Is The US Meddling In Polish ACTA Voting?
from the how-dare-they? dept
With the immediate threat from SOPA/PIPA on hold, people have started to turn their attention to the long-running saga of ACTA. While it was being negotiated behind closed doors, few people knew about it, and protests against it were muted. Now that it has finally emerged into the open and begins its last dash towards the finishing line of ratification, the pace of anti-ACTA activism is beginning to pick up quickly. That's especially true in Europe, where everything hinges on the result of the European Parliament's vote on the treaty later this year. If it rejects it, ACTA is dead.
First we had the dramatic resignation of the European Parliament's "rapporteur" on ACTA, then the public apology of the Slovenian Ambassador to Japan for signing ACTA last week in Japan. Individual members of the European Parliament are also coming out against ACTA, notably the Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake, who has prepared an excellent briefing document on the subject, together with several Bulgarian MEPs. But without doubt, the main focus of anti-ACTA actions so far has been in Poland.
As Techdirt has reported, the first demonstration against ACTA took place in Warsaw, and some Polish politicians donned Guy Fawkes/Anonymous masks in parliament to express their displeasure at the Polish government's signing of the treaty. Even the Polish prime minister is trying to back-pedal. Meanwhile, the Polish "No to ACTA" Facebook page has gathered nearly half a million supporters.
Clearly, something very interesting is happening at all levels of Polish society as a result of ACTA, and someone else has noticed this too. According to a translation of a report on the Polish web site gazeta.pl:
"--It was around 11.00 in the morning when an employee from the US Embassy called. She was curious about the voting [on ACTA]. He has counted the votes and she thought some of the deputies were missing. Eight deputies were for, three against, four have held up. Something's wrong here, because some votes seem to be missing." -- said Mieczysław Golba from Solidarna Polska.
As another Polish politician explained:
"-- If the US embassy was just interested in the voting itself, it's okay with us. But questioning about party discipline is scandalous"-- says Sławomir Neumann from PO. -- "Americans should calm down a little, as such behaviour is an interference into the internal affairs of the Polish parliament. We can treat Americans as friends, but there are some borders that one shouldn't cross.We are partners, but not a parliament dependent on the Congress or the president's Obama administration."
Assuming this really was someone from the US embassy checking up on the whether Polish politicians were following the party line on ACTA -- there's been no independent corroboration yet -- it does seem pretty extraordinary. Judging by the generally outraged tone of the 1100+ comments on this piece, the Poles themselves don't seem very happy either. I think we can expect to hear much more about Poland's resistance to ACTA in the coming weeks.
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I am part Polish...
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Re: I am part Polish...
and how does this serve to progress the arts. Jokes are an art, right?
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Re: I am part Polish...
America... the most technologically advanced backwards thinking country in the world. It used to anger me how much of a decline we Americans have seen in our science programs and progress often at the behest of congress so we can continue all our "ideological wars" be it on terrorism, drugs and copyright. Looking at how we laud and embrace idiocy I feel like our decline as a world power can't come soon enough. We've gotten fat, lazy and far too self entitled for our own good. Let another country have it's golden age as we slide into our self induced technological dark age.
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Hmmm... Warsaw
Just think about that for a moment.
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Re: Hmmm... Warsaw
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Re: Re: Hmmm... Warsaw
not everyone see's poland as little more than a source of jokes ya know...
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Re: Re: Re: Hmmm... Warsaw
Perhaps he was alluding to the fact that Churchill had issued an ultimatum to the Nazis prior to WWII. Invade Poland, and it's war! Too bad we let them down at Yalta. Sorry Poland.
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Re: Hmmm... Warsaw
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Re: Hmmm... Warsaw
So glad someone in the comments noticed it already
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Oh oh. I guess I screwed up the whole no more Polish jokes thing.
My bad.
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you know what?
Start a petition for the white house to answer on:
Dear white house,
why are we meddling in the political affairs of a foreign country?
signed, the internet.
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Re: you know what?
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Re: Re: you know what?
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"No comment"
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Re: you know what?
Stay where you are, someone will be along to collect you soon. We have some questions about that lawn fertilizer you purchased last year. Also, those dodgy websites we've noticed you looking at
respectfully, your lord and master,
Uncle Sam."
