Are airports, and the industry in general, seriously contemplating this? Wow. This whole revolution of airport security is spawning out of Canada, apparently. But at this year’s G8 summit, the ACTA (The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) will be discussed at length. News of the Act being discussed at G8 indicates possible wide-spread usage throughout the world of the ACTA. So what exactly is the ACTA? It’s a law/act that proposes airport security checkpoints should have the right to check electronic devices (MP3 players, laptops, advanced cell-phones, portable gaming devices, etc) for illegal possession of copyrighted material, or pirated media. A Reply to this article (Digital Journal: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement May Make Content On Your iPod Illegal) responded perfectly:
“Every time I come across this story, I look for some clue that it isn’t as hopelessly stupid as it seems to be. Can anyone seriously think that customs officials are going to add iPod and computer searches to their workload? How would they select the ones to be examined, or would everybody automatically be subject to a search? How are the officials to determine what’s legal or illegal? It seems that copyright holders will never give up the fight to control every possible source of potential illegality, even to the point of constantly violating the rights and privacy of those who buy their products. If they lose one battle, they just attack from another front.”
But seriously, how the hell would they separate who to search and who NOT to search? What we’re going to see is a type of profiling not unlike profiling those of Middle-Eastern descent as terrorists. Now males, ages 18-24, who may or may not be wearing one of those “clever” T-shirts, will start to be screened for illegal content on electronic devices. And how the hell do they know what’s illegal and legal? I have CDs on my computer that aren’t registered with the “auto-find” (whatever you wanna call it) program because they were copyrighted by smaller record companies. What of this? This is just an example of the airline industry taking 9/11, and global terrorism, and using for an entirely different means. Bullshit. Like this reply-er says: security screeners already have a large enough checklist to follow without trying to bust Tommy from Kappa-Delta-Pi of torrenting the Star Wars episode of Family Guy illegally. This law is completely unenforceable, which last time I checked, makes it Unconstitutional (at least in this country). I love Canada, but this is terrible. They can do whatever the fuck they want, but if other countries start adopting this, I’ll be so pissed. The fact that the ACTA is even on the damn bill at G8 this year is enough to make me vomit. As if the world doesn’t have larger problems than Coldplay’s new album being downloaded 1,604,378 times.
-Sonny
