ESR writes about the perception of technologists on MPAA backed legislation such as SOPA/PIPA/ACTA. He tries to make it as clear as possible technologists will not have it. The internet and our computers will remain uncensored.

If that wasn't bad enough, here are two more repressive acronyms that are about to get foisted upon the Free Internet

The European Court of Justice just rendered a historic decision in the Scarlet Extended case, which is crucial for the future of rights and freedoms on the Internet.

ACTA will lead to a situation where the decision of whether a given content and its use are legal or not is no longer in the hands of a judge, but falls under an automated censorship regime programmed by private parties. As a result, fair use and the right to a fair trial will be crushed.

The USTR has shown what it's learned from the ACTA negotiations: which is that it can absolutely get away with unprecedented levels of secrecy. It has no problem sharing details with industry representatives, but the public and consumers who will be most impacted by the intellectual property rules found in TPP are kept completely away.

The reason that ACTA was negotiated in secret among rich countries was that this was seen as the most expeditious way of getting a super-extreme copyright agreement passed with a minimum of fuss, and that all the poor countries who were excluded from the negotiation would later be coerced into agreeing to it.

As a few folks have submitted, EU Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht -- the main EU politician backing ACTA -- has been caught lying about ACTA.

"This vote is a terrible blow to EU citizens. It shows that the conservatives and some of their allies can get the Parliament to vote in favor of ACTA."