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Poland: Government Will Sign ACTA Despite Massive Protest

Katarzyna Odrozek — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:45:08 +0000

“The Acta agreement in no way changes Polish laws or the rights of internet users and internet usage.” - despite a massive Internet protest and controversies around the secret manner of negotiations, Minister of Administration and Digitisation Michal Boni admitted after the meeting with PM Donald Tusk that the government would sign the anti-piracy agreement ACTA on January 26, as planned.

In an interview with a radio station, Boni said [pl] that it was impossible not to sign the agreement, because it was too late: Poland joined the negotiation process in 2008 and all the other European countries have already signed it. He added that Poland “should attach a clause to the treaty that would show how we interpret these articles”. Boni promised [pl] broad public consultations during the European ratification process. Several Polish NGOs expressed [pl] their disappointment with the government's stance on ACTA and appealed to change the decision.

Since January 21, online hackers calling themselves Anonymous have been attacking and shuting down government websites almost constantly, in a chaotic protest against the plans to sign the international treaty on Thursday.

TANGO DOWN: User @Anonymouswiki owns up to the web attacks on the websites of the prime minister, the parliament and other government entities. Screenshot: Twitter @Anonymouswiki

Although the hackers still enjoy a strong support among netizens, and the attacks were one of the reasons the mainstream media picked up the topic of ACTA, the group also faces criticism from the major Polish tech-bloggers. Maciej Gajewski from Spidersweb calls them [pl] “crying kids worried for their mp3″ and regrets that they became the face of the protest giving the government officials an argument against the movement:

Critics, mistrust and suspicion is one thing, but panic, mumbling and spreading disinformation is another thing. Looking at some finds on the biggest Polish social news platforms, looking at the comments of some readers, I get the impression that the lion's share of the protesters have no idea what ACTA is about. They've made up fantastic stories and are passing them on. The mass is getting crazy “Impale PM”, “Let's burn the Minister on the stake!”, “They will all lock us down in prisons!”. And then also Anonymous, who just make the whole protest look ridiculous in the eyes of mature older voters.

Over 900 Polish websites went dark on January 24

As opposed to the web attacks on government websites, Antyweb called [pl] on his blog on January 23 for a protest “in a cultured way, namely, a blackout” and provided a script and an instruction on how to do it. In response, more than 900 websites decided to “go dark” and display an anti-ACTA message. Allegro, the Polish equivalent of Ebay, placed an “anti-ACTA” banner next to the company's logo. The list of the websites taking part in the protest is available here.

"This is what the Internet might look like very soon. NO to ACTA" - over 900 Polish websites decided to go dark on January 24 in protest against the treaty. Screenshot: http://spiderweb.pl

The opposition party, the Democratic Left Alliance, also said the government should not sign the agreement and blackouted its website [pl] in solidarity.

While the global media, with a few exceptions, keep silent about the Polish protest, national information services race to publish dozens of opinions, analyses and the latest reports on the ACTA case. In the meantime, the protest movement seems to be getting bigger and bigger: the anti-ACTA protest event on Facebook Nie dla ACTA has reached over 400,000 fans. A real-life protest in Warsaw gathered [pl] over 1,000 people on Tuesday, and another one is being planned for Wednesday, January 25.

"Screw corporations, long live the people": many Polish protesters went on the streets on January 24. Photo by Alexey Sidorenko, used with permission.

Vagla, a popular Polish digital rights blogger, shared this hope [pl] on Twitter on January 24:

I guess that slowly people start to understand that this is not a discussion about “piracy” and “thieves” but about the direction in which our civilisation is heading.

***

Update:

Later on January 24, PM Tusk confirmed officially [pl] at a press conference that Poland will sign ACTA on January 26. At the same time, he stressed that the government will not give in to blackmail, meaning the earlier web attacks. Poland strives for internet freedom, said Tusk.

Poland: Netizens Protest Government's Plan To Sign ACTA Next Week

Katarzyna Odrozek — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:45:44 +0000

With the world still talking about the aftermath of the SOPA/PIPA Blackout Day, Polish netizens are confronted with another backstabbing development in the fight for free Internet.

On January 19, during a meeting with NGOs and business representatives, the Polish government announced [pl] that it would sign the controversial anti-piracy agreement ACTA on January 26. While the governement calls it a success [pl] of the Polish EU Presidency, netizens are outraged with the arbitrary decision and are calling to take action against the proposal.

Image by flickr user PateandoPiedrasweb under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence.

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. According to La Quadrature du Net and other globally active digital rights organisations, such as Electronic Frontier Foundation or European Digital Rights, ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. Creating legal uncertainty for Internet companies, ACTA would become a major threat to freedom of expression online and another assault against the culture of sharing on the Internet.

The decision of the Polish government [pdf, pl] to sign the “European SOPA” worries [pl] blogger Maciej Gajewski from the tech website Spiderweb.pl:

Lately, one talks a lot about SOPA and PIPA bills and this is very good: in my opinion, these are the reprehensible bills and I think that the goal should never justify the means. For the Polish netizens the consequences of these two bills are negligible. If they were adopted, they would concern us only regarding the possibility to block our website for people in the USA. And that's actually it. But meanwhile, just in one week, our country, as a country subordinated to the European Union, will join the ACTA agreement. And this can hurt us. Very much.

An agreement negotiated behind the people's backs

But it's not only the content of the agreement proposal that upsets the netizens. The very secret character of the international ACTA negotiations and a stunning lack of public consultations and transparency in the negotiating process are clearly pointing to a democracy failure, according to [pl] Antyweb, a popular Polish tech-blogger:

They promised debates - nothing. They promised openness - nothing. Democracy is being destroyed, the deputies don't know what they are signing, and all this will lead to a situation when bloggers, scientists and entrepreneurs will be qualified as criminals. And if not, they will anyway walk on thin ice, paying attention not to step on a patent spot with an additinal R letter in a circle on the right side.

The digital rights blog Prawo.vagla.pl criticises [pl] the scandalous ignorance of the Polish government:

We found out that, of course, it's no longer possible to withdraw the decision about the signature of a Polish representative on the ACTA document, that this signature will be put and it will open the way to the ratification procedure. I asked the representatives of these ministries if they had any plan in case the European or the Polish Parliament would not not agree to the ratification. I heard that “it would put us to shame.” I wonder what is a bigger shame, and if it's not maybe the way of working on this kind of an international agreement where the public opinion couldn't get the public information it deserves.

In reaction to the netizens' protest, the Polish Minister of Administration and Digitalisation, Michal Boni [pl], asked [pl] the PM Donald Tusk to re-discuss the agreement before signing it. The meeting [pl] will take place on January 24.

ACTA has to be stopped

In the meantime the Polish Internet is fuming with anger. Facebook pages, such as Poland against ACTA & SOPA and NIE dla ACTA w Polsce, spring up like mushrooms and gather hundreds of thousands of netizens around the protest. On the wall of the Facebook event Nie dla ACTA, Rafal Mirski writes [pl]:

I am in favor of intellectual property protection but not with these methods! This is throwing the baby out with the bath water. You can't allow to subordinate the whole Internet to any group of interest. ACTA is forcing Internet providers to censorship! And it is in fact puzzling how fast, without any public debate, one tries to dictate some solutions. We definitely have to stop it!

Maciej Gajewski from Spiderweb doesn't like [pl] the perspective of being monitored all the time:

First of all: although I don't share anything illegal on the net, I don't feel comfortable knowing that somebody is registering my every step on the Internet. Even if it's an automatic machine. Secondly, these will cause huge costs for the providers. Our activity has to be monitored and archived. Let's prepare for a big raise of Internet prices.

Polish digital rights organisations sent an appeal [pdf, pl] to the PM, drawing his attention to the risks of ACTA. On Wykop, a Polish version of Digg, user katius posted a protest letter [pl] to the Members of the Parliament, encouraging other users to address their representatives with the issue. A series of live protest events [pl] in the biggest Polish cities are planned to take place.

A Polish Blackout?

Encouraged by the SOPA/PIPA protest success in the United States, blogger Antyweb calls on his blog [pl] for a Polish blackout:

We have to arrange a specific date (pretty fast) and switch off in the Polish web whatever we can while displaying information about ACTA and about damaging democracy. We need to draw peoples' attention to the fact that this is not the way to take decisions in a modern democratic state. Americans could make it, Poles can do it as well - especially the “internet”-ones. What about Monday, [January 23]? But which of the Polish websites will give up money in the name of defending democracy and free Internet?

Also, the Polish Wikipedia community is considering a blackout [pl] and is in the process of editing an anti-ACTA manifest [pl].

Last hope: European Parliament's veto right

The whole situation looks a bit less dramatic once we consider that the Polish signature alone doesn't change anything yet. The agreement needs to be ratified by the European Parliament. Antyweb writes [pl]:

If we want to fight ACTA, then we need to do it on the European Parliament level - it is there where ACTA will have its “to be or not to be.” The EP can dismiss ACTA completely and then the bill lands in trash. Amen. But it doesn't change the fact that it is worthy to take action on January 26.

As promising as it sounds, isn't it quite dissapointing that instead of counting on one's own government to protect civil and digital rights of its citizens, one has to rely on the reason of EU politicians? Twitter user @PrzemoBrozek sums it up [pl]:

On January 26 Poland will sign ACTA. According to the agreement, Internet providers will have to monitor all users' activities. 1984 MODE ON.

***

Update:

On January 21, around 7 PM, Anonymous hackers have blocked access to the websites of the Sejm, the lower Chamber of the Polish Parliament, the Chancellery of the PM, the President, and the Ministry of Culture. At the time of writing this article, the websites are still offline.

Imprisonment of blogger and activist Andrzej Poczobut in Belarus

Sylwia Presley — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:29:20 +0000

Gazeta Wyborcza's dedicated website

On 6th of April Andrzej Poczobut, Polish correspondent of Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza based in Belarus and activist blogger respected by Belarusan community for his brave delivery of facts to mainstream media, has been arrested under two sections of Belarusan law - for insulting and slander of Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus.

Earlier on this year, on the 26th of January Poczobut has posted a video update explaining his two arrests conducted by KGB - first informal one - including hearing, verbal and physical insults and a second one initiated by home search and confiscation of bloggers's laptop followed by arrest, night in prison, court hearing and a trial with an advocate asked to represent the blogger. During that trial Poczobut's input was not taken into consideration, court made a note of witness accounts of two policemen instead. The court trial in January resulted in a fine.

On the 28th of March Poczobut has posted on his blog explanation of accusations in which he is referring to his 8 articles posted on Gazeta Wyborcza, one blog post on his personal blog and one blog post posted as a guest post on another blog as a source of president Lukashenko's claimed image damage. Those accusations resulted in his arrest on the 6th of April.

Since his arrest, Poczobut posted four blog posts - letters from prison - updating his readers on reality of his current situation, like in this short update:

One of the most pleasant experiences of my life in prison is a walk. Seven steps to one side and you stop at the wall, turn and seven steps in the other direction. It would seem that it can be pleasant, right? […] That means - you see the sky and there is fresh air. In prison, you start to appreciate these simple and seemingly public things.

After series of appeals Poczobut remains in prison and can be sentenced for up to four years in prison. Journalists of Gazeta Wyborcza are hosting a dedicated webpage for Poczobut counting the days of his imprisonment and containing their official appeal:

We demand that Mr. Poczobut be freed immediately and all charges against him dropped. We protest against the harassment and false accusations against a journalist who performed his duties in an honest manner.

Poland: Discussions of TOR and Internet Filtering

Sylwia Presley — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:12:45 +0000

The end of 2009 in Poland was marked with the beginning of a public discussion of on-line privacy, the government's potential attempts to restrict access to websites and a growing awareness of TOR software supporting on-line anonymity.

On Nov. 6, Piotr Waglawski [PL], aka VaGla (recipient of the Internet Citizen of the Year [PL] award in 2001, the first person to be awarded for commitment to development of local Internet and its role in communication between citizens and the authorities), posted an article [PL] on his portal dedicated to law and Internet, mentioning Polish government's work on telecommunications law that included an article giving Internet providers the right to block websites with dangerous content (e.g., gambling - hence some refer to it as the ‘gambling law') and giving the police, special services as well as the government an ability to create black lists of websites.

Michal Trojnara, commenting on the post the very same day adds [PL] to the original thread:

Just a minute ago I saw a live press conference with the prime minister on TV, who stated that there are “technical possibilities” to stop illegal gambling on international servers. I understand we are following countries experienced in on-line censorship [link to Wikipedia article in Polish on Chinese Golden Shield Project].

On Nov. 19, Gazeta.pl, a Polish daily, posted an article [PL] in which a connection was drawn between TOR software's ability to provide web users with anonymity, paedophile activities on-line and helplessness of the police in tracking those criminal offenses. Comments to it appeared under a post on TechnoNews.pl, reacting to the accusations.

Gość 4 states [PL]:

Is the cost of our privacy too high? I think that tools like TOR should be publicly available.

Massad points out [PL]:

First we will add filters you are mentioning, and then we can add any other filters, so, for instance, a human rights activist from China will not be able to inform the West about what's going on there.

Also on Nov. 19, Radio TOK conducted an interview with Piotr Waglawski, which was later published on Vimeo [PL]. It features Piotr and another specialist, Krzysztof Młynarski, explaining what TOR is and discussing inconsistencies of the argument used by the police that allowing anonymity on the web causes increase in paedophile crimes, and thus the police find it impossible to solve those.

In response to this video posted also on Wykop [a Polish version of Digg], Glosnik mentions [PL]:

It's amazing how the topic of TOR started to appear in various media starting with this digg: http://www.wykop.pl/link/253302/czy-wiesz-ze-internet-ma-podwojne-dno-efekt-wczorajszych-poszukiwan

Wykop itself exposed TOR to people, and now it is accused of paedophilia.

Wykop became a venue where the public decided to express their protest [PL] against the accusations and propositions to restrict access to Internet.

Silencer starts it, saying [PL]:

Let's show our power to fight stupidity of the authorities. Let's initiate connecting knots!

Baniol explains [PL] why he joins the protest:

I am 17, so I myself could be a victim of a paedophile :( I am joining this action not to help people connect but because I do not like the way of fighting paedophilia by targeting innocent people…

wm84 does not agree [PL] though:

I DO NOT WISH that a bunch of anonymous teenagers claim themselves to be the Internet community. Mainly because for most of them Internet started when Wykop, demotivating sites and other services appeared - they serve nothing else than wasting of time. I will not support - even in theory - harm of any child.

On Dec. 15, another leading voice in this case, a specialist in on-line security, Paweł Wilk (who, back in May 2009, posted about the TOR project [PL] and has been its advocate since then), posted an article [PL] updating on the government's propositions dated from Nov. 13 to introduce the law allowing Internet providers gather personal data of web users (like, for instance, name and surname, ID number, address), creation of the so-called Registry of Banned Websites and Services. He also mentions laws which this proposal would break and human rights that the Polish citizens would be deprived of.

A governmental press release [PL] from Dec. 17 confirmed that the Registry of Banned Websites and Services would indeed be created, but that the police would not receive personal data from Internet providers.

Help's first reaction [PL] to this statement is:

Is there an organisation similar to EFF in Poland which deals with following of those cases? If not maybe it's time for one, otherwise they will make us look like fools and introduce an Orwellian vision.

Simianus home opposes [PL] it:

You behave like real criminals! Do you have something to hide? Everything is known about everyone because they have accounts on NK [Nasza-Klasa] and Śledzik and they describe there on-line everything they do, in their family and private life.

Later on, on Dec. 18, Pawel Wilk posted an insightful article [PL] focused more on the role of TOR software in general, including an interview with TOR's executive director, Andrew Lewman. Pawel Waglawski also commented on it in a post [PL], pointing out the lack of governmental transparency.

Gime agrees [PL] as to the process:

It is chaotic indeed, the idea behind it is unclear, the speed of work is surprisingly fast, a large amount of mistakes and ignorance on the way.

Arnold Buzdygan adds [PL]:

In a normal, democratic country similar ideas would not even enter the mind of the authorities.

On Dec. 22, the Observatory of Media Freedom in Poland posted the opinion of Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights [PL] on the topic:

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights expresses its concern about the legislative work on the draft law from Dec. 7, 2009, amending the law on gambling and other acts, and earlier a bill from Nov. 17, 2009, on the same issue. The proposed solutions introduce a number of fundamental changes to the sphere of rights and freedoms of individuals, and, moreover, they raise, in our view, reasonable doubt about their constitutional nature.

Polish computer programmer arrested for Google Bombing

Sami Ben Gharbia — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:55:15 +0000

The 23-years old Polish computer programmer Marek W. might face up to three years in prison for having created a Googlebombing software linking Polish President Lech Kaczynski's website to the word “kutas” meaning penis in Polish. Marek who succeeded to manipulate Google search engine rankings so that Polish internet users searching “kutas” on Google Polska ended up on www.prezydent.pl, is being accused of insulting president Lech Kaczynski. The Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza has reported that Marek was testing his search engine optimization software:

The man used the official website of Polish president Lech Kaczyński for testing the software. When internet users typed “kutas” [”penis”] they got the official president’s site. Furthermore – it was the first result. They played with this for couple of months – right up to March this year. That’s when the 23 years old was traced by investigator from the Katowice police office.

Finding him wasn’t difficult – the man used his home computer, which police easily traced by its IP address. The computer amateur confirmed that he wrote the program. “I just wanted to verify my skills and check if the software works” was his explanation during the hearings.