http://www.alternet.org/story/146533/draft_of_secretive_international_copyright_treaty_leaked_--_confirms_fears_about_internet_freedomThe standard response to transparency criticisms from many governments (including Canada) was to claim that they favored releasing the ACTA text to the public, but that other unnamed countries did not. Since there was no consensus, the text could not be released.
The Dutch leak succeeded in blowing the issue wide open by identifying precisely which countries posed barriers to transparency. The document identified the U.S., Singapore, South Korea, and a trio of European countries as the remaining holdouts. Once publicly identified, the European countries quickly reversed their positions. The E.U. now unanimously supports the releasing of the text alongside Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Switzerland. With the outing of the transparency issue, it will fall to the U.S., which is widely viewed as the critical stumbling block, to justify its insistence on keeping the treaty secret.
Maintaining support for secrecy also faces a second pressure point -- the second major leak was a copy of the draft agreement itself. In other words, while countries maintain official positions of treaty secrecy, a draft is readily available for anyone with Internet access. Because the text has not been officially released, however, government officials have refused to comment on substantive provisions revealed by the leaked document.
Identifying the opposition to transparency may have been welcome news, but the availability of the leaked text was more bittersweet. On the one hand, ACTA watchers were grateful for the opportunity to see first-hand what has been discussed behind closed doors for the past three years.
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