Its not just joe public who has reason to fear the content mafias attempt to monopolise the internet, now politicians are waking up to the danger.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081003-key-senators-oppose-drm-isp-filtering-in-secret-acta-treaty.htmlWorries about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently being drawn up in secret by the Bush administration are sometimes portrayed as "Chicken Little" concerns. Certainly, the US Trade Representative's office tried to ease everyone's mind last week with a public meeting about the treaty's progress, but it's not just digital rights groups like the EFF and Public Knowledge that are staring in horror at the sky. Even Congressional backers of the PRO-IP Act are demanding that ACTA be slowed and that a final agreement not include ISP or DRM provisions.
In a letter sent to Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) laid into the ACTA negotiating process. "We strongly urge you not to permit the agreement to address issues of liability for service providers or for technological protection measures," says the letter. "As technology is not static, Congress must have the ability to tailor the law as developments warrant."
Most of the concerns are about the limits ACTA could put on "Congress's ability to make constructive policy changes in the future." But the concerns are compounded by "the lack of transparency inherent in trade negotiations" and the "speed with which the process is moving."
If something being rushed through you have to ask two important questions, who is doing the pushing and "wheres the catch", as unfortunately there always is one and there are it seems no friends in politics.
