Even though the ACTA text is now finalized, getting details from national governments about what exactly happened during the negotiations is proving extremely difficult, with information still trickling out slowly.

The European Commission has said it was surprised by the scale of opposition to a global anti-counterfeit treaty, having underestimated the power of social media to mobilise protesters. [...]

“What is the power of the people? We saw it recently here in January and February when we suddenly realised that, in spite of the freezing temperatures, we had thousands of people in different squares in Europe protesting against Acta." [...]

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is a long-time opponent of the secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Today he introduced an amendment to a Senate "jobs bill" that would force ACTA to come before Congress for approval. A second amendment would make the US Trade Representative, which negotiates US trade deals, drop the veil of secrecy around its copyright and patent negotiations. [...]

Tienduizenden Europeanen kwamen afgelopen weekend op straat om te protesteren tegen ACTA, een omstreden handelsverdrag tegen piraterij en namaakproducten. Na Polen aarzelen nu ook andere Centraal-Europese landen en zelfs Duitsland om het verdrag te ratificeren.

Now that the EU's ratification of ACTA has departed from the original script of everyone just waving it through, the European Commission is clearly trying to come up with Plan B. Some insights into its thinking can be gained from the minutes (pdf) of a recent Commission meeting, pointed out to us by André Rebentisch. [...]

Verdwijnt ACTA terug in de ijskast? EU-commissaris De Gucht in de problemen…

De Europese Commissie is niet opgezet met de discussie over ACTA. Dat is de internationale handelsovereenkomst om namaak en piraterij te bestrijden. Het akkoord was bijna rond, maar dan plots zat er een haar in de boter. Eind januari kregen de Europese politici plots een stortvloed van protestmails vanwege tegenstanders van ACTA. De website van het Europees Parlement werd zelfs even plat gelegd door hacktivisten.

The Forum Zaghzagh Laburisti (FZL - Labour Party Youth Forum) said the Maltese government should withdraw its support for the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA).

“The issue lies in the vague way in which this treaty is written and we believe it grants excessive powers to an overruling ACTA Committee and toughens, beyond any reasonable measure, offences against copyright infringement,” the FZL said. [...]

Siamo nel pieno sviluppo dell’era digitale, e di progressi il genere umano ne ha fatti un bel po’. Grazie ad internet le persone possono conoscere il mondo, interagire con chiunque scambiando opinioni, merce o canzoni, addirittura si possono organizzare rivoluzioni contro regimi autoritari dispotici e corrotti, il tutto ad una velocità impressionante.

[...] On January 26, 2012, the Bulgarian government signed in Tokyo the international ACTA agreement, vowing to make downloading content similar to forgery of brands.
The agreement was sealed by Bulgarian ambassador to Japan Lyubomir Todorov, based on a decision by the Bulgarian cabinet taken hastily on January 11.
Transcripts from the meeting of the Council of Ministers from January 11 reveal that it had been Economy Minister, Traicho Traikov, who had made the proposal.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been characterised by a flawed process of negotiations based on a flawed rationale, which has resulted in a flawed agreement, argue Sophie Bloemen and Tessel Mellema from Health Action International Europe. One of the concerns now is that – designed to be a global norm-setting instrument - ACTA could deter generic competition of medicines around the world. [...]

http://www.euractiv.com/health/acta-access-medicines-flawed-process-rati...

Here's a clip of a Danish TV show discussing ACTA, which Denmark has fiercely advocated in favor of. It starts with the head of a rightsholder society and the Danish trade minister quoting dodgy statistics about the extent and cost of piracy, and then demonstrates that these statistics are patently false, and finally, brings out those responsible for quoting them and gets them to admit their errors. Priceless. [...]

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/08/danish-trade-minister-and-acta.html

In just two examples of internet censorship gone wrong, 92,000 innocent websites lost business and possibly also their good reputation. [...]

On 17th February 2011, RT reported that the US had mistakenly shut down 84,000 websites, wrongfully accused of having links to child pornography during a child porn raid. [...]

Unfortunately, in the process, they also mistakenly seized a large DNS service provider. This provider, owned by FreeDNS hosts some 84,000 domains - none of which are connected to child pornography. [...]

The government seems to be failing in its attempts to reassure people that the trade agreement ACTA will not close the free and open internet [...]

Protests against ACTA have been held in dozens of cities across Europe, sparked by fears that it will restrict internet freedom and choke the trade of lifesaving generic medicine. Several European countries have subsequently withdrawn their support, with the Slovenian ambassador to Japan even apologising to the future children of Slovenia for signing without “paying attention”. [...]

Bakom EU:s senaste initiativ mot piratkopiering finns starka ekonomiska intressen som vill bryta ner skyddsvallarna kring användarnas integritet på nätet. Det menar Jeremie Zimmerman på franska organisationen La Quadrature du Net. [...]

http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/nataktivisten-vara-fundamentala-rattigheter...