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§ Where are all the bad laws coming from?

One of the worst things you can find in your home is the surface signs of fungal growth, especially the fruiting bodies of “dry rot”. The fungus itself is bad enough, but its appearance tells you something even more worrying; that the structure of the building is riddled with an invisible infection. The first thing you see is the terrible fungi; they tell you it’s time to treat the infection.

For a considerable time, we have been seeing the “fruiting bodies” appearing all over the world’s legislatures. Country after country has seen smart politicians attempting to introduce laws that are complex for the average citizen to understand. They sound plausibly necessary when famous musicians or media impresarios call for a cure for “theft” and beg us all to think of them, in rags on the streets in retirement busking to live because organised criminals with baby faces have stolen their birthright.

As these laws started appearing apparently randomly across the world, it became obvious that they were in some way orchestrated. They were not random; they were the expressions of something unseen connecting them. An unseen thing, purposely hidden so that we can’t easily apply treatment to it.

Looking at the fruiting bodies helps. They include:

• Strengthening laws around the infringement of patents, copyrights and trademarks so that in some cases criminal rather than just civil penalties can be levelled against them.
• Introducing “graduated response” laws so that people accused of online infringements of copyright can be thrown off the net quickly.
• Requiring content filtering so that certain kinds of content – usually framed as sociopathic – can be controlled
• Making ISPs responsible for the content carried on their networks
• Making circumvention of technical measures that lock features and functions illegal, even if the goal of doing so is legal (like the US DMCA)

Rarely all seen at once (the UK’s Digital Economy Bill being an exception), all of these seem to me to stem from the same place. They are appearing in a group of nations with strong media, pharmaceutical, consumer electronics or software lobbies. They are being promoted by government ministers sympathetic to the needs of one or more of these lobbies.

I theorise they are all appearing now because they are actually the advance groundwork for a much more serious construction project. They all relate to provisions of ACTA, the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” being prepared in conditions of the greatest secrecy. The various governments peppering their legislative programmes with these laws know that ratification of the whole of ACTA in one swallow will be too much, so they are each aiming now to get what they think will be the least palatable elements for their country in place well in advance.

When the time comes, the apologists for ACTA will then be able to claim that it is not a wave of new legislation designed to shore up the business models of 20th century corporations at the expense of 21st century innovation and third-world needs. Instead they will claim ACTA merely “harmonises existing law globally”.

That’s why we can’t be allowed to see the drafts of the agreement. If we did, we’d recognise it as the blueprint for all this bad law. But we know enough now to start to take action, not just against the fruiting bodies but against the infection itself. If you live in Europe you can take action by contacting your MEP and asking them to sign the written declaration expressing concern over ACTA, supported perhaps by mentioning the position on ACTA taken by Europe’s Data Protection Supervisor. Now would be a good time.

Filed under: ACTA | Tagged: ACTA, Europe, Three Strikes |