ACTA- a reality!

In Swedish “akta” means beware. That is really what we have to do right now in these times of “over the state” negotiations done by huge multinational companies together with negotiators from EC and the US under strict confidentiality.

If you need more neutral information about it read here (link to Wikipedia), before you proceed. I you remember it Wikipedia did have a black out the 18^th of January to show what might happen if ACTA and SOPA becomes a reality, but that should not affect the article because there everything have to be neutral written. On Wikipedia one user has made a list of everything he could find about ACTA in both Swedish and English, both neutral and NPOV. That list for even more information is here.

The purpose of the ACTA seems to be good-to stop copies of programs and music that is not bought, so called pirate copies. Why is this ACTA then such a bad thing?.

1 You might loose your internet connection without a court decision, if a company thinks you have illegal stuff on your computer. Then it is up to you to prove they are wrong.

2 This might happen with internet companies too, if they have servers. They might be stopped even if it is not they who uploaded it to the server. Just look what happened to Megaupload. They had some illegal programs (according to FBI). The owner was put in jail and the servers where closed. Now the companies who started this wants to erase everything on the servers without people being able to get their own private things back (that might be private movies and photos from vacations), this even if the domstol isn't ready yet. Why do they want to erase evidence? Maybe there were not as much illegal stuff as they thought? No matter what- They are stealing from the up-loaders!

3 The costums will be able to control all computers and USB-sticks while you travel abroad. This means they might use it for industrial espionage (something that the US would like to do, I'm sure), but it will also be a humiliation for us ordinary people.

4 If you own equipment that might be used for piracy copying the police will be obligated to confiscate it. WHAT? Every computer now a days have R/W DVD-players (DVD-plyers able to copy files). If that part becomes true I don't know what will happen!!!

The list could be even longer, but I stop there to get on with the real story about ACTA.

Sweden has signed ACTA, that we are willing to use it when it is ready. That was done in Japan by our ambassador, Lars Vargö, educated in Japanese and orient history, but nothing about computers. As DN writes (Swedish link) some of the Swedish politicians, like Christian Engström, sitting in the EU did not know anything about the signing! They who are meant to take decision! That is pretty scary.

Those who have written the ACTA are companies, not states!

On Saturday 4^th of February at 12:00 there will be a demonstration aganist ACTA at Sergels torg in Stockholm. When I looked at the event in facebook there were  9 400 person saying they will come, and rising. Hopefully this will show the parliament of Sweden what the people thinks about it.

SOPA, Christian right and Censoring

Censoring is a popular activity among groups having their own beliefs, but are troubled by what the science reveals. I wrote about it in the Hypathia article, and among other countries the country of freedom, USA, did their best to prevent the film to be shown.

They, USA, have their Christian right (opposite of left). They are very concerned about the evolution theory and tries by all means to stop it and other scientific proved issues. Here are three of their atempts.

Creationistic science books

In the US there are approved to educate the children at home, or put them in religious schools. There are not much controll of the home education and the religious schools are not controlled as hard as in Sweden (I have worked in a muslim school in Sweden...I did teach about the real evolution and about the sexuallity. No problems). There are even school books written in pure creationistic views, harming the children by not letting them see what others believe. Thank God (?) there exists people like the one who writes the blogg 11 points to make others be aware of what is happening. It is dangerous, and 45 seconds into this video you'll see the result.

Intelligent design equal to the evolution

In 2005 the Kansas state board of education tried to discredit the evolution by introducing the ID:s teaching method. One student at the Oregon state University, Bobby Henderson, wrote an open letter to the board saying he wanted to have equal time for his religion too. Noone had ever heard of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster, and the board did not answer. Bobby published the letter on the net, and it became a success! The board lost the case. Thanks Bobby!

SOPA

SOPA is, according to what they write, something to protect copywrite materials. As it works it also helps the christian right to be able to use the SOPA-law to try to stop web pages with materials they do not like. Wikipedia for instans will probably be one of the first pages to be closed. Even other pages that are not having any illegal materials on it will maybe be forced to closed just because they links to a page with illegal materials, according to Lennart Guldbrandsson (Swedish link) on the Swedish Wikimedia. As a result of this, and to try to succeed as good as Bobby and 11 points did, the english Wikipedia will have a total blackout 18th of January to show what will come if we let the US censor the internet. Here are the English wikimedia explanation.
What is a little bit confusing is why the US where talking about "Freedom of speech" during the Arabian spring", while themselves tries to stop those rights.


Lets hope our army of scientists and people searching for the truth will be able to stop this and make the world enter a new era. I think of Richard Dawkins (evolution), Simon Singh (fighting against the chiropractics) and VOF (Swedish sceptics) and many more.

Wikipedia soon closing down?

Once again wikipedia (and also youtube etc) are at risk for closing down due to some silly law... It is the SOPA-law that might harm a free internet.

Right now the different wikipedia-languages are discussing to close down for a while to show the US what might be the aftermatch for implementing this law. (But it seems like it will only be the English closing and maybe the rest showing there support by writing on a banner or something like that. What will happen in the different wiki's are something they decide and I can not check on everyone)

Some people might think it is right... "Just close every web-page that contains illegal things, (copywright)". Well is it so easy? In Sweden we have a law saying that if an author died for more than 70 years ago his/hers books are public domain and free to publish! Great, we have project Runeberg working hard to publish old litterature and newspapers from the nordic countries. Here is the problem: According to a law in the US are material like that protected for 95 years... making a lot of wikipedia articles and very much of project Runebergs material illegal in the US (country of freedom?)!!! For example the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf.
Sweden are then illegal and they will have to close webpages linking to these free online-sorces...

That was just an example to show how harmfull this new law might be for the world. The government in the US are the multinational companies little pet doing everything they say to get a small piece of the money-cookie. We in the rest of the world can't stop it, but I hope the thinking people in the US will do something and not just let the brainwash proceed (why am I not surprised THAT link to an article on wikipedia is dealing with matters in the United States?).