A new bill being secretly passed around to certain members of the European Parliament is making headlines today because of its eerie similarities to legislation like SOPA, CISPA and ACTA. The bill is called "CleanIT," and it is currently in the early stages of being refined. But the draft has been leaked to the public, much to the chagrin of its main supporters and it has a lot of horrible provisions.

Rights groups are turning up the rhetoric on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), claiming that the new treaty being negotiated by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other countries in the Pacific Rim will bring back controversial copyright enforcement provisions pushed by some US policymakers in recent bills and treaties such as ACTA, SOPA and PIPA.

Internet advocacy group Demand Progress launched a campaign this week to urge Democrats and Republican lawmakers to make a commitment - in writing - that they will protect internet freedom when creating new legislation and to make the issue part of their respective platforms.

As more details emerge on the secretly negotiated trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, online rights activists are voicing their opinions on why it is a bad idea and why they are getting a strange sense of déjà vu. Critics of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which was ultimately voted down by the European Parliament, have warned that those forces in Europe and other parts of the world behind such treaties will continue to push parts of that treaty that most citizens do not want.

Less than a week after the European Parliament voted to soundly reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), opponents of that measure are crying foul on a back door deal to get some of the treaty's worst provision enacted as part of another treaty.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on health rights, Anand Grover, has praised the European Parliament's recent vote to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), calling it a step in the right direction in ensuring that citizens of the world have access to affordable and essential medication. The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted against the international anti-piracy trade agreement on July 4.

The European Parliament has officially rejected the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The Parliament voted 478 to 39 to reject the ACTA, which means that it will never be implemented in any member country of the European Parliament. The news is not surprising, given that five committees voted against the treaty leading up to the showdown on the floor of the European Parliament this week. It also didn't help that ACTA was negotiated in secret and citizens in various member countries protested against it because of its loose and murky language.

In an age where acronyms such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, CISPA, CSA, and more put fear into the hearts of Internet users all over the globe it's time that someone stand up and clearly define what rights we should have on the Internet. Like the Continental Congress did when America declared Independence way back in 1776, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) and other advocacy groups have come up with our own version of a "Declaration" for the Internet age.

On July 3, the full European Parliament will finally get to vote on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and going into that vote things don't look good for the treaty. Yesterday Australian lawmakers voted to reject ratification of the treaty joining a growing chorus of European countries that believe the law violates the rights of its citizens in the name of fighting counterfeit goods and copyright infringement.

As this story from Techdirt points out, the EU commissioner responsible for the ACTA treaty, Karel De Gucht, has no intention of giving up on it. He seems to be oblivious to the recommendations to reject it from the five EU committees that have already voted on it, and will likely ignore the ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on whether ACTA is compatible with EU law.

No matter what happens in the European Parliament next month with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the Dutch government said today that it will not ratify the treaty. Last week a fifth European committee - the Committee on International Trade - voted to recommend that the treaty be rejected by the full Parliament when it votes on it in the first week of July. But that matters not a lick to the Netherlands either way.

Yet another European Parliament committee has decided to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). By a vote of 19 to 12 the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) soundly rejected the treaty.

The European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) will vote on whether to recommend approval or reject ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on June 21. The Committee has several different avenues it could take in making a recommendation at this point; it could amend the treaty (as some want Parliament want to do), it could recommend waiting to hear from the European Court of Justice's reviews or approve the draft report by MEP David Martin (who says it should be rejected).

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has now been rejected by four European Parliament committees according to a press release issued by the European Union. The latest committee to urge the full parliament to reject the treaty is the Development Committee. Prior to that rejection, the Civil Liberties Committee, Industry Committee, and Legal Affairs Committee gave similar recommendations. In a vote of 19-to-one (three abstained), the Development Committee recommended that Parliament reject the treaty.

If the early votes in the European Parliament related to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are any indication, the controversial treaty will not survive a final vote later this year. Three key European Union committees have voted against ACTA: the Committee on Legal Affairs (Juri), Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). All three committees expressed "opinions against Acta," according to the BBC.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-ORE.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade Customs and Global Competitiveness, introduced legislation this week that would clarify the USTR’s obligation to share information on trade agreements with Members of Congress. Wyden, who spoke on the floor of the Senate about why this is necessary, has been a critic of the Administration’s handling of international treaties including ACTA and most recently the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In February the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request to the State Department asking them to release documents related to the department's review of ACTA. The State Department is required to prepare a "Circular 175 Memorandum," whenever an international treaty is going to be negotiated. According to the EFF's Gwen Hinze, the Circular 175 is required "for all treaties and other international instruments that bind the United States as a matter of international law under 22 CFR Part 181.

Fifty legal scholars in the United States have written an open letter to the Senate urging them to use their rights under Article I of the Constitution to force the Obama Administration to submit the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to Congress from approval. Under the U.S. Constitution the Senate must approve all International treaties before they can be signed by the United States government.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will get a judicial review in Europe's highest court, according to the Wall Street Journal (registration required). The European Commission has asked the European Court of Justice - the highest court in Europe, to review the treaty and make sure that it is compatible with current European treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

According to web site Geneva Lunch, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) quietly suffered another setback today in Switzerland where the Swiss Federal Council said it would not sign the agreement. 

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) continues to run into hurdles in various parts of the world. Today those hurdles include a sharp rebuke from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Australia's Green party.

According to a Fox News report a top European Union official is implying that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will not be ratified by the European Union this summer.

"We are now likely to be in a world without SOPA and without ACTA," European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said in a speech on Friday in Berlin, Germany.

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) president Hal Halpin recently sat down with Destructoid to talk about the dangers consumers face at the hands of corporate interests and by politicians creating new regulations and laws that stifle free speech and invade our privacy. We'll update our story later when the full interview goes live, but this quote from Halpin deals specifically with the issue of CISPA and laws like it:

The controversial international anti-piracy agreement known as ACTA may soon be put to a bitter end in Europe. The European Parliament member responsible for monitoring the treaty’s progress through the European Union is saying publicly that it should be soundly rejected.

Internet law expert Lawrence Lessig says that those who think that the fight over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is over are dead wrong. Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

A new message posted on Pastebin and attributed to the hacking group Anonymous promises to shut down the entire internet on March 31. The group says that it will target the 13 root DNS servers that make up the bulk of the servers that give URL names to most of the Internet.

As to why they would want to do this, they say the following:

Remember when European Union trade chief Karel De Gucht said that Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in February? Well it turns out that the infamous treaty will not go to the highest court in Europe after all. According to a report from TorrentFreak, the road to the EJC has been blocked in the European Parliament.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has deflected criticism that the government's ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will lead to internet service providers being forced to play the role of copyright police, among other criticisms about the treaty. The agency claims that ACTA wouldn't require changes to Australian law as it is today.

Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) issued a press release this morning waging a full frontal assault on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), saying that he was opening up the treaty to the public because it was negotiated in secret. He describes ACTA as "worse than SOPA and PIPA," and shows great disdain for it because it was negotiated without the input of "the American people and Congress." 

Internet advocacy group Public Knowledge has launched a new web site called The Internet Blueprint. The goal of this new hub is to develop bills that will strengthen internet laws and ultimately make the internet a better place. The site is the group's response to lawmakers in Washington who asked Public Knowledge for input on how to improve the Internet.