Reuters is reporting that over 25,000 protesters took to the streets across various German cities to protest ACTA. They also report that 4,000 Bulgarians were outside protesting the treaty in Sofia.

There were many more protests in other cities around the world, mostly in Europe, including Warsaw, Prague, Slovakia, Bucharest, Vilnius, Paris, Brussels and Dublin.

It’s reported that the protests are especially active in Eastern Europe. Protesters are comparing the treaty to the all-encompassing surveillance employed by the former Communist regimes.

The people protesting all seem to have the same thoughts in regards to ACTA. They feel that they are being forced to give up their rights to copyright holders and big business interests.

As expected, when it comes to the Internet, most of those protesting were young people. Many of them, of course, were wearing the Guy Fawkes mask as it has become synonymous not only with Anonymous but with the global protest scene as a whole.

A spokesman for the Internet freedom group Quadrature du Net said that the anti-ACTA protests are a “demonstration without precedent” because it is taking place all over Europe “at the same time.”

The protests seem to be working as Germany has held off on signing the controversial treaty. The Czech government has also held off ratifying it as they say it “needs to be analyzed.”

Anonymous did their part by hacking the Web site of Croatian president Ivo Josipovic, who has been known to support copyright legislation. They also attacked ZAMP, a Croatian service that protects the copyrights of composers, and the Institute of Croatian Music.

Lithuania, while maybe small, showed off massive support for the protests as well. About 600 people stormed the government building in Vilnius. Lithuania Justice Minister Remigijus Simasius said that ACTA could pose a threat to Internet freedom.

“I don’t know where it (ACTA) comes from and how it originated, but I don’t like that this treaty was signed skillfully avoiding discussions in the European Union and Lithuania,” Simasius wrote.

[Lead image courtesy of luisfmgoncalves' flickr]

According to various reports, Germany will not be signing the controversial treaty, at least not anytime soon. Perhaps the Germany is waiting for the EU parliament to issue its vote of consent, but that won’t happen until later this year, sometime in the summer.

According to a Google translation of an article appearing in Spiegel.de, German government officials offered the following response for their ACTA delay:

The minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP), has now made ​​it clear that in Germany first before a decision is to decide the EU Parliament. “It is good that the public debate about ACTA, both on and offline so committed is done,” the justice minister said on Thursday. “The EU must now decide whether it needs ACTA and wants,” said Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. “This must be approved by the European Parliament only once. All controversial issues are being discussed at European level and must now be answered.”

While the translation is responsible for the broken English-like response, it appears as if Germany’s government officials won’t act until the controversy surrounding the bill is addressed. Conversely, it also seems as if the German government is waiting on the EU parliament to weigh in before their vote is offered.

While that may indeed be the case, the fact German officials are acknowledging the controversy surrounding ACTA and other Internet regulatory treaties and laws, which indicates the protests are indeed being noticed. With that in mind, if the following Hatebreed masterpiece isn’t the theme song of the anti-ACTA movement, something needs to change:

Loudly.

Tomorrow (February 11), is being set aside as a day of global protest against ACTA and perhaps the newest enemy of the Internet, TPP. While these protests are largely focused in Europe, this is not just a problem facing citizens of the European Union. Keep in mind, U.S. citizens, that President Obama has shown outward support for ACTA, even as his cabinet derided SOPA/PIPA.

Much like the massive anti-SOPA movement, the web, especially social media, is helping facilitate these protests. Over at KillACTA.org, the folks who run FightForTheFuture.org have set up something of a protest meet up utility, complete with a Google Map showing where various protests are occurring.

There’s also a “Write Your Official” widget, which spells out the anti-ACTA manifesto quite clearly:

I urge you to vote no on ACTA and to communicate its severe problems to your colleagues. ACTA’s vague language locks us into obsolete copyright and patent laws, preventing democracies from updating their laws to unlock new economic and social opportunities.

It criminalizes harmless remixes by ordinary users if they achieve “a commercial scale” (art 2.14.1) which many amateur videos do on sites like Youtube. And it criminalizes legitimate websites by making them responsible for user behavior (“aiding and abetting” art 2.14.4).

Worse, it permanently bypasses the democratic process by empowering the “ACTA Committee” to “propose amendments to [ACTA]” without your approval. (art 6.4) In other words, it’s impossible to know what you’re voting for.

The global movement against the US law SOPA showed that internet freedom is a crucial issue which belongs in the legislative process of each country. You should view ACTA as an attempt by a handful of companies to circumvent the democratic process, and you should vote against it.

Thank you. Please reply if you have any questions.

KillACTA.org also features embeddable widgets for sites that want to join the protest on Saturday. As indicated, the embeddable map shows where the fun will be had, especially if you’re against ACTA:

Facebook is also playing a major role in relation to organizing these anti-ACTA protests. Over at the STOP ACTA! page, there is a list of events going on all over Europe, and it’s clear our European Union neighbors, at least the citizens thereof, are not going to simply accept ACTA without a fighting back.

In Germany and France, for instance, there will be protests in multiple cities:

FRENCH:
Aix en Provence : https://www.facebook.com/events/244421288966558/
Ajaccio : https://www.facebook.com/events/133197000134763/
Albi : https://www.facebook.com/events/168765856565763/
Amiens : https://www.facebook.com/events/100287056765109/
Angers : https://www.facebook.com/events/199634866800799/
Annecy : http://www.facebook.com/events/257782500958741/
Avignon : http://www.facebook.com/events/205603019536597/
Bayonne : https://www.facebook.com/events/170881226348001/
Besançon : http://www.facebook.com/events/350055058338859/
Bordeaux : http://www.facebook.com/events/362717853754753/
Brest : https://www.facebook.com/events/115942121861376/
Caen : https://www.facebook.com/events/228618757227112/
Chambery : https://www.facebook.com/events/288493647877788/
Clermont-Ferrand : http://www.facebook.com/events/326849087360202/
Corte : https://www.facebook.com/events/185750778193305/
Dijon : https://www.facebook.com/events/274825002587428/
Douai : https://www.facebook.com/events/102456923212099/
Dunkerque : https://www.facebook.com/events/120665031389535/
Grenoble : https://www.facebook.com/events/291033160951733/
Limoges : http://www.facebook.com/events/321440564560770/
Lille : http://www.facebook.com/events/199934440105717/
Lorient : http://www.facebook.com/events/231912796892759/
Lyon : https://www.facebook.com/events/227033324049150/
Marseille : https://www.facebook.com/events/371810592833698/
Metz : https://www.facebook.com/events/223962574358248/
Montpellier : https://www.facebook.com/events/308322049214315/
Nancy : https://www.facebook.com/events/297319746990736/
Nantes : https://www.facebook.com/events/336368539718367/
Nevers : http://www.facebook.com/events/257478177653829/
Nice : http://www.facebook.com/events/226142050807952/
Nîmes : https://www.facebook.com/events/284365168292336/
Orléans : https://www.facebook.com/events/144336802350023/
Paris : https://www.facebook.com/events/261953107207192/
Perpignan : https://www.facebook.com/events/335195069845376/
Poitiers : https://www.facebook.com/events/335663953135037/
Porto-Vecchio : https://www.facebook.com/events/270343909700151/
Quimper : http://www.facebook.com/events/175748819198384/
Reims : https://www.facebook.com/events/261712197231360/
Rennes : https://www.facebook.com/events/284421551613274/
Saint Brieuc : https://www.facebook.com/events/355899707762027/
Saint Denis (Ile de la Réunion) : http://www.facebook.com/events/355272381151834/
Strasbourg : https://www.facebook.com/events/317988148239037/
Tarbes : https://www.facebook.com/events/336009553098334/
Toulouse : https://www.facebook.com/events/312007895501972/
Tours : http://www.facebook.com/events/282746828454027/
Troyes : http://www.facebook.com/events/322202587818097/

GERMANY:
Berlin: https://www.facebook.com/events/338799346153966/
Bremerhaven: https://www.facebook.com/events/212489055513027/
Dortmund: https://www.facebook.com/events/292927114099000/
Dresden: http://www.facebook.com/events/155805177868102/
Dusseldorf: http://www.facebook.com/events/228942327190942/
Erfurt - http://www.facebook.com/events/204041156361455/
Frankfurt/Main: https://www.facebook.com/events/129547730499332/
Freiburg: https://www.facebook.com/events/313894588647456/
Hamburg: http://www.facebook.com/events/159557767491881/
Hanover: https://www.facebook.com/events/360437973983925/
Köln: https://www.facebook.com/events/207644835998103/
Leipzig: https://www.facebook.com/events/316277768408479/
Mainz: http://www.facebook.com/events/169154469860540/
Mannheim: http://www.facebook.com/events/267555573314186/
Minden: https://www.facebook.com/events/310027772381359/
Munich: https://www.facebook.com/events/117215651734097/
Nordenham: http://www.facebook.com/events/182942588474388/
Nürnberg: https://www.facebook.com/events/244916202249229/
Potsdam: https://www.facebook.com/events/350079258349898/
Regensburg: http://www.akv-r.de/2012/01/30/demoaufruf-acta-ad-acta/
Saarbruecken: https://www.facebook.com/events/337811569584831/
Stuttgart: https://www.facebook.com/events/144489442335635/
Überall : http://www.facebook.com/events/182716005161256/

The question is, will this anti-ACTA outcry fall on deaf ears? Considering the Polish government have already tried to pacify their citizens with more “ACTA isn’t as bad as you think” dismissives. Of course, if people took the apathetic approach and ignore their right to speak out, there’s no telling what state the Internet would be in. At least these protests bring light to the issue at hand.

“The Wikipedia blackout was seen by 160 million people – over twice those who tuned in to the first televised presidential debate,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews. “And if the total calls made to Congress were an average of 45 seconds each, every senator received 11.5 hours of calls.”

Enjoy:

Source: frugaldad.com

Here are some of the YouTube videos that have been going around:

While the channel is offline at the time of this writing, a UStream channel has been livestreaming the protests.

Here’s some of the current chatter going on about Occupy Oakland on Twitter (it’s pretty similar on Facebook and Google+):

The tweets are rolling in like crazy. You can follow the conversation here.

The European Union parliament, according to The Guardian, is scheduled to debate ACTA (pdf) this summer.

Procedural processes aside, it’s clear there’s the treaty has a coalition of support as international governments race to apparently rescue the downtrodden entertainment industry, masked in a treaty of intellectual property protection. Speaking of masks, there has been some push-back from EU citizens in a number of areas, including Poland and France.

Polish citizens took to the streets to express their displeasure with the treaty, which some fear is even more dangerous than the recently-buried SOPA/PIPA bills. The protests, however, weren’t just on a citizen level either. Kader Arif resigned his position as primary ACTA rapporteur, and left the following biting statement in his native French, which was translated by La Quadrature Du Net:

“I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.

As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens’ legitimate demands.

Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.

This agreement might have major consequences on citizens’ lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.”

As an aside, it would be nice if other politicians were this forthcoming. Concerning the aforementioned citizen protests, as indicated, Poland was a noted hot spot of ACTA disagreement, something the lead image indicates quite well.

There’s also some video of the protestations:

It’s highly likely Time Warner would be considered an ACTA supporter.

Poland saw massive protests yesterday due to the government’s intention to sign ACTA. The government went ahead and signed it despite the protests from the public.

The people did have a few heroes in government yesterday, however, with officials from the Palikot’s Movement wearing Guy Fawkes masks in protest. As many are aware, Guy Fawkes is the official mascot for Anonymous.

It was presumably a call out to the Internet community who are vehemently against ACTA.

All is not lost in Poland though as a Redditor points out that while ACTA was signed in by the government yesterday, it still has to be approved by a majority of parliament and then the President who can veto it.

Before all that happens though, let’s just bask in the wonder of politicians making a huge shout out to the Internet community.

[Both pictures courtesy of Reddit]

In a document called “Social Media Application” (pdf) released on January 19, it was revealed that the Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) at the FBI is looking for a company to provide software that can analyze any publicly available information, including tweets, Facebook statuses, notes, etc. and flag anything that the FBI wants to know about.

The plan is to use this information along with a mapping software to locate threats.

From the white paper:

This must be a secure, light weight web application portal, using mash-up technology. The application must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identify, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats. The product must have the capacity to allow the user to retain control of cached and real-time proprietary data; the ability to share it with selected partners, and ultimately enhancing coordination, synchronized-awareness and synergy at the operational level.

Notice the specific mention of “cached and real-time” data. This would enable them to build a database of information to trace patterns and compile profiles.

Among the things the FBI wishes to monitor closely are news organizations (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC were specifically mentioned), Facebook, and Twitter. They specified that they wish to keep tabs on:

1) US Domestic Terror Data
2) Worldwide Terror Data
3) US Embassies, Consulates and Military Installations
4) Weather Conditions and Forecasts
5) Traffic Video

That last item was particularly interesting because they expanded on it.

Traffic Video- Ability to display video feeds fiom traffic cameras to
monitor traffic patterns, obstructions, bottle necks, protesters, and flash
mobs.

The FBI wants to be able to have video feeds of protesters and to monitor flash mobs. With facial recognition software, license plate readers, plenty of public monitoring cameras, and a large cache of information waiting to be mined, this is a conspiracy theorists dream/nightmare come true.

But don’t think that just because you’re browsing the porn tubes, that means you’re in a SOPA Blackout-free zone.

In fact, many popular streaming porn tube sites have joined in the SOPA protest, and their participation ranges from blacked out landing pages to censored logos.

PornHub has placed a “stop censorship” bar over their logo, reminding users that the site, like other tube sites, would struggle to exist under SOPA and PIPA:

In fact, other tube sites in the extremely popular PornHub network participating in the protest too. This includes Tube8 and SpankWire:

Xvideos and XNXX have gone to greater lengths in protest of the legislation. Upon visiting their sites, users are directed to a landing page that announces the blackout:

SOPA and PIPA are laws that would lead to a censored internet, in the name of copyright protection. You may not have heard about them yet as the big medias are hardly covering the subject because they are all in favor of SOPA. This new set of laws was about the pass silently (less internet = more TV). It would allow copyright holders to shut down any site with user generated content (even just a little as it could be seen facilitating infringements), without due process, and create an American internet blacklist.

You can then access the site, but with this warning message:

Thank you for reading all this, you can continue to our site by clicking anywhere, this time…

One of the most interesting SOPA protests comes from TBLOP, or The Big List Of Porn. TBLOP is exactly what it sounds like – a giant directory of some of the best tube sites, pic sites, blogs, aggregators, and porn torrents on the web. They have greyed out every site on their list that might not exist if SOPA and PIPA were to pass:

TBLOP NEEDS YOUR HELP TO STOP SOPA & PIPA! FREE PORN IS IN DANGER OF DISAPPEARING. This is because of two new bills being voted on in the USA, called SOPA and PIPA. If passed, these bills could block or ban most websites. See the list below? The faded sites may soon be gone forever.

It may seem like a trivial thing – to put up these SOPA notices on porn sites. But just think how many daily visitors these sites have. Any little reference could spark further research into the topic – and knowledge is power.

Of course, can you imagine the freakout if some of these porn sites would have shut down completely, not just participated in the protest with censor bars and landing pages? Since this was basically a warning shot, a “see what could happen” if you will, by all means, resume your previous activities.

Many high-profile sites have already begun their blackouts to protest the controversial legislation. At midnight on Wednesday, Wikipedia went dark, as did WordPress, Boing Boing and Minecraft. Sites like Google and Craigslist are participating to a lesser degree – Google’s homepage features a blacked out logo and Craigslist has a temporary landing page detailing their opposition to the bills. Both of those sites are still fully functional, however.

The early Twitter reaction gathered under the #SOPABlackout hashtag is mostly supportive:

Of course, some in the Twitterverse are freaking out, especially when it comes to Wikipedia’s blackout:

The reaction regarding the Google semi-blackout is mixed:

Some are already fearing the reddit blackout, which will begin at 8am EST:

What do you think about the SOPA blackouts? Let us know in the comments.