Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

If the article is accurate, then I hope that the EU Parliament will listen to the tech sector for a change. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll get a Blackout style campaign like SOPA had in the US.


The EU Parliament is a relatively benign organism. Elections are held with a proportional system across Europe, so it's quite easy for MEPs to lose seats to smaller parties; this basically forces them to listen to constituents, most of the time, or risk being defeated by, say, Greens or Pirate Party. Since they don't really have much of a say in nominating the "EU government" (i.e. the Commission), they don't really experience the drawbacks of such a system.

The problem is, in most cases the Parliament cannot veto what the Commission approves. There is a constant, constitutional struggle between them, but the Commission has the upper hand in most cases. This is because the Commission is nominated by (and directly works with) member states; in practice, if all states' governments agree to something, the EU Parliament probably wouldn't be able to stop them. At most, they could delay some decisions, hoping that political winds in member states will change in the meantime.


There are ways to fight, although very tough. The FFII.org did a wonderful job on swpat. They did go for ACTA too, but sadly with less focus -- I cannot blame though.


Some Polish web sites had blackout ( http://di.com.pl/news/43067,0,Polski_blackout_przeciw_ACTA_j... ), but mostly sites with young and tech-savy users. So general population only know about Anonymus group cracking gov servers, and maybe about protests on the streets.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: