FOIA Request For Pending Copyright Treaty Denied

Penguinisto writes "According to CNET, Knowledge Ecology International's FOIA request for information about ACTA was denied. ACTA is the pending copyright treaty believed to have been authored by lobbyists for the content cartels. Even stranger, the denial cited 'national security reasons (PDF). While it is not unusual for the White House of any administration to block FOIA requests for national security reasons, one would think that a treaty affecting civil interests alone wouldn't qualify for such secrecy. Not exactly sure what involvement the former RIAA mouthpiece Donald Verelli (a recent Obama pick for the DOJ) may have in this." KEI is not alone; the European Parliament wants to see the ACTA documents too.

Comments

Change

[sexconker]

Meet the new king.
Same as the last.

Re:national security

[girlintraining]

But the most recent time I can think of was the Civil War, which certainly wasn't recent.

There was a grassroots effort in the 80s to pass what was called the Equal Opportunity Amendment. It was approved by somewhat more than 20 states before being killed by the National Organization of Women, who were outraged that the special rights of women would be stripped away in favor of the equal rights of all. The amendment, essentially, made legal distinctions between men and women illegal. A side-effect not noted at the time but since undoubtedly got noticed: If men and women cannot be legally distinguished from one another, all marriages are "civil unions". It's funny how in this country, special rights have become more important than equal rights. Every minority must now have their own special power, rather than everyone having equal power. -_- Our founding fathers would cry if they were alive today to see how far we've fallen from the path of justice and equality.

Re:national security

[Roxton]

It would take a rank ideologue to assume that making legislation neutral to sex and race would be a pragmatic approach to addressing institutionalized imbalances in equity and social justice.

Re:national security

[Rary]

This whole "gay marriage mess" is a side effect of the fact that the US Government has decided to meddle in something that EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET views as a primarily religious matter.

Well, except for all of us who consider it to be, first and foremost, a personal commitment between two individuals.

Of course, neither that, nor your religious idea, have anything to do with the origins of marriage. It was a civil institution first. Basically, it existed to secure property rights and guarantee bloodlines. Then, somewhere along the way, people got it into their heads that if they're going to marry, they should marry someone they actually, you know, kind of like. So the idea of romantic love got injected into the mix. Then, further on down the road, the churches decided that they should have a role in all of this, so they injected a religious element to it. Then, much later on, people like you started thinking that marriage is entirely a religious institution, and that the rest of us (gays, atheists, etc) should just stay away from "your" sacrament.

Let the Pope decide what a sacrament should be and keep any hint of sacrament out of what the government does.

Oh, so now you want to prevent non-Catholics from getting married, too?

I'm sorry, this whole "marriage belongs to the church and the rest of you can fuck off" idea is just complete bullshit. I say keep marriage as a civil institution, open to all — gay, straight, theist, atheist, black, white, whatever — and let churches perform their own "spiritual unions" instead.

Re:national security

[lgw]

Prop 8 was nothing more than an initiative by the Mormon church to use it's influence illegally for political means. The thing should be revoked.

Wait, what? How is a ballot initiative, passed by a clear majority of voters, a secret Mormon conspiracy all of the sudden? This wasn't something that elected representatives took it on themselves to do, perhaps in opposition to the will of the people, thanks to the deep pockects of the Secret Mormon Conspiracy(TM). This was simply a measure that the people liked.

Seriously, about 2/3s of the American public are against gay "marriage". About 2/3s are for it if you don't call it "marriage". This isn't exactly rocket science, folks. If progressives were more interested in results than talking points, this would be a dead issue.

I hear Cali is getting their act together on this, and we may see the model for other states, and the Fed govet, to follow, with a proposition to replace "marriage" with "domestic partnership" (I think) throughout Cali law, getting the government entirely