and business sites around the world, as the anger of the hive that a year ago turned on Egypt’s Mubarak regime turned on governments around the world.

Continuous DDoSing and hacking attacks by Anonymous seems to be largely a response to proposals to strengthen intellectual property law at the expense of an open internet and to what Anonymous perceives to be overreaching of the power by various governments. After attacks on the websites of U.S. government agencies and major American rightsholder groups in response to arrests of employees of the file sharing site Megaupload, a new internationalist round started after a tweet by a high-profile Anonymous Twitter account, AnonyOps on Saturday:

If you hated #SOPA, you’ll burst into flames about #ACTA http://is.gd/Bo68r4 Negotiated in secret. iPod searches at border crossings.

The controversial treaty will be voted on soon in Poland, which made it convenient to turn the outrage against an American internet censorship bill and legal action toward a transnational proposal.

Anonymous banded together with digital activists in Poland to respond. Activists on Facebook have set up a physical protest and had “blackout” day Tuesday similar to the blackout to protest SOPA. Anonymous began to DDoS Polish governmental sites and claims to have hacked into ministerial computers and stolen documents.

The combination of anonymous attacks and Polish outrage has brought the obscure ACTA treaty back into the light and amplified the conversation in Poland about whether ACTA is  good for Poland and the Polish internet. While the Minister of Administration and Digitization Micha? Boni has said the signing of ACTA will go forward regardless of any threats from Anonymous or protestations from the Polish people, the treaty must still be ratified by the Polish Parliament to become law.

As Polish activists hit the street, some anons put out a statement that it was time to stop the DDoS, and as of this writing, DDoS against E.U. targets have dropped. On Wednesday, protestors by the thousands clogged streets in several Polish cities, chanting and carrying signs protesting the signing of the treaty tomorrow.

ACTA is a secretive treaty pushed and quite possibly in part penned by the same interests that just saw their plans for SOPA go up in internet flames — the entertainment industry. It’s never been subject to any public scrutiny, but leaked versions of it revealed a requirement for provisions like a three strikes law that could cut people off from the internet and a reversal of DMCA-style safe harbors that have allowed companies like YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Google to function.

The Obama administration have also said that the treaty doesn’t require congressional approval in the U.S., and will be implemented with an executive order. The lack of ability for the internet community to weigh in on laws that would deeply affect them has been frustrating.

“The whole government is basically being bought out in every facet,” said an anon on IRC involved with the anti-ACTA actions.

In France the movement to stop ACTA blossomed into over a thousand handles in the francophone channels of Anonymous irc servers, and DDoSes against French media empire Vivendi. Hundreds of French, Polish, and Portuguese speakers made the anonops servers more global than they’ve ever been.

Another part of the evolving mission has surfaced in Brazil, where crackdown on a shanty town called Pinheirinho has also provoked attacks from Antisec, as the violent eviction of more than 5,000 people moves into day four.

Brazilian hackers asked some of the black-hat anons to help them, and the anons claimed to have rooted dozens of boxes in Brazil, looting documents and handing the keys to the Brazilians.

“Antisec supported the Brazilians because they asked for help,” one anon told Wired in an online chat. “They consider themselves part of and fans of Lulzsec and Antisec.”

Among those hacked was a website of Organizações Globo, a large Latin American media conglomerate based in Brazil. One, newsletter.editoraglobo.com.br, thanked Sabu and #antisec, and went on to express what has perhaps become the zeitgeist of the internet in the last week: “What the fuck is happening in the world!”

According to Gabriella Coleman, Professor of Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy, McGill University, what’s happening is that a generation of people whose way of life is inseparable from the net see threats to their culture and are willing to fight.

“The op was rooted in some core issues that Anonymous and internet enthusiasts care deeply about: free speech, censorship, and intellectual property restrictions,” said Coleman.

It’s impossible to know how long the hive mind can keep up the energy and focus in the face of the power of the governments of the world. A lot depends on how much the citizens of affected countries support what Anonymous is doing in the coming months. Regardless, over the last few weeks Anonymous seems to be evolving into the net’s unified activist, the only force spanning nations, jurisdictions, protocols, and language barriers.

Since last Wednesday many anons have barely slept as they’ve moved from target to target, trying to down government and corporate sites or attack servers or even in some cases the personal computers of representative of governments. “But time is of the essence,” one anon told Wired on IRC, “and the battle never more important.”

They agreed this action was sparked by Megaupload, and fed by the success of the widespread internet protest against SOPA/PIPA, but that it went beyond those two issues. One anon had seen news of the arrests, and logged into a channel to rant, only to find operations already underway. This anon knew Anonymous was “going to go crazy.”

A1: I think it more then that, Megaupload had a valid service to us all

A2: and then just went and raided it anyway

A2: I mean that is one huge part

A1: we are mad at the fact that we lost a major system today

It turned out to not just be that one, as file hosting services in the last few days have been either voluntarily shutting down in advance of anticipated U.S. law enforcement action, or cutting off America and nations following American IP regimes.

One Antisec anon on IRC called it “a major threat to the cloud.”

“A site being shuttered through civil litigation is sort of the iron fist in the velvet glove approach,” said an anon involved both in DDoS and antisec actions on the anonops server. “The feds shutting down a site through law enforcement is the act of the velvet glove coming off the iron fist.”

In the midst of attacks, both legal and not, in France, Poland, America, Brazil, and others, the black-hat Antisec wing of Anonymous hacked and defaced OnGuardOnline.gov, a Federal Trade Commission website that brings together multiple federal agencies to distribute computer security information online. Antisec claims to have hundreds of servers rooted, but this one was meant as a specific message to so-called “white hats” — the hacker professionals who work for corporations and governments. Their announcement read in part:

#ANTISEC SEZ ITS SOPA/PIPA/ACTA RETALIATION TIME.

PASS THAT TRASH AND WE WILL RM HALF THE CORPORATE INTERNET… If SOPA/PIPA/ACTA passes we will wage a relentless war against the corporate internet, destroying dozens upon dozens of government and company websites. As you are reading this we are amassing our allied armies of darkness, preparing boatloads of stolen booty for our next raid. We are sitting on hundreds of rooted servers getting ready to drop all your mysql dumps and mail spools. Your passwords? Your precious bank accounts? Even your online dating details?! You ain’t even trying to step to this.

It’s not the first time the collective had tended toward dramatic and apocalyptic pronouncements, either out of hacker hubris or for the lulz, but the action has been more widespread and relentless than anything from Anonymous since its involvement with the Arab Spring. “It also shows that Anonymous is still able to tap a general feeling of discontent and amplify it visibly via the DDoS campaign and the PR material they churn out so quickly. What stuck out as different (in the recent ops) was just how many sites they took down in one day. It was impressively large,” says Coleman.

Anonymous replaced the homepage of the FTC-run OnGuardOnline.gov with this logo.

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission tweeted “The FTC takes this malicious act seriously” as part of a longer set of tweets on the subject. The security site remains down until its vulnerabilities are found and fixed.

And following the very expensive shutdown of Sony’s PlayStation Network last spring after hackers broke in and the embarrassment visited upon private intelligence firm Stratfor when activist hackers dumped data from their servers in December, the fear of Anonymous is now real in the corporate world.