How to act against ACTA

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Send a blank email to NOtoACTA-subscribe@laquadrature.net to be informed when the campaign to urge Members of the European Parliament to reject ACTA starts. We won't use your email for anything else.

If you want to be more involved in La Quadrature's actions, Send a blank email to discussion-subscribe@laquadrature.net to discuss with other activists about La Quadrature's campaigns on ACTA, IPRED and other topics.

What to do?

There are many things you can do.

The main things are getting in touch with the Members of European Parliament and helping spread the word.

Contact your Elected Representatives

Send a blank email to NOtoACTA-subscribe@laquadrature.net to be informed when the campaign to urge Members of the European Parliament to reject ACTA starts. We won't use your email for anything else.

We need to be ready to act at each step of the process in the European Parliament. Each of these steps is an occasion for us to make ourselves heard.

Next steps in the European Parliament

The EU Member States have recently signed ACTA, but ACTA still needs to be presented to the European Parliament (EP). If the European Parliament votes NO to ACTA and rejects it, this will deal a likely fatal blow to the treaty.

Before ACTA goes to vote before the European Parliament, several EP committees will be giving their opinion on the text, guiding the EP's final stance on ACTA. This is why as citizens we must contact members of these committees to make sure they hear all about what is wrong with ACTA.

The International Trade (INTA) Committee of the European Parliament is the main committee working on ACTA. The Legal Affairs (JURI) and Development (DEVE) committees, as well as the Civil Liberties (LIBE), Industry (ITRE) committees are also working on the subject. Each of these committees will first vote on their own opinions. These will be sent to INTA to influence its final report.

See ACTA's procedure file for the full details: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=5924982

Who to contact

Right now, you should contact members of the INTA committee as they are working on a draft report on ACTA. You can voice your concerns and ask them to help reject ACTA through their report.

You can also contact members of the LIBE, DEVE, JURI and ITRE committees to explain to them the many issues about ACTA.

In 2012, a large campaign to call all Members of the European Parliament will take place when ACTA reaches the plenary.

How to contact

For arguments, you should read la Quadrature's analysis of ACTA's final version, it contains many strong arguments. The “learn more” section below also contains useful information.

The main points are:

• ACTA turns Internet companies (ISPs, service providers) into a private copyright police by forcing to take legal responsibility for what their users do online.
• ACTA brings broad and dangerous criminal sanctions.
• ACTA bypasses democracy and opens the door to a parallel legislative process, which the European MPs should be particularly angry about.

Once you are comfortable with the arguments (don't hesitate to try them out on your friends etc.), select any MEP from the INTA committee to call, and being polite and calm, tell them about your concerns, asking them to take part in the parliamentary debates and to take a stand against ACTA. You should also call members of the LIBE, DEVE, JURI and ITRE committees.

When you call, you will most likely talk to a parliamentary assistant.

Example phone call

Here is an example phone call, to give you an idea of how such a conversation may go.

It is not intended to be reused as such. Spontaneity is always better…

• YOU: Hello, I would like to talk to Mrs/Mr MEP, please.
• Assistant: Mrs/Mr MEP is not available, I am her/his assistant. Can I help you?"
• YOU: I am MyName, calling from MyCountry, I am very much concerned by the ACTA agreement.
• Assistant: I see. We had calls before. I have no time.
• YOU: But it is very important! The whole negotiations circumvented the democratic process and could radically alter the Internet and citizens' freedoms.
• Assistant: Don't worry. The text is not as bad as you've heard, everything will be fine.
• YOU: An analysis by the Commission itself shows that current versions go beyond the EU acquis. The ACTA agreement lets the Commission negotiate on civil and criminal sanctions. It is not just a trade agreement. The European Parliament must show its commitment to protecting EU citizens. Mrs/Mr MEP should help shape the INTA report to present this information against ACTA."
• Assistant: "I'll tell Mrs/Mr MEP."
• YOU: "Thank you very much for listening to me. I'll call you again shortly to know what he/she thought. Have a good day."

Upcoming campaign

In the weeks before ACTA is voted (it could be as early as mid-December, but the beginning of next year is more likely), as many people as possible must call the Members of the European Parliament to tell why ACTA is dangerous, why it is a denial of democracy, and that they must reject it.

You can send a blank email to NOtoACTA-subscribe@laquadrature.net to be informed when the campaign to urge Members of the European Parliament to reject ACTA starts.

Spread the message

It is also very important to inform people, making sure the message gets across to as many people as possible.

This may sound obvious, but people can only take action if they know about ACTA and how bad it is.

Learn more

You can learn more about ACTA and it's dangers to our freedom at http://lqdn.fr/acta

You can also read la Quadrature's analysis of ACTA's final version and see an overview of criticisms against ACTA.

The following resources are helpful in better understanding ACTA:

• Impact assessment of ACTA on fundamental rights
• Study on ACTA and access to medicine
• FFII's analysis of ACTA

To stay informed about ACTA, you can subscribe to:

• La Quadrature's RSS feed
• La Quadrature's Twitter account: @LaQuadrature

Inform

Help out by informing people:

• By showing the NO to ACTA videos to family, colleagues, friends (not just geeks, everyone)
• By spreading the ACTA dossier and referring people to it for more info.
  • The short address is: http://lqdn.fr/acta
• You can spread these resources far and wide via
  • Twitter,
  • Facebook,
  • Google+,
  • Mailing lists,
  • Email,
  • On forums,
  • On your blog, etc.

• You can embed the video everywhere:
  • Use the following html code to insert the main version of the video

<iframe src="http://mediakit.laquadrature.net/embed/716?size=medium" 
style="width: 640px; height: 500px; border: 0; overflow: hidden"></iframe>

• • Or go to this page to find the code to embed other versions of the video in English, and to this page to embed versions in French.
  • To embed the Spanish subtitled version of the video, use this code:

<iframe src="http://mediakit.laquadrature.net/embed/716?size=medium&sub=es_ES" 
style="width: 640px; height: 500px; border: 0; overflow: hidden"></iframe>

• • You can also use the embed links from Youtube and Dailymotion to spread the videos.

The videos are released under a permissive and freedom-granting Creative Commons licence, so you don't have to ask to use them. :)

Other Ways to help

Express yourself

Creating more art and expressing oneself is also a very important part.

You can:

• Write an article on your blog,
• Write an article for your school, college/university or company newspaper
• Write to your newspapers asking why they aren't talking more about ACTA and telling them about ACTA
• Create more videos, films, pictures, paintings against either the whole of ACTA or specific parts of the treaty
  • For instance, you can create banners, buttons, illustrations against ACTA (using images from the videos if you want) that others can use in their signatures, as avatars, to illustrate their blog articles, newspaper articles, etc.
  • If you do so, please a link to your banner here.
• people can also remix and reshape the videos to make them their own and give them more and new life.

Translate the videos into your language

You can be part of subtitling effort, go to the following EtherPad to see if the NO to ACTA videos are already translated to your language, and if the translation have been turned into a .srt subtitle file: http://pad.lqdn.fr/p/trad-video-acta

Send your synchronized subtitle files to contact@laquadrature.net.

Organise events

• Organise public showings of the videos at your school, university, etc.

Publicly take a stand

• If you are part of an NGO, consider publicly denouncing ACTA, and telling your members about ACTA's dangers.

• If you are a well-known person or celebrity, you can also use your following to inform people about ACTA and denounce it.

Support la Quadrature du Net

If you can afford it, financial support is of course greatly appreciated.

You can make a donation to help La Quadrature keep on fighting ACTA and act on the other dossiers it works on.

http://lqdn.fr/support

Translate this page into your language

To help other people from different parts of the world act against ACTA, you can help translate this page.

Remember to always use the English version as the source for your translation, as it is the most up to date version.

For collaborative translation and easy proofreading and correction, you can use an EtherPad such as http://pad.lqdn.fr/p/How-to-act-against-ACTA-LANGUAGE

ie: https://pad.lqdn.fr/p/How_to_act_against_ACTA_es

Once translated, create a new page on the wiki with your translated text, and add a link to your language to the top of this page.

Thanks for your help :)