Thursday, April 22, 2010

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement


The United States along with several other nations participate in drawing up a new agreement. It is named ACTA, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA’s use will be to assist in shutting down counterfeiting, copyright violations and intellectual property theft. ACTA will change some of the current liberties that exist on the internet. ACTA will cover a vast range of properties, including counterfeit medicine and illegal music downloads. Many skeptics are concerned with the changes that may result from the creation of ACTA by limiting free speech on the internet. Some sites report of leaks of early ACTA documents which may force internet service providers to actively monitor transfers whether they have any illegal software, etc. that may be being circulated. The companies would also be forced to disable access to customers who violates the ACTA. Examples cited were companies which were liable for user created content. Google executives were criminally responsible for hosting a video of an autistic teenager that was bullied.

I believe the ACTA should not be passed even though it strengthens intellectual property rights, protects against piracy, etc. The reason why I would not support ACTA is the invasion of privacy violated in the Bill of Rights. Most of the disagreeable portions I found were linked with internet changes. I do not think the government should require companies to monitor what we do. The government has no reason to suspect every single person on the internet to be criminals. This is a clear violation of the right to privacy when the government proceeds to monitor what we download or upload. There is no probable cause for the government to search for illegal materials.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/20/business/AP-US-TEC-Copyright-Trade-Agreement.html

http://www.eff.org/issues/acta

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