December 06, 2011

ACAPOR's President wants to silence people... forever

Remember Fran Nevrkla, Chairman and CEO of Phonographic Performance Ltd, a UK music industry association, that wanted death penalty for those who download copyright material from the Internet without the authors' consent?

It is possible that in Portugal we now have a radical of that kind. Someone saying he is Nuno Pereira from ACAPOR left a comment in the Portuguese newspaper Público (check out the first chronological comment) asking the Government to "eradicate pirate parties, Tugaleaks, Anonymous of every ages, Paula's somethings and filthy Ludwig's, whose minds only serve to destabilize our very fragile society, since they are the mentors for the computer criminality that terrorizes our country".

In parts:

Nuno Pereira, whom I've criticized before, is ACAPOR's President. ACAPOR, whom I've criticized before, is the Portuguese association of movie rental stores. You might remember them from the news, since they were hacked by Anonymous during Operation Payback.

Pirate Parties... Well, you know who they are, even if their target is the Portuguese Pirate Party, who have presented criminal charges against ACAPOR in the past, since ACAPOR has violated privacy laws.

Tugaleaks is a Portuguese website inspired on Wikileaks, who's aim is to do the same as Wikileaks but on a local (Portuguese) level. Unsurprisingly, they've also been vocally critical of ACAPOR.

Anonymous... well, not only I'm sure you've heard about them, but I also already told you about them hacking ACAPOR (defacing their website and leaking 650Mb of e-mails). This is Anonymous message to ACAPOR.

Finally... Ludwig and Paula: they're both Portuguese researchers, and both are bloggers. In their blogs, both Ludwig and Paula wrote more than once criticizing ACAPOR and their attempts to restrict free speech amongst other things. Of course, the name Paula might ring a bell if you're a reader of this blog: after all I'm married with her (and I have no wish to see her eradicated, mind you!). Why them? Well... There was a Portuguese Conference on "Pirate Culture" previously this year, and both the Nuno Pereira, the Portuguese Pirate Party, Ludwig and Paula were there doing presentations and debating.

And maybe those "minds only serve to destabilize our very fragile society, since they are the mentors for the computer criminality that terrorizes our country", since if you see the videos from the event (link above) you'll start thinking that Paula, Ludwig and André from the Pirate Party make sense, while ACAPOR's points of view seem more of those of some lunatic. Of course, the "fragile society" in question isn't "our society" but ACAPOR's association. And the "computer criminality that terrorizes our country" that they talk about is the fact that they "use computers to show their points of view in such a well-structured way that ACAPOR doesn't have arguments against them". Free speech, you know?

What scares me is that this guy is doing this kind of thing long enough to prove he's serious about it. And it scares me because he was there, face to face with Paula and Ludwig, debating issues on which they have different positions, but an... "wealthy debate", I guess I can say. And then, each of them went home... and one of them is crying out loud asking for the others to be eradicated.