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European NGO FFII Opposes Stealth Legislation, Demands ACTA Documents Be Made Public

By Robin Gross

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has requested 12 secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents from the EU Council. Behind closed doors, the EU, US, Japan and other countries are negotiating ACTA. The negotiating parties plan on making the ACTA text public only after the parties have agreed to it. Based on leaked information, the FFII is deeply concerned that ACTA may give patent trolls further means to extort companies, lead to monitoring all citizens' Internet communications and criminalize peer-to-peer electronic file sharing. Parliaments and the public are in the dark about ACTA. Stakeholders, experts and public interest organisations can not scrutinize ACTA documents. Both the European Parliament and the member states of the EU have vetoes on aspects of ACTA. FFII analyst Ante Wessels says: "Parliaments cannot build an informed opinion about ACTA and therefore will not be well prepared to use their power."

Full post as published by IP Justice on November 03, 2008 (boomark / email).