Saturday saw 500 or more (mostly) young people don their Anonymous masks and demonstrate their general anti-ism against ACTA and the international conspiracy of (as Edward Scicluna would have it) the monsters behind it. The interviews posted on the Times of Malta (see video on link) website simply confirmed the blindness of the protesters as interviewee after interviewee regurgitated slogans of the weakest, unfounded kind. There was the geezer who pointed out that we “already have enough regulation of the internet …. case in point the Megaupload case” (my transcription but he did say Caseinpoint).
What effin’ case in point? Kim Schmitz, or as he likes to be known Mr Dotcom the Megaupload magnate was arrested in New Zealand in a raid requested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The laws he is alleged to have violated are US laws. This is not one individual trundling through customs with an MP3 player full of (illegally) downloaded music. More to the point the “case in point” relates to events and laws that are not even EU laws let alone Maltese. As I mentioned in the previous post ACTA is doomed for the simple reason that it was badly timed and badly marketed and not for its content.
ACTA has become a parody of itself. It is not just in Malta that ACTA has lost any of its original significance and has been hijacked to become the latest battleground in the battle of perceived injustices and evils. I am still curious about the major assumption being made about the “behind closed doors” drafting of this technical agreement : what now, shall we sit on the desk of lawyers as they draft contracts just in case someone (who?) is arcanely implanting hidden messages ? Who exactly anyway? Is it Opus Dei? The Elders of Zion? Minnie Mouse?
Sure – as in all political issues there are different lobbies with different interests. Sure, the music and entertainment industry would make a pact with the devil to get their own way if they could. Sure, industrial lobbying always needs to be counterbalanced by pressure groups from civil society. Incidentally has someone bothered to look up the difference between “signature” and “ratification” of an international agreement or did the evil smelly monsters blot out those pages on the internet?
It’s just that this whole business of playing the man not the ball is just as dangerous as any possible fascist law controlling expression… and that is what many are failing to distinguish. The failure to tackle the content of the proposed agreement and the obvious effort to dilute available (free) information with info scaremongering of the cheapest order is just as big an assault on democracy and expression as someone finding the off-switch to the internet. Yes. To all of it.
