EFF, Public Knowledge Sue Over Secret IP Pact

Cowards Anonymous writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have filed a lawsuit against the Office of the US Trade Representative in an attempt to get the office to turn over information about a secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement treaty being negotiated to step up cross-border enforcement of copyright and piracy laws. ACTA could include an agreement for the US, Canada, the European Commission and other nations to enforce each others' IP laws, with residents of each country subject to criminal charges when violating the IP laws of another country, according to a supposed ACTA discussion paper [PDF] posted on Wikileaks.org in May."

Comments

Show us the money!

[mfh]

Why hide it if it's beneficial to the elected people? Isn't that your argument for trampling our rights, each and every time? If you have nothing to hide...

Shine a light on these roaches! Protest!

[freenix]

ACTA is something that has not seen public debate and that's remarkable for such sweeping and draconian legislation. Because the U SAP at RIOT ACT was passed without time for legislators to actually read it, and torture is AOK bills, I'm not surprised by much the US does anymore.

What, exactly do they tell EU and Asian officials to make shit like this happen? It looks like they convinced/bribed key legislators that this is all dry technical stuff best handled by subject matter experts and then stuffed the panels with copyright/IP warriors. The sad fact is that most legislators are too old to realize the implications of the laws they are producing. John McCain, who has never used email, may be sadly typical. Protest will surprise these legislators and start to convince them there's more to this than dry technical details.

Corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. government has become EXTREMELY corrupt.

Speaking as an old person...

[Peter Simpson]

...but minus the fistful of dollars...

To put it succinctly: we're pissed off, too.
I'm not at all happy about what's been happening to our civil rights, our constitution or our country's image in the world. The last eight years have been a boon to the corporations and a disaster for the rest of us. Our elected officials are either too lazy, too stupid, too scared or too much beholden to the corporations. It is on their watch that the PATRIOT act, the TSA and the DMCA have been passed.

So, it's not just the young who lose, it's all of us. Some of us old geezers feel just like you do.

And by the way, you're damn right we have a sense of entitlement. Entitlement to do what we want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Entitlement to human rights and fair use of copyrighted material. Entitlement not to be treated as suspected terrorists every time we board an aircraft.

Bitter? No, just angry, and hoping more people get that way. Democracy only works if you make it work.

Re:Speaking as an old person...

[MindKata]

"Democracy only works if you make it work."

That statement is so true and its not something I fully realized, even just a few years ago. I had thought that as my ancestors and people like them had fought so long and hard to finally win Democracy. Then surely as we now have Democracy, we therefore much now just keep Democracy. I didn't realize there are people constantly trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain and so over time, Democracy has to be constantly defended against these people.

The people trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain are almost by definition people without empathy towards others. They actually choose to violate Democracy for their own gain.

Its good to see that there are still groups around that will stand against the people who undermine Democracy. I have never been that interested in politics until this year, but the almost constant news in 2008 has shown me that 2008 should go down in history as the start of a massive move towards a global Big Brother. This year has finally shown me the danger of letting this minority of powerful people undermine Democracy. Its sad that in every generation, we have to suffer this minority of power seekers constantly trying to dominate others and undermine Democracy for their own gain.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) ... it was true in his time, and sadly its still true now.