Battleangel

This is it. The proposal that will "fix" the rudimentary problem with the Internet (according to the have mores and the social, political elites). Namely that the Internet is at heart an anarchic model of free speech and communication. One that the same elites missed out on because they didn’t understand and once they did see it coming spent most of their effort belittling. From DailyTech …

The empire strikes back; the US government’s holds secret plans to kill nonprofit torrent sites and increase user monitoring.

Wikileaks has obtained a leaked copy of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a shadowy bill that has been being discussed in Congress behind closed doors.  The new multi-lateral intellectual property measure is being pushed by Republican US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab, who designed much of it.  The ACTA bill is apparently supported by the U.S., the European Commission (well known for its recent fining of Microsoft), Japan, and Switzerland.

The new bill would place the internet under the firm grasp of international law authorities and industry officials.  ISPs operating within the U.S. and the involved nations would be forced to fully disclose consumer information.  Meanwhile, use of internet privacy tools would be greatly restricted and made illegal in many cases.

The perfect tool to commercialize the Net and kill inconvenient free speech and anonymity. The sort of notion that the United States usually sticks to states it deems as "rogue". The sort of nonsense that was used to argue against letting go of the US Gov controlled root DNS system. But here we are, with a proposal that is so putrid, deceitful and far-reaching that no third world regime could have dreamt it up. This bullshit can only be a product of the terror capitalism and repressive pseudo-fascist, individualized democracy that are both native to the United States. And the puppets / sycophants in the European Commission seem to be going along with this without so much as a word of protest.