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Re: you know what?
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Re: you know what?
Shut up! It's how we teach geography to US-ians. Sheesh!
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Re: you know what?
here is your petition!
http://wh.gov/k6r
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Bring on the Popcorn
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Re: Bring on the Popcorn
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As an American Citizen...
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What did the Poles expect?
Today, Poles are finding that a nation on the other side of the ocean can be just as intrusive and damaging to their sovereignty.
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Re: What did the Poles expect?
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Re: What did the Poles expect?
Sigh. Now that's depressing. It used to be just the Tsar or German Chancellor or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, the US is getting into the act?!?
To arms!
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Unfortunately, that sort of American appears to be in the minority, and your Hollywood Cabal has taken control of your gov't.
Sucks.
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Very cooI, I might even be going to Freiburg
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Re: Very cooI, I might even be going to Freiburg
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There own greed actually got in the way of their goals this time though. Had they waited on SOPA/PIPA, or been less adamant about ramming it through at all costs, ACTA most likely would have sailed through the system as little more than a distant blip on all but a small handful of radars.
Given the growing outrage of communities large and small, it will be interesting when knowledge of the ultra secret TPP negotiations begin to become far more widely known, and when details of those negotiation start to be ferreted out.
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I can't imagine this not being misdirection, really. It seems like an attempt to shift headlines to a bashing of the usa government, which is a popular target everywhere nowadays.
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Mob rule tactics --> give the mob a more tantalizing target. One must ask oneself why this is news, when it certainly isn't such an outrage, honestly. They called up and asked a question--is it really logical to be concerned or outraged about that in any way? Surely worse things have happened to these people before.
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Honestly - it's 'old news'. Media talked about it for one day (some days ago) and moved on. Personally, I don't think it's such a bad thing to enquire about what happens and what thae result of voting are. But questiong the validity of the voting, who was present, were there enough people for the voting to be valid - it seems to undermine the Polish authority over its own matters.
"Surely worse things have happened to these people before."
Surely, yes. But it doesn't mean thet 'less bad' things should be ignored.
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Finally some good news
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I'm not sure that we can truly understand the motives of the questioning, but to assume that the motives are bad--seems unreasonable. I think most everyone believes that:
"Clearly, something very interesting is happening at all levels of Polish society as a result of ACTA, and someone else has noticed this too." [quoted from this article]
At face value, questions are asked because an honest answer is expected. It must seem to many others, as it seemed to me, that there was a rush to pass ACTA before the public knew about it. I'd want to get to the truth of that as well.
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There was a great rush and secrecy. As I see it, our government signed ACTA to impress 'the big boys' and to have something to show off with at the end of Polish presidency in the EU.
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That has been "Standard Operating Procedure" from the outset. Secret negotiations, anything we "proles" knew about it came from leaks, & etc. This has been a highly undemocratic procedure with no oversight from us from the beginning, which we were simply expected to accept as an accomplished fact once done. In the USA, it's an Executive Agreement, not even vetted, nor challengable, by Congress!
Procedurally, it's smelled like rotten fish from day one. That should make anyone suspicious about what strings are being pulled, and by whom.
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STOP ACTA
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Re: STOP ACTA
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Nah. I think we Canucks have a lock on that spot, for what reason we've no idea.
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And it's quite simple to solve really. If their claims of the profitability of the illegal sites are true, and those sites really are so profitable, then what's stopping the Great Morons at Hollywood at creating the same kinds of websites, but then legal?
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Following it is the only option. There is no "choice" allowed here. It will be the law of the land, our politicians will have sold us out (or soon will be), and doing other than what it allows us to do is illegal infringement of Intellectual Property, right or wrong, whether we like it or not.
Do you think you have a right to use 21st Century culture? Can you back that up with a good lawyer, better than the *AAs lawyers?
I'm not even a pirate (I advocate boycotting them), but I see the slop over effects this will have on everyone, and it sickens me that the *AAs just have to buy a few Congressmen, and the Internet will be pleading for its right to exist or do anything useful for us.
I hate this century. On the other hand, go Poland! Yeah!
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We're going... we're going... but it's freezing here ;)
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