A slip of the tongue gives away CETA's influences from ACTA

You can't keep a good man down, and apparently you can't kill an act someone is determined to push through. If you remember SOPA, you might also remember the scale of the opposition. For one day, many sites went offline in protest. Then there was ACTA, and it too was given a loud response.

SOPA rose from the grave back in July but was swiftly executed for a second time. Now there's an attempt to bring ACTA back as CETA - the Canada-European Union and Trade Agreement. ACTA was concerned with copyright, but nobody online seemed to want ACTA.

Comparing the ACTA and CETA bills, there's a recurring theme in them. Both contain clauses about copyright, and identify punishments that could be dished out to those found to be breaking the law. The European Parliament rejected ACTA but they might not be able to do the same with CETA because part of the agreement is that the details remain secret for now. That cat left the bag a few months ago.

The weakest link in a secure chain is always the person handling the chain, and you can thank Philipp Dupuis for getting the word out. He's the European Commission negotiator so there's a fair chance he's off the Christmas card list this year among his colleagues. He bragged that CETA contained clauses straight out of ACTA, as acknowledged here.

Back when ACTA was making the rounds, 92% of the European Commission rejected it. You'd think that would have been enough of a middle finger to the concept, right? The Dutch certainly seem to think so, for they said from August that they wouldn't be interested.

It's funny how the people who want to pass this act by keeping the information on the down-low are now the ones bragging about it.