Even if they can’t search your devices at border crossings, ISP’s are still going to be bound by international law to monitor your internet (and computer) usage and report any vaguely suspicious activity to whoever they are gonna charge with enforcing this. I’ll see you all in room 101.

Wonder how they’ll find a way to call you paranoid and a fear monger over this post, C. We shall see….

When you make out your budget, you ask for everything you really want, then you add some crap for the auditors to cut, so they can feel useful and empowered.

“You don’t need those ten thousand paper clips! I shall deny you!”

“Oh Brer Fox, don’t you throw me in that briar patch! ”

The rule works for commercial contracts and legislative proposals, too.

The US will get everything they actually wanted while you’re patting yourselves on the back for denying them their ten thousand paperclips.

What this really boils down to is ultra high level Corporate lobbying from the Entertainment industry, in order to be able to trample on rights of individuals, or at the very least, to be able to sic some form of law enforcement on anyone they want.

The “USA caves” means that that, by extension, the entertainment lobby caves, not that the USA caves TO the entertainment lobby, right?

So this is a good thing, right?

European Parliament today adopted Written Declaration 12/2010 which basically tells the Commission to all but drop the negotiations. From the article: ‘Citizens from all around Europe helped to raise awareness about ACTA among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by collecting, one by one, more than 369 [of the MEPs'] signatures. With Written Declaration 12/20103, the European Parliament as a whole takes a firm position to oppose the un-democratic process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and its content harmful to fundamental freedoms and the Internet ecosystem.’

Original article right here

So the friendly customs officer has asked you to log on to your laptop so he can “inspect” it. You politely decline. Things will not go well. Expect your laptop to be seized for forensic examination; you won’t see it again for weeks or months. Expect all of your other baggage to be thoroughly tossed. Expect to be detained by customs for several hours, just because they can. And, in this modern era of instant access to nationwide databases, expect your customs record to be flagged as “suspicious”, making every subsequent entry into the country an hours-long ordeal.

Change the law, or stay completely under the radar. Bear-baiting a border official has always been a spectacularly bad idea, but even more so in this time of unaccountable electronic black-listing.