UK Police Launch Campaign to Shut Down Torrent Sites

City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for “criminal gain.” The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years.

Authorities and entertainment industry companies in the UK are working together on a new initiative which targets sites said to be offering copyrighted material without permission, TorrentFreak has learned.

The first signs came last week when a major torrent site received a letter from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), a unit set up following the Government’s National Fraud Review. The unit has a mission to identify serial offenders and organized crime gangs in order to disrupt their activities.

The letter (copy below), sent to “The owners and/or operators of the website known as ‘XXXXX’,” states that the NFIB has become particularly concerned by websites causing harm to the UK’s creative economy.

SOURCES: http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-launch-campaign-to-shut-down-torrent-sites-130604/

F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA"

[Original LINK]

B.C. teen arrested for photographing mall takedown

Lawyer says guards and police have no right to demand people's cameras

Security guards pin a man at Metrotown mall in an incident that led to a confrontation with the photographer. (Jakub Markiewicz)

A B.C. teen who aspires to be a journalist says his rights were violated when he was set upon by security guards and then arrested by police after photographing an incident at Metrotown shopping mall in Burnaby, B.C.

Jakub Markiewicz ,16, said he was in the mall in September and took a picture of what he thought was a newsworthy event — a man being arrested by security guards.

But Markiewicz said the guards quickly turned on him, demanding he delete the photo, which he couldn’t do because he was shooting on a film camera.

Markiewicz said he turned to leave the mall and then snapped a second shot as RCMP arrived.

US Military Designates Julian Assange an "Enemy of State"

First time accepted submitter Cute and Cuddly writes in with some new Julian Assange news."The U.S. military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States — the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with 'communicating with the enemy.'"
Source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/27/0020227/us-military-designates-julian-assange-an-enemy-of-state

Save the Internet!

Here's the link to petition: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa/?cJPImcb

Here's the link to send message to facebook, IBM, microsoft: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa_global_action_center/?via2440

Fight for the Future: http://fightforthefuture.org/

Priacy is Awesome! : http://www.privacyisawesome.com

New SOPA!

WARNING!
CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) = new kind of or related to SOPA.
 

We fight for the Future.

We fight for the Open and Free Internet.

We fight for the Freedom.

ACTA is a Bad Way to Develop Internet Policy

Editor’s note: Today, Mitchell Baker posted her thoughts on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement proposal. Below is an excerpt from her blog:

ACTA (“Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”) is a proposed new international law establishing international enforcement standards against counterfeit goods and pirated intellectual property items. ACTA was negotiated as a “trade agreement” which means that it was negotiated in private without open involvement of all the stakeholders. There has been no formal opportunity for input from people other than those who were lucky enough to be invited into the private discussions.
This is a bad way to build Internet policy. The Internet is a fundamental platform for communication and interaction. There are many stakeholders. The voices of human empowerment, human rights, and competing economic interests must be heard. These voices must have a place at the table when policy is debated. ACTA was not created through such a process.

SOURCE: ACTA-is-a-bad-way-to-develop-internet-policy

Protests Break Out Across Europe Saturday! Join Us to Stop ACTA & TPP!

They tried to push internet censorship through Congress and we 
stopped them. But the companies behind SOPA & PIPA have a
backup plan: secretive trade agreements like ACTA & TPP.If we
can't stop these backroom deals, the internet's future belongs
to SOPA's backers.

6 Reasons to oppose ACTA

1. 
   ACTA locks countries into obsolete copyright and patent laws. If a democracy decides on less restrictive laws that reflect the reality of the internet, ACTA will prevent that.
2. ACTA criminalizes users by making noncommercial, harmless remixes into crimes if "on a commercial scale" (art 2.14.1). Many amateur works achieve a commercial scale on sites like Youtube. ACTA, like SOPA, could mean jail time for the Justin Biebers of the world.
3. ACTA Criminalizes legitimate websites, making them responsible for user behavior by "aiding and abetting". (art 2.14.4). Like SOPA, the founders of your favorite sites could be sued or (worse) thrown in jail for copyright infringement by their users.
4. ACTA will let rightsholders use laughably inflated claims of damages (based on the disproven idea that every download or stream is a lost sale) to sue people. As if suing amazing artists, video makers and websites for millions wasn't hard enough!
5. ACTA Permanently bypasses democracy by giving the "ACTA Committee" the power to "propose amendments to [ACTA]" (art 6.4). In other words, voting for ACTA writes a blank check to an unelected committee. These closed-door proceedings will be a playground for SOPA-supporters like the MPAA.
6. Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a backdoor track that, even though it creates new law, is miles removed from democracy. It's a secretive process that's tailor-made to serve politically connected companies. And the movie studios behind SOPA? They're experts at it. If we can't make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.

From La Quadrature du Net 

Sources: 

http://killacta.org/

http://www.stopacta.info/