RSSLawsuit against US on IP trade agreement dropped for national security
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published June 18, 2009, 5:56 PM
Opposition to a sweeping trade agreement being negotiated in secret between the United States and at least eleven other countries, plus the European Union, is being voluntarily curtailed after an apparently successful effort by Obama administration officials to prevent parties in a lawsuit against US trade representatives from obtaining any information about that agreement.
It's the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the existence of which is about the only thing the government will barely acknowledge. A document leaked last year to the community journalism site Wikileaks.org indicated that intellectual property protections were on the agenda, and may have been part of the reason why the treaty was not ratified by July 2008 as previously planned.
Speculation about the contents of the leaked document has risen to proportions that would have made Pierre Salinger blush with envy, including allegations that the nations are discussing the possibility of rendering the use of P2P for file-sharing purposes illegal, and of forcing nations to set up Internet monitoring facilities in conjunction with ISPs, listening for illicit file trafficking.
Last September, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge stepped up their ongoing efforts to learn more about the ACTA, at the very least to verify whether the speculation was true. It's very difficult to be an advocate against something you know so little about for certain. But yesterday, the two groups decided to step back, withdrawing their lawsuit against the US, after Obama administration officials notified the court it will uphold the Bush administration's decision to treat ACTA-related documents as classified for national security reasons.
A statement released yesterday by EFF International Policy Director Gwen Hinze reads, "There's a fundamental fairness issue at stake here. It's now clear that the negotiating texts and background documents for this trade agreement have been made available to representatives of major media copyright owners and pharmaceutical companies on the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property. Yet private citizens -- who stand to be greatly affected by ACTA -- have had to rely on unofficial leaks for any substantive information about the treaty and have had no opportunity for meaningful input into the negotiation process. This can hardly be described as transparent or balanced policy-making."
Last March, a member of Pres. Obama's private citizens' activism blog (formerly his campaign Web site) posted an open message to the President, which reads in part, "This doesn't sound like transparency. It's especially interesting since the corporations that would be benefiting from new rules have access to all documents and participate in the process, but an agreement that will affect culture is not accessible for the citizens to view and comment? What's in this agreement, Mr. President, that even you, a champion of transparency cannot tell your citizens what's in it?"
So much for the "change"...
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|Agreed. It cannot be change if it's more of the same.
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|The endeavor for transparency while he was in our shoes, simply cannot be kept wearing the presidents shoes.
if those of us who wanted transparency were in presidents shoes, then we would overwhelmed with so much top secret information and privilege information beyond our expectations as ordinary citizens.
So, he deserves our respect and understanding because he is putting our safety above our need to be inquisitive.
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|They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin
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|perhaps so.
but ol' B Franklin had a secret which was recently discovered.
he counterfeited money to help the economy back in the ol days.
"do you really think there is anything in fort knox other than endless pallets of paper money?"
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|EXACTLY!
The US population has been duped into giving up their rights liberties and freedom by the gov't time and again in the name of "security". When asked if they'd be willing to give up some liberties for security many say yes, but what most people don't even realize that liberty and freedom are synonymous. So in essence they're saying that they're willing to give up freedom for security.
It's a known fact that gov't also has a nasty little habit of introducing laws, etc. for a good reason, but as the years go by they later intentionally turn it into something much more than it was originally intended for, usually by using a disaster of some sort to get the panicked people to agree to being treated like suspects (it's amazing what people will agree to with the right circumstances & a scare tactic presentation) and then it's abused for "security" and used to take away even more of our freedom (read gain more control over the people) in the process. Just look at all the initially good laws that were only for select & limited use that were wildly expanded for "national security" after 9/11. It didn't affect the terrorists much, but WE lost a LOT of OUR freedom! Just look at the flagrant abuse of the Patriot Act, now we're all potential suspects & with the broadening of many laws the gov't can "legally" invade our privacy as they please. For example, before PATRIOT, the FBI could only use NSLs to obtain the records of suspected terrorists or spies, but under PATRIOT the FBI can use them to get private records about anybody without any court approval, as long as it believes the information could be relevant to an authorized terrorism or espionage investigation. There are numerous other abuses of law.
The US is becoming a police state, didn't we move & go to war over similar treatment?
@DatabaseBen
I can't find anything about B Franklin being a counterfeiter, only that he was authorized to print money in PA, NJ & DE.
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|@mynamehere
it was an expose' i saw on a show called the history detectives.
one of the professors/investigator was asked to find out about some old us dollar bill.
seems that spain renegged on funding the u.s. with gold for fighting the english. so ben franklin had to print money to pay the soldiers.
the collegiate conclusion was that the money was countefiet by ben franklin. perhaps, this was before the legal authorization to print money, as you mentioned.
its one of those odd funny stories but a true one.
personally, i think ben franklin may have had the hots for thomas jefferson's "slave girl"
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|Thanks for clearing that up. I figured a search would come up with something, but it didn't.
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|Does anyone else see parallels between what's happening in America now and WW2 Germany? Next we'll have neighbor snitching on neighbor, children turning in their parents for "crimes" against the state, all under the guise of the patriot act.
Big brother is watching
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|soon? what rock have you been living under? crap like that has been going on for decades
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|I wonder how much it'll take for the media and the general public to stop fawning over Obama. He claims to take the higher ground (more transparency, more bi-partisanship, no torturing, etc.), and obviously the more naive of you have repeatedly fallen for it, but at some point you have to wake up. He tries to make a good show of it but lies through his teeth as he does so. It is just tiresome having to deal with so many naive and ignorant people on a daily basis.
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|Back before he was elected, I took the time to actually research all the candidates, and research past candidates and presidents, and came to the conclusion that BOTH dems and repubs have been making a mess of things for quite a LONG time, and that they both at their core represented the same old same old. I took a stand and like many others decided to vote for a third party candidate that wasn't a career politician, wasn't in any way associated with either of the two parties that made a mess of this country - and wasn't for more of the same old same old.
My candidate took hard and vocal stands .... abolition of the IRS (taxation without representation), repeal of the patriot act, disbandment of the gestapolike DHS, and truely securing our borders.
Unfortunately, like most complacent societies that want things to change but dont want the change to affect them, you all voted in this clown.
You all made your own bed, sleep in it. as for the rest of us, we don't sleep in that bed, but continue to fight to bring this country back into constitutional law.
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|when will this slippery slide of lost freedoms ever end. The preacher is preaching transparency but cry's national security at every turn. And I voted for this guy! I don't blame him for all our lost "freedoms" in the 21st century, but he sure isn't changing anything inside the beltway for the better for the adv. citizen. Now I am not supporting "common sense" illegal activities (but stupid laws and rules that make someone do a double take, and saw what the *$&* I dont) like the P2P issue was clearly blow out of portion, just look at the MN woman who has to pay 80k for each song! Just how much of that will arrive on Journey's next bank statement is a joke! Now the treaty between most of the world's big countries is a secret. We can't even get Brazil to give back a kid who rightfully belongs in the loving care of his father. DHS was the worst thing imposed upon the American Citizens. Since its inception, we have lost much. Soon the FOIA will be gone too I say.
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|no doubt that the underlying issue involves national security.
wouldn't surprise me one bit that there is a covert side to p2p that is being exploited by the governments.
a remote desktop on steroids, whereas the nsa or whomever can see everything occurring on a terrorist desktop, including cam images without the user ever realizing it.
"in cyber space all is fair, like in love and war".
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|You can spin anything into the umbrella of "national security". So, how is that hopey , changey thing working out fer ya, now?
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