ACTA treaty is evil
The ACTA or Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement must be defeated at all cost. Jason Mick on Daily Tech writes “Championed by both former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama, the proposal is the child of countless millions in international lobbying money from the media industry. It aims to enact constant monitoring of citizens’ online activities — even perfectly legitimate ones — and grants border agents in the U.S. and many member states the power of warrantless search and seizures — provisions that would grant them the power to destroy U.S. citizens’ laptops, iPods, or CDs, if the agents suspected that they might contain infringed content. And the best part? The cost of the bill will be footed by the taxpayers themselves — without even giving them a clue as to what’s happening.”
Honestly could this be any more sinister. Somehow we as citizens must make sure this evil treaty never gets signed. It’s one thing to want to protect your intellectual property but it’s another thing to destroy every thing the United States and other like minded countries have fought long and hard for. Are we willing to let our freedoms be dictated to us by the media industry. I for one am not, we must do what ever we can to expose this scandalous treaty and according to the United States Constitution illegal treaty.
Again from Jason Mick - ” The treaty and the recent information on how the U.S. fought to keep it secret raises alarming questions about politicians at the highest level on both sides of the political aisle. Why would our nation’s leaders plot and champion a treaty that would raise citizens’ taxes in order to violate their constitutional rights, as a favor for major corporations? And more importantly, why would these leaders fight to keep the treaty secret, when transparency and public participation form the foundation of our nation? “
If you want to educate yourself on this dastardly treaty the EFF ” Electronic Frontier Foundation ” has amassed a huge list of information on the subject of he ACTA click here to read all about it. If you want to help shine some light on this secret and underhanded treaty go here and tell your elected officials what you think.
Net Neutrality not all it’s cracked up to be.
Since when will we all realize that when the government tries to regulate something anything they screw it up. Be that health care, the automobile industry or now the popular mantra of the technophiles Net Neutrality.
The FCC is currently drafting up these so call net neutrality laws and like all things good intentioned if the government get’s involved they drop the ball or in this case open up huge loopholes that will let ISP’s legally do what the rules where suppose to stop in the first place.
As Richard Esguerra of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains “Yet now that the FCC has formally issued draft net neutrality regulations, they have a huge copyright loophole in them — a loophole that would theoretically permit Comcast to block BitTorrent just like it did in 2007 — simply by claiming that it was “reasonable network management” intended to “prevent the unlawful transfer of content.” Please read more here.
Basically put ISP’s could still block “peer to peer” traffic just like they do now but thanks to Net Neutrality rules set forth by the government they now could do so legally and you would have no recourse no matter how legitimate your activities may be. Trust me the list of legal activities for peer to peer technologies is endless.
Let’s face facts the entertainment industry lobby has some deep pockets and have for years been trying to halt all types of illegal file sharing (well illegal in their eyes). However, the truth is no matter what anyone may think of this issue the movie industry had record profits last year and even had one movie make two billion world wide. They hardly have an argument that movie piracy is cutting into said profits. So why should our government help them turn ISP’s into copyright cops, a job the ISP don’t want and don’t want to have to pay for, a cost that will be passed down to the consumer, a cost these so called Net Neutrality laws are suppose to help curtail.
We need to let our ISP’s know what we want and how we want it by not giving them our money. We need to end the government controlled monopolies that let cable companies and telcos operate without competition, which my friends is the real root of the problem.
I have a different stance than many in the technological field and feel the net neutrality is a trap, yes ISP’s are evil and greedy. In America we pay to much for bandwidth, have way to many restrictions place on us, and have limited services. That being said I’d rather vote with my pocket book than let the government tell me or my ISP how, when, and where to surf.