Extractd

The laws that govern your digital rights are being rewritten in secrecy by trade representatives from countries around the world.

It’s known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), or more commonly referred to as the “secret copyright agreement”.

The unusual obscurity surrounding these negotiations has many worried that corporate interests are taking a front seat over what should be an open and transparent process.

It began in 2006 when the US submitted a draft proposal to Canada and now has spread around the world with several rounds of meetings being held in different cities. The most recent round of meetings were held in Guadalajara, Mexico.

There are few official statements being released about the ACTA. Much of what we know has been pieced together from vague official statements and leaked documents.

An unsettling picture is emerging, one where the US along with a coalition of countries, are seeking to create tighter more uniform restrictions on digital data.

There are groups of notable organizations and concerned individuals who are dedicating much of their time to analyzing and investigating the implications of the ACTA.

The following is a list of some of the best sources for ACTA related information.

A landmark ruling by the Supreme Court asks citizens to use the Internet to connect the dots between corporate influence and their political candidates.

Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Court (large pdf) has serious implications on the future of US elections. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that corporations can spend money from their general treasuries to support political candidates.

This landmark decision overturns two legal precedents that have restricted the amount of influence corporations have in impacting the outcome of elections. The court believes that corporations are entitled to the same free speech rights as individuals.

The court recommends that citizens and shareholders of corporations use online campaign finance data to determine whether or not their candidates and corporations are too close for comfort.

Government 2.0, a growing expression that promotes the adoption of new technologies by governments, so they can become an open platform to share information and data. This data covers topics such as real-time crime feeds, school test scores and health statistics.

One of the innovations requested by those who advocate Government 2.0, is the opening of government datasets using an Application Programming Interface (API). API is a generic term used to describe computer programming formats (e.g., XML or JSON) that make it easier for computer applications to share and index data.

A benefit of government adoption of open protocols is programmers can build applications and user interfaces that provide important information to people in innovative and useful ways. It could be a stylish and easily navigable website, an application for your mobile phone, or a database that can quickly display multiple layers of government data about your area.