ACTA, The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. A secret international treaty that a dozen countries are already on board for, Canada and the US included.

Negotiations have consistently been kept secret from both the public and directly elected politicians such as national parliaments. This practice is overly corrosive to democracy and is corrupting global society. The content of the treaty is with corporate lobbyists primarily connected to intellectual property rights industries, going under the name of cleared advisors, but the process respects neither the input of the public, nor other affected stakeholders such as ISPs. Effectively, a small part of parties affected by the treaty are allowed to give feedback and input on the text, something otherwise denied even members of parliaments.

The involved government figures are trying to create legislation and bypass any public review, knowing that they have academic consensus against them, and that once the treaty is signed it will be extremely hard to reverse!

Other contries will then be pressured into signing the treaty, but they will not have had any part in writing or ammending it. The treaty will strongly limit civil liberties, especially regarding access to knowledge and culture. These “agreements” are remarkably obstructive to developing countries that do not yet have a developed IP industry. We risk repeating the history of powerful nations’ colonization of underdeveloped countries. This is intellectual slavery.

The supposed content of the treaty aside, the process itself in which it is created and implemented in the global political framework is to be condemned and the treaty should be stopped and abolished, regardless of the content. No democratic country should be allowed to implement legislation in such way as it is about to happen with ACTA.

The way ACTA is implemented resembles a global dictatorship of certain industry branches in complete disregard for maintainable development of society, civil liberties and proper democratic due process. The sole purpose of this treaty is to implement extreme legislation on a global scale without any public participation.

This matter does not just affect the pirate parties but all democracy-respecting organizations. A world wide united front of freedom loving citizens is needed to impede this global assault against democracy and civil liberties of each and every human being.

We urge you to take this matter to the streets, your friends and families, and stop ACTA very soon or it may be too late!

Sincerely,

Jake Daynes
Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada/Chef du Parti Pirate du Canada<
Pirate Party International Task force Liaison for the PPCA