Czech and Slovak Govt. backing away from ACTA, too.

My wife, who is professionally interested in the politics of the Czech Republic, doesn't usually find ways to connect her work and mine. So she was surprised to see this week that the European protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have now reached the highest levels of the Czech government.

Prime Minister Petr Nečas has announced that the Czech Republic will follow Poland and suspend ratification of ACTA, which has become a local lightning rod after 22 EU countries signed on last month. Ratification still needs to take place in various national parliaments.

Anonymous has been attacking government websites, while the Czech Pirate Party has organized street protests in Prague. The Pirate Party isn't happy about the "suspension," though; they want to see full-blown withdrawal from the whole process.

"By no means would the government admit a situation where civic freedoms and free access to information would be threatened," Necas said, according to the Prague Daily Monitor. He added, "I want to emphasise that no checks of laptops on the borders, no monitoring of Internet users, no filtrations and similar things have ever threatened in the Czech Republic. No such threat has ever existed for a single moment."

Neighboring Slovakia has also expressed doubts. Economic Minister Juraj Miškov said he opposes any deal that "would curtail basic human rights in any shape or form, particularly the right to freedom and privacy and that will superimpose copyright protection over these rights."

ACTA may still pass in central European parliaments, but not before gettting a closer look.