[IRP] Update on ACTA signing and protests

[Raegan MacDonald]

Hi Everyone,

As you may know, it seems that the global protests against SOPA and PIPA
have led to a greater awareness about its "big brother", ACTA. Despite
widespread
protests in Poland <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16735219> about
it, the EU signed it in Japan earlier today (can you believe that there are
10 thousand people protesting *ACTA* in the streets of Poland!?)

However, it is important to remember that signing is not the same as
ratifying, and there's still hope - the final consent vote will be left to
the International Trade Committee (INTA) of the European Parliament in
May/June of this year. We started a
petition<https://www.accessnow.org/page/s/just-say-no-to-acta> back
in October (which got around 10,000 signatures), and in the past few days
it's seen over 200,000 signatures! We're hoping to get it to at least
500,000, in order for it to be most impactful for MEPs in the INTA
committee - please feel free to spread the word about it - we're also
translating the campaign into French, German, Spanish and Polish.

Also, in an unexpected (and extremely rare) turn of events, the lead
rapporteur on ACTA in the International Trade (INTA) Committee of the
European Parliament, French MEP Kader Arif, stepped down from his
position<http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21424-acta-demissionnaire-kader-arif-denonce-une-mascarade.html>,
saying he did not want to be part of this "charade" and that "everyone
knows it, ACTA will cause problems, whether its impact on civil liberties,
responsibilities it imposes on providers of Internet access, impact on the
manufacture of generic drugs and the lack of protection it offers to our
geographical indications."

I'm very curious to see how this will play out. On the one hand, it's
possible this could help other MEP's come forward against ACTA, but on the
other, it would have been great to have a "friendly" who felt so strongly
about ACTA responsible for this dossier. The choice of the next rapporteur
will also be important - if it falls into the hands of the EPP (Europe's
conservative party)... this will not play out well for us. I would be happy
to hear from others on what they think about this!

It's so strange that only a few weeks ago 'ACTA' and the like seemed to be
such obscure issues for most people, and now... they're protesting in
Poland? I am curious though about why Poland and not other Member States as
well?

Cheers,
-Raegan



-- 
Raegan MacDonald
Senior Policy Analyst
Access | AccessNow.org <https://www.AccessNow.org/>
e: raegan at accessnow.org
s: raeganlm
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