May 31, three key committees in the European Parliament will vote on ACTA. As of this writing, that is tomorrow – by the time you read this, it is less than 24 hours away.
The committees voting on ACTA tomorrow are ITRE (the committee for Industry and some more), LIBE (the committee for Civil Liberties) and JURI (the committee for Legal Affairs). These are three heavyweight committees that will give their input to the INTA committee (International Trade), which gives the final recommendation to the European Parliament as a whole for a vote later this summer. (Schedule here.)
The three committees have voted, and they all voted to reject ACTA, three out of three. Victory!
It is time to make our voices heard – and it really does work.
La Quadrature du Net has a summary of what all the different recommendations and amendments mean, but it takes some time to get into.
Instead, I suggest that all of us send three mails, one to each committee. I have drafted the following format (adapt and rewrite to match your writing style as you like):
TITLE: Please reject the ACTA agreement [or something similar in your words]
Dear MEP on the [insert committee name here] committee,
As a citizen of [Europe/the world], I am gravely concerned about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, on which your committee will vote May 31.
This agreement, which has legislative effects but has been negotiated with corporate stakeholders outside of democratic transparency and accountability, appears to have severe curtailing effects on free speech online, as well as preventing the European Parliament and the parliaments of Member States from making very necessary future adjustments to key IPR concepts as we transition further into a digitally-framed economy.
Accordingly, I urge you to vote along lines that withhold the European Parliament’s consent to the ACTA agreement.
Sincerely,
[your name]
[your country, if in the European Union]
I have set up three distribution lists to make it easier for you to contact the Members of European Parliament on the respective committees in this urgent matter. They are [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
Please act. It takes but a minute.
ITRE votes at 10:00 Brussels time tomorrow, LIBE at 12:00, and JURI at 10:30. That’s how long we have to let them hear from us.
UPDATE: If you want to send to the MEPs individually rather than using the mail aliases above, the sendlists are here: ITRE, JURI, LIBE.
UPDATE 2: If you want to look up a subset of MEPs, like the Czech ones (as suggested in the comments), here’s the lookup tool I used to generate the mailing lists, run through Google Translate. It can not only filter by committee, but also by nationality of MEPs.
UPDATE 3: The voting is completed, and we won. (That also means it’s no longer fruitful to send mails as per this article.)
I am not a citizen of a European Union member state, but I sent in an email anyway. I feel that as an international issue, it wasn’t an inappropriate decision.
It seems the UKIP MEPs are all opposing, according to a response email I received from them that may or may not be automated.
Dear ,
All UKIP MEPs oppose ACTA.
Kind regards,
Alexandra
—–Original Message—–
From: [mailto:]
Sent: 30 May 2012 13:41
To:
Subject: Please reject the ACTA agreement
As a citizen of the world, I am gravely concerned about the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, on which your committee will vote
May 31.
This agreement, which has legislative effects but has been negotiated
with corporate stakeholders outside of democratic transparency and
accountability, appears to have severe curtailing effects on free
speech online, as well as preventing the European Parliament and the
parliaments of Member States from making very necessary future
adjustments to key IPR concepts as we transition further into a
digitally-framed economy.
Accordingly, I urge you to vote along lines that withhold the European
Parliament’s consent to the ACTA agreement.
[…] Fakvinge 18.366308 -99.873647 Share this:TwitterFacebookPinterestLinkedInTumblrMe gusta:Me gustaSé el […]
The response I got from Alyn Smith:
Thank you for your email.
I have received a great deal of correspondence from constituents on the topic of ACTA and I understand your concern over the potential implications of the Agreement. I have been watching the progress of the negotiations closely and the Parliament has been active and vocal on this issue since the start of the discussions.
In March 2010, a Resolution “on the transparency and state of play of the ACTA negotiations” was adopted with a strong cross-party majority. This Resolution explicitly urged the European Commission to make the negotiation texts available to the European Parliament – and consequently, to society at large – as legally required by the Lisbon Treaty. It also made it clear that the Parliament would not accept any allegedly proposed provision which may limit fundamental rights – such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy – that ACTA might contain.
I was a signatory of the European Parliament’s Written Declaration 12/2010 which called on EU negotiators to ensure that ACTA would not weaken citizens’ fundamental rights of freedom of expression, privacy, and judicial due process. This Declaration was signed by 377 Members of the European Parliament and became the official non-binding position of the European Parliament on ACTA.
My group in the European Parliament, the Greens/European Free Alliance, has commissioned two very important studies regarding ACTA which may be of interest to you. One is on the compatibility of ACTA with the European Convention on Human Rights & the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (http://rfc.act-on-acta.eu/fundamental-rights) and the other is in relation to Access to Medicines (http://rfc.act-on-acta.eu/access-to-medicines).
The European Parliament must now give its consent to the agreement reached. This will include discussions in different committees (Committee for International Trade, Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and Committee for Legal Affairs), none of which I am a member of. I will, however, be following the discussions very closely. The vote of consent is likely to take place towards late summer 2012.
Just for your information, the Commission has made a document compiling all questions it has received on ACTA, which you can access at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2011/april/tradoc_147852.pdf.
Thank you once again for writing to me on this important matter, and please rest assured that I will continue to campaign for the protection of the fundamental rights of EU citizens.
Yours aye,
Alyn
___________________________
Alyn Smith MEP
Member of the European Parliament for Scotland
[…] Falkvinge ha creat llistes de correus amb els europarlamentaris implicats en cada cas per facilitar la feina, de manera que només haurem d’enviar el correu-e a la llista que correspongui a cada comissió: […]
Please update the article with a list of mailadresses.
Done.
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
Done. Three e-mails, a very small one like the draft you posted, were sent to the three committees. Please keep us updated Rick as i can’t watch the votes online, otherwise i would. Need to sleep and get out a bit early tomorrow.
Sorry Rick, the one i signed Pedro Miguel is a double post. Delete that one if you want/can.
Doesn’t really do any harm, but did as you wish.
I’ll post news on Twitter and as an update to this post as I get the results of the votes.
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] […]
Echo done: http://piratasdegalicia.org/web/24h_votacion_acta
I’ve sent three e-mails, and I got a reply from a Scotland MEP, one from a West Midlands MEP. But can we send e-mails to MEPs in a different way (I remember that MEP contact list/table in Swedish), because I’d like to send some e-mails to my Czech MEPs, too. (Basically a translation of this e-mail)
I added a link to the search form you mention that can look up MEPs from different countries, too. Some parts are a bit funny in translation, but it works.
Thank you very much.
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
Correct me if I am mistaken. This is not the final vote on ACTA ratification, but this vote will have huge influence on ACTA ratification vote?
I wouldn’t go as far as to say “huge” influence, but it will at least have a significant deal of influence. Other than that, you’re exactly right.
[…] "CRITEO-300×250", 300, 250); 1 meneos Mañana votan sobre ACTA los comités del Europarl. ¡Actúa! [ENG] falkvinge.net/2012/05/30/key-europarl-committees-vote-on-… por Wayfarer hace […]
[…] redactado un texto que se puede enviar a los europarlamentarios implicados que está disponible en Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! junto con las direcciones a las que hay que enviarlo para que sea redistribuido a los miembros de […]
[…] redactado un texto que se puede enviar a los europarlamentarios implicados que está disponible en Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! junto con las direcciones a las que hay que enviarlo para que sea redistribuido a los miembros de […]
[…] redactado un texto que se puede enviar a los europarlamentarios implicados que está disponible en Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! junto con las direcciones a las que hay que enviarlo para que sea redistribuido a los miembros de […]
When I left the office, one of these e-mails ticked in every second minute. Keep up the good work, and we will win! / HAX @ PP EP
HAX is an assistant in the European Parliament for a MEP on JURI/LIBE, and therefore getting these mails. Cheers from the inside, even on the very receiving end of sending these concerns, shows we’re on the exact right track!
[…] redactado un texto que se puede enviar a los europarlamentarios implicados que está disponible en Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! junto con las direcciones a las que hay que enviarlo para que sea redistribuido a los miembros de […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] Barrapunto, me entero de que hoy, 31 de mayo, es el día clave para rechazar ACTA en el Parlamento Europeo. ACTA significa Anti-Counterfeiting […]
Is it my impression or the Gallo report has been rejected?
[…] Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! (falkvinge.net) […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] och Rättsliga utskottets (JURI) omröstningar. Piratpartiets grundare Rick Falkvinge (som igår uppmanade folk att mejla parlamentarikerna inför dagens omröstningar) har också skrivit väl om hur dagens […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
[…] un texto que se puede enviar a los europarlamentarios implicados y que está disponible en Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! junto con las direcciones a las que hay que enviarlo para que sea redistribuido a los miembros de […]
[…] un texto que se puede enviar a los europarlamentarios implicados y que está disponible en Key Europarl Committees Vote On ACTA May 31 – Contact MEPs Now! junto con las direcciones a las que hay que enviarlo para que sea redistribuido a los miembros de […]
[…] Mientras tanto, aún queda tiempo de urgir respetuosamente a los MEPs del Parlamento Europeo para que voten contra ACTA el día de […]
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