> > Dear MLUG, > > Although I am not a legal person, I have read the ACTA document and I > have a number of issues with the treaty. I have even written to the PM > requesting a referendum on the treaty, because as the matter has now been > polarised, it is virtually impossible to retreat the treaty now. His reply > is that there we should await for the EP approval and then the Parliament > discussions. At best the PM does not seem too enthusiastic about ACTA (and > who is?). > > I have written to Simon Busuttil asking him whether there will be any > changes to our criminal laws due to ACTA. He has not replied yet. > > Having said that we should note that we are just geeks. Our area of > interest is limited to the OS that we all love, and maybe some other > related "hacks" like BSD and so on. Venturing in legalistic issues related > to availability of drugs or whether ACTA is too harsh on consumers is > perhaps beyond us. Nevertheless, it is scandalous how ACTA does not provide > one single measure wherein the rights pertaining to the public (including > GPL software) is not to be misappropriated by Industry giants. Neither does > it provide enough safeguard against patent trolls while 16 year olds > hacking their hard-earned Iphones would face criminal charges. > > The Internet is free. What exists on the Internet does not belong to any > single entity, thus on a philosophical level, no-one should have the right > to restrict anyone's access to the Internet in any way. There may be > exceptions to known criminals, but a treaty that enforces preemptive data > monitoring would be a grave step back to a totalitarian dictatorship. > > I conclude that that despite that I cannot endorse all that was written in > the PR, I would approve to include my name in this group of organisations > that are objecting to the ACTA, even at the cost of being brandished as a > socialist by some hard-liners who will insult everyone who is in their > path. We have to be mentally prepared for some flak. Our ideology > transcends socialism. We follow Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, not > Marx or Lenin. We do not dream of a utopic state, we simply follow an OS > that drives the Internet and has been deployed everywhere, even in outer > space. We use an OS that defied the laws of economics. The same laws that > have landed us in this fine mess. > Chris > > > > >
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