Posted on 04/15/2013 10:29:16 AM PDT by JustSayNoToNannies
The EU Commission decided to keep the trade agreement with Singapore secret until it enters into force in order to avoid pressure that may prevent it’s passing from the European Parliament according to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII).
FFII analyst Ante Wessels says: "The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted down the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) after citizens pointed out it would violate their human rights. This time the Commission hopes to have a 'better result' by keeping the text secret until it enters into force. This is nothing less than an assault on democracy. Without democracy, the union becomes an empire led by technocrats, disregarding human rights. The union is entering a dark era."
In December 2012 EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and Singapore's Minister of Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang completed final negotiations on a free trade agreement between the European Union and Singapore.
The FFII wanted to analyse whether the text of the agreement is compatible with human rights enshrined in the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The FFII noted the Commission had not published the text and asked where it could be found.
EU Trade Spokesperson John Clancy wrote to the FFII: "Only if there is a positive 'yes' vote by the EP does the agreement come into force and the text becomes 'legal' and is published," a process that may take between 18 months and 2 years.
As a result, FFII says, European and Singaporean citizens will not be able to scrutinize the text and provide input to parliaments. It will not be possible to make a human rights impact assessment. Parliaments will not be able to openly discuss the agreement, they will have to adopt or reject a secret text.
We're doomed!
Some Singaporeans may be - we have no way of knowing.
They had to enact the agreement, in order to find out what is in the agreement
It's Crazy if people think they can make things there cheaper than Texas. Unless you are using Singapore as a stepping stone to move jobs to Malyasia or Indonesia, you are screwed.
If someone plans to outsource your manufacturing job to singapore, It may be for the best. You are working for idiots, anyway.
Even if the terms were secret?
ROTFL!
I didn't know counterfeiting was a human right?
They are rapidly going from a seller to a buyer. American companies are still moving American jobs there, but in less than 5 years they'll all realize it was cheaper to do the work in the US... oops. The only way the numbers for singapore add up is when you factor in the Solyndra/Fisker style Singapore Government kickback money and even Obama realizes that can't last forever.
The US exectutives that offshored jobs to Singapore will pay themselves big bonuses for their stupidity, I'm sure, then say to each other "nobody saw that coming" when their profits evaporate.
I didn't know counterfeiting was a human right?
"An open letter signed by many organizations, including Consumers International, European Digital Rights (EDRi, an umbrella group for 32 European civil rights and privacy NGOs), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ASIC (French trade association for Web 2.0 companies), and the Free Knowledge Institute, states that "the current draft of ACTA would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy."[106] The Free Software Foundation argues that ACTA will create a culture of surveillance and suspicion.[107] Aaron Shaw, Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, argues that "ACTA would create unduly harsh legal standards that do not reflect contemporary principles of democratic government, free market exchange, or civil liberties. Even though the precise terms of ACTA remain undecided, the negotiants' preliminary documents reveal many troubling aspects of the proposed agreement" such as removing "legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers" in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions. Shaw further says that "[ACTA] would also facilitate privacy violations by trademark and copyright holders against private citizens suspected of infringement activities without any sort of legal due process".[108]
"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published "Speak out against ACTA", stating that the ACTA threatens free software by creating a culture "in which the freedom that is required to produce free software is seen as dangerous and threatening rather than creative, innovative, and exciting."[107] ACTA would also require that existing ISPs no longer host free software that can access copyrighted media; this would substantially affect many sites that offer free software or host software projects such as SourceForge. Specifically, the FSF argues that ACTA will make it more difficult and expensive to distribute free software via file sharing and P2P technologies like BitTorrent, which are currently used to distribute large amounts of free software. The FSF also argues that ACTA will make it harder for users of free operating systems to play non-free media because DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free software.[107]
"On 10 March 2010, the European Parliament adopted a resolution[109] criticizing the ACTA with 663 in favor of the resolution and 13 against, arguing that "in order to respect fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy" certain changes in the ACTA content and the process should be made.[109]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement#Threats_to_freedom_and_fundamental_human_rights
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