Suspend the ACTA negotiations!

Dear member of the Swedish legislature,

It appears increasingly clear that ACTA will affect Swedish citizens and businesses far more than normal trade agreements do. Representatives from the Commission says that the negotiations will harmonize legislation, among other things what you can do on the internet, and who is responsible for it. ACTA negotiations will therefore have implications for our freedom and our right to private communication. But such negotiations should not be secret! The legislative process itself is the core of the Swedish parliamentary democracy. ACTA must be subject to the transparency the democratic legislative process requires.

To achieve the necessary transparency, the negotiating setup must be re-negotiated. No representative of Sweden have signed the confidentiality agreement, which the U.S. put forward in the beginning of the negotiations (the McCoy Agreement). Despite that fact, Sweden is said to be bound by this agreement. Sweden is not. Sweden is only bound by a general convention which says that trade agreements should be negotiated in secret. But ACTA is not a trade agreement.

Therefore, the ACTA negotiations must be suspended and a new framework for negotiations developed. The Parliament must be involved, and the parts of ACTA that might change Swedish law must be open to the public.

It is not compatible with your job as an elected legislator to accept secrecy. Both you and ordinary citizens must have the right to monitor which laws are negotiated. Without it, Sweden is not a real democracy. You are the legislator, don’t let yourself be eliminated by accepting that others do your work in secret.

WeReBuild.Eu Networks

[This post was originally written in Swedish and has been delivered to legislators]