Ars Technica reports that 100 different groups have requested access to the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which, among other things, is rumored to contain significant changes to copyright and patent law.
Signatories of the letter include everyone from the EFF to the Australian National University to the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic to Korea’s Christian Media Network to the Dutch Consumentenbond to Thailand’s Drug Study Group (DSG) to the Ecologist Collective from Guadalajara, México to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. It’s a dizzying list with worldwide backing, but the more important question is whether it will have any effect.
It’s great that all of these organizations have banded together to voice their concern. Laws and agreements such as these need to be open to public scrutiny, not written behind closed doors.