ACTA: How can Prentice be so short sighted?

I know that not many people read this blog. It's really a place for me to vent, more than anything else, since there is little that I can do, personally.

I have already emailed my local Member of Parliament the following:

Dear MP:

I am very concerned about this article I read in the paper today:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=ae997868-220b-4dae-bf4f-47f6fc96ce5e

I have been following the copyright laws in Canada for some time now and have been concerned about the direction Mr. Prentice seems to be taking on this issue. His latest proposal does not consider the rights of citizens such as myself and seems to be very biased (unfairly so) towards American interests.

Under current legislation, I am a law abiding citizen. I have an ipod. I have a blog. I participate in various activities on the internet, all of which are legal in Canada (and other first world nations.) The introduction of this bill seeks to treat me like a criminal first and has not been given adequate public attention or review. Please Hedy, there are thousands of us in your riding who will all be negatively impacted by this bill. Please be our voice and at least raise questions or vocalize our concerns. This issue is of primary importance to those of us who live and work with these technologies.

For more information and some background material, you can look at a website maintained by one of Canada’s leading legal minds in this area: Michael Geist. His website can be found here: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

Thanks for your attention. I have purposely kept this message brief. If you have any questions, feel free to respond to this email

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

I am putting this up in case someone else is casting about the internet looking for examples of what to say to one's government representative. Mine is probably not the best example and I am in no way experienced in these matters. But if my spoonfeeding gets one or two additional people to raise awareness of their concern to their local government, maybe others in office will start to take this proposed bill more seriously.

Others have had more meaningful things to say about this proposed bill - I suggest following the title link for a concise writeup on it.