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EU continues to try and sneak ACTA back in through the backdoor

Towards the end of July 2012, a rather strange and surprising e-mail was sent from the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union to the Member States and the European Commission. The e-mail explained that the criminal sanctions provisions of the draft EU/Canada trade agreement are modeled on those in ACTA. This, the General Secretariat of the Council worries, presents a problem as, on the one hand, the conclusion and implementation of CETA are a declared priority of the Union while, on the other, the European Parliament will need to be asked to approve the final text of the Agreement.

Member States told EDRi they were baffled by the e-mail. On the one hand, after all the controversy surrounding ACTA, they could not understand why such a blunt e-mail was sent in the first place. After all of the leaks surrounding ACTA, a more subtle message would have been logical. Secondly, after the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, the task of coordinating such policies is now the responsibility of the Commission, so it was not clear why the Council took it upon itself to even ask the question.

Member States are not the only ones that are somewhat surprised by the Council's e-mail – the European Commission told the press only two weeks previously "that language being negotiated on CETA regarding Internet is now totally different from ACTA." Has the Council been given the wrong draft of CETA? This seems like the only possible explanation. After everything that happened with ACTA, it hardly seems possible that the Commission would be seeking to mislead the public.

Many Member States still do not understand the political problems that surrounded ACTA and are therefore generally not opposed to provisions from ACTA being put into CETA. However, only two Member States clicked on "reply all" when responding to the Council's e-mail – one was a well-known supporter of ACTA from western Europe and, surprisingly, the other was one of the "new" Member States from South-East Europe.

The response from the South-East European member state also raised opposition to the inclusion of camcording in the draft Agreement. Camcording is such a non-issue that it was abandoned by the negotiating parties in ACTA, so it is bizarre that even stronger wording has now made its way into CETA. Even more strange is that a policy has found its way into the draft EU/Canada trade deal that is neither an EU policy nor a Canadian policy, but a US one. Michael Geist points in a blog post to a Wikileaks cable where the US described as "disingenuous" a Canadian claim that their anti-camcording legislation was an independent policy change that was not the result of lobbying pressure from the US.

• EU ignores will of the people after ACTA was rejected.
• Michael Geist blog: Wikileaks Cables Show Massive U.S. Effort to Establish Canadian DMCA.
• ACTA's Back: European Commission Trying To Sneak In Worst Parts Using Canada-EU Trade Agreement As A Trojan Horse.

Belarusian authorities harass online opposition groups

As elections in Belarus approach, independent or pro-opposition journalists and Internet users are harassed by the Belarusian authorities, pressured and even put to jail. The mobile phone company BelCel blocked access to the pro-opposition news websites Charter97 and BelPartizan.

Reporters Without Borders:

"The call for an election boycott by some opposition figures has joined the long list of subjects that are off limits. Those who mention the boycott, such as opposition groups on social networks, are immediately sanctioned. It is illusory to talk of free elections in such a media environment."

A Fanboy Defends Apple's Neo-Mercantilist Course

Apple was once a technology company, but instead of continuing to innovate, Apple is now more and more becoming dependent on the government to help keep its competitors out of the market. Apple's neo-mercantilist moves against Samsung are a good example of this.

Where Steve jobs once said:

We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas

Apple now uses patents to keep its competitors from selling and developing products.

In his article "From Innovation to Rent Seeking", Doug French comments on the madness that is Patents And Copyright:

Instead of spurring innovation, IP [Intellectual Property] appears to be a rat's nest of litigation. For example, Google's chief legal officer, David C. Drummond, estimates that a modern smartphone might be susceptible to as many as 250,000 potential patent claims.

Today, Apple Fanboy Jason D. O'Grady, entirely misses the point and tries to defend Apple's despicable tactics in an article that looks more like an advertisement for Apple than the work of someone with at least a tiny bit of journalistic integrity.