ACTA is an international initiative to define and protect intellectual property from "piracy" and "theft" by establishing an international legal framework. It also seeks to create a governing body outside of "existing forums". Although designed to protect copyrighted material, the bill also has leagues of potential to:
stifle innovation, as well as make it more difficult and expensive to distribute free software via file sharing technologies like BitTorrent, which are used to distribute large amounts of free software. as well, it is a clear threat to online privacy
Criminalize cheap generic medicines and make it much harder for these medicines to reach impoverished areas.
This bill was also signed behind the backs of their American people without their knowledge or consent.