Groups Voice Concern With ACTA Provisions

Ten public interest groups and library associations wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk Monday voicing concern about some provisions in a leaked version of the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement being negotiated by the United States and other countries.

A "recent leak of a full text [of ACTA] heightens our concern that this negotiation is not primarily about counterfeiting or piracy; nor is at all about trade law," according to the letter signed by such groups as the American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge. "The public rationale that the treaty would not impinge on domestic law has been placed in doubt - particularly when one considers whose domestic law would be endangered."