[Chapter-delegates] [European-chapters] Action needed: voting on ACTA at the European Parliament

Mon Jan 30 17:38:17 PST 2012

Dear Frederic, all,

thanks for the mention on the Mexican part of the ACTA story. 

Briefly what we managed to do was to cooperate with many organizations but particularly with individuals. Blogs and tweets were our main communicaiton tools. Articles and blog entries by myself. Leon Felipe Sanchez (our delegate to INET, introducer of Creative Commons to Mexico), and others, in loose coordination, were touchstones. The spectrum runs from Pirate Party activists to pretty conventional intellectual-property lawyers who saw the anti-constitucional aspects, the technical follies, and the procedural and secrecy problems. 

One way things backfired globally is that opposition to specifics made the ACTA negotiators remove those specifics so now you have less of a target (things like 3-strikes etc. are gone; you only have a couple clauses in, I think, Article 27, which invite governments to put ISPs in undue roles and otherwise short-circuit due process; these were the ones the Senators held to.)

The ISPs are unhappy with this kind of provisions so again, we had loose coordination with industry. We totally refused to be seen as their pawns. We managed to produce a Senate decision to form a Plural Technical Working Group on ACTA which held sessions with all parties. Some got heated. They are all on record (in Spanish) if you want them. 

One must not go after ACTA-the-Agreement only but also address secondary laws and all that countries (and in your case, the EU and EP) can do without ACTA. HADOPI and Ley Sinde are examples. We have confronted (successfully) a digital-levy and a 3-strikes initiatives and are confronting two new initiatives right now. One is ***expliicitly*** put forward by the intellectual-property authorities as a substitute for ACTA. 

The "ACTA spirit" is what we need to address. For ISOC I think it is inappropriate to become a kind of #OccupyACTA but the role of adamantly pointing out the troubles and demanding, proposing, and pioneering a global, comprrehensive reformulation of the issues, with ample room for innovation, is appropriate.

Glad to be of use to any of you. If interviews, papers, etc. can be useful we can participate or find them for you. I'm sure our legislators will accept invitations to speak. We are not looking for a protagonistic role of the chapter itself; self-effacement helped manage risks and keep the high moral ground. Technical knowledge and loyalty to principles of the technical design of the Internet are where we start from and where we end.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .  .
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Tels. +52-(1)-55-5105-6044, +52-(1)-55-5418-3732

*Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
*LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
*Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
*Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
 Participa en ICANN, http://www.icann.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

________________________________________
Desde: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org [chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] en nombre de Frederic Donck [donck at isoc.org]
Enviado el: lunes, 30 de enero de 2012 08:34
Hasta: European Chapters
CC: Delegates Chapter; Vande Walle Patrick; jozef.halbersztadt at gmail.com; Wilkinson Christopher; ISOC Chapter Support
Asunto: Re: [Chapter-delegates] [European-chapters] Action needed: voting       on ACTA at the European Parliament

Dear All

Thanks for your mails re: ACTA in Europe, as well as the pointers which you have referred to and your many suggestions to engage collectively. This is very timely and extremely useful.
We totally agree and we too believe that a concerted action towards MEPs will prove very efficient at this stage as the EU Parliament will be at the centre of this debate in Europe in the coming weeks.
This said, the biggest challenge will also take place at *national* level (as recently evidenced by the Polish situation, among others) and this is where your engagement with local authorities will be instrumental as well.
So, this is the scenario which we would propose as a next step:

1. In coordination with ISOC Policy team, we will draft an overall message for the MEPs in advance of their many meetings in the coming weeks. And we will share it with you all, on the European Chapters list with a view to finalize our global message.
Action: ISOC to draft and circulate overall message to MEPs.
2. In the next coming days, the EU Bureau shall collect the list (names, addresses, committees, nationality, Party affiliation) of all the MEPs who will be involved in the ACTA discussion in the coming weeks. We know that the INTA (International Trade Cttee of the European Parliament) has the lead within the EP, but many other committees will be drafting their own opinion (Legal Affairs, Development, Civil Liberties and Industry) so the objective will be to reach those MEPs as well.
Action: The EU Bureau shall circulate a list which can be easily used by each of us, i.e. broken a.o. by nationality so that each chapter can easily reach their own national representatives within the EP, in their own language, on top of our global message. This should maximize the impact of our global engagement at both EU and national level.
3. The EU Bureau shall obtain clarification on a complete timeschedule, in particular the deadlines for the EP committess' opinion and will circulate it on this list.
4. We will monitor the EU situation and invite you to do it as well at national level and exchange on this list, going forward. Many chapters have already engaged at local level in Europe (Slovenia, Luxembourg, UK, Poland, etc.) and we would of course benefit from everybody's feedback. For sure, we would also benefit from chapters experience outside of Europe and this is why I have opened the current list to the global chapters delegates list (sorry the redundancy) I have in mind, among many others, the very important role which Alejandro and other members of ISOC Mexico have played in informing the Mexican Senate re: ACTA. So, any advise re: their successful local engagement is highly welcome.
5. Last but not least, the EU Bureau is in the process to organise a F2F meeting in March where ISOC (Policy and Bureau) will be meeting with the Danish Presidency and some key stakeholders in Brussels (incl. relevant MEPs). I shall keep you informed of the progress re: this meeting in due course.

I hope this scenario works for you all and, in the meantime, we will need to keep each of us informed at all stage of the process going forward and we welcome any further suggestions.
Thanks again for your engagement and we look forward to engaging in the next steps with you all

Best Regards
Frederic

Frederic Donck
Director European Regional Bureau
Internet Society

www.isoc.org

Le 28 janv. 2012 à 11:57, Patrick Vande Walle a écrit :

> Hello to all, and especially Frédéric,
>
> Does ISOC, together with the European chapters plan to alert the MEPs on the danger of the ACTA treaty ?
>
> I think the potential to see this blocked by the EP is real. Many MEPs are unhappy with the way have been excluded from the discussion. The rapporteur from the Parliament has resigned in protest.
> What still needs to be done is to convince the unaware or skeptic MEPs that ACTA is a real danger both for Net neutrality and for freedom of expression.
>
> I am sure lawyers will be able to demonstrate that some provisions in the treaty are incompatible with the European charter on fundamental rights. Still, there is room for ISOC to make its voice heard. We have been very successful on SOPA/PIPA lately in the US. I trust we can do the same on ACTA in Europe.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Patrick
> _______________________________________________
> European-chapters mailing list
> European-chapters at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/european-chapters

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