How to act against ACTA

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This page lists different ways to take action against ACTA right now and to learn more about this dangerous agreement.

ACTA is a multi-lateral trade agreement which threatens to change the Internet as we know it and puts fundamental freedoms at risk.

The European Parliament still has the occasion to reject ACTA once and for all
You will find on this page different ways you can act to defeat ACTA as a citizen.

The main two things to do are contacting Members of the European Parliament and helping spread the word about ACTA.

Contact your Elected Representatives

Contacting your Elected Representatives is the most useful thing you can do right now, and until the final vote in the European Parliament.

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

To get a clear view of the parliamentary process, visit our page ACTA: to keep in mind

To be informed about the next steps to urge Members of the European Parliament to reject ACTA, send a blank email to NOtoACTA-subscribe@laquadrature.net to subscribe to our list. We won't use your email for anything else.

Who to contact

Contact the:

• INTA committee
• LIBE committee
• JURI committee
• ITRE committee
• DEVE committee

Right now, we need to contact members of the INTA committee. They are working on a report on ACTA, we must ensure it conveys all the the crucial issues raised by ACTA. Call them and tell what you think of ACTA and that you want their report to convey your opinion as a citizen.

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

Focus your calls on members of the political groups that so far has been the most supportive of ACTA :

• EPP
• ALDE
• ECR

In a few months, a large campaign to call all Members of the European Parliament will take place when ACTA reaches the plenary, currently late June to the best of our knowledge.
We will need to be as many as possible to call the Members of the European Parliament so they understand how important it is to European citizens that ACTA is rejected, and why it is so dangerous.

How to contact, what to say

Key arguments are listed on our page ACTA: to keep in mind.

The MEPs have been given a “fact-sheet” on ACTA's supposed inoffensiveness to reassure concerned citizens (that's you). You can find a debunking of these lies here.

How to call:

1. First of all, get comfortable with the arguments (don't hesitate to try them out on your friends, your family etc.). If you're not, don't give up. You still can ask what is the MEP's position on ACTA, and ask what are his/her arguments.
2. Select a MEP representing you from the ones of the Committees working on ACTA (currently the INTA Committee) and dial their number.
   When you call, you will most likely reach a parliamentary assistant, they are usually bright and polite people, treat them accordingly.
3. 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.
4. Rinse and repeat: pick another MEP's number and call them.

You should also call members of the LIBE, JURI and ITRE and DEVE committees and talk to them too.

If a question to which you don't have the answer comes up, don't worry. You are not expected to be an expert, only a concerned citizen.
Explain you will look it up, and call back with more information.

In general, don't hesitate to offer to call back with more information, to meet the MEP, to send documents, references, etc.
Sometimes, Parliamentary assistants will ask you to send an e-mail. Don't hesitate to call back later to check if they've read it and what they thought of it.

Then, you can report your call to La Quadrature. It helps us targeting specific MEPs during the campaign.

See an example phone call of how a conversation with an MEP assistant might go.

Spread the message

Another important and complimentary way to act against ACTA is to inform people, making sure as many people as possible know about ACTA and how bad it is. It may sound obvious, but people can only want to act against ACTA if they are aware of its dangers.

You can spread resources by La Quadrature du Net far and wide via

• your personal spaces on the Internet (personal blogs, social networks, micro-blogging platforms)
• mailing lists,
• email,
• forums
• any other mean :)

Refer people to la Quadrature's webdossier on ACTA

• Spread the ACTA dossier and refer people to it for more info.
  • The short address is: http://lqdn.fr/acta

Show people the NO to ACTA video

• Show the NO to ACTA videos to family, colleagues, friends (not just geeks, everyone)
  

  No to ACTA video

• 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 for example, 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. :)

Use, share, remix the NO to ACTA flyer

Use our No to ACTA flyer for demonstrations, informative actions, and share it, remix it and help translate it!

Use your own words, pictures, sounds to talk about ACTA

NO to ACTA remix infographics

Creating more creative bits and art and expressing oneself is another powerful way to inform other people.

The power of image and creativity to explain and touch people is very strong, so this is a great way to act against ACTA if you enjoy writing, drawing, painting, making music, etc.

Here are some ideas:

• 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 agreement
  • 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 post a link to your banner here.
• People can also remix and transformed already produced materials to give them a new life and give them a new life.
  • For instance, to the right here is a cool remix of the NO to ACTA video with RoboCopyright ACTA.

More Ways to help

Organise events

• Organise public events at your school, university, work place, etc.
  • Organise a discussion about ACTA, linking it to your classes or your activity
  • Show the NO to ACTA video

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. If you do so, remember to update the translated version often enough.

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.
(You need an account to create a page on the wiki, open editing is disabled for spam protection.)

If in doubt or if you have any remaining question, don't hesitate to contact us :

• use the mailing list acta@laquadrature.net (to subscribe, send a blank email to acta-subscribe@laquadrature.net. We won't use your email for anything else.)
  
• send an email to contact@laquadrature.net
• join us on our chat (or #laquadrature on IRC.freenode.net)

Thanks for your help everyone :)
Together, we can do amazing things! Like defeat ACTA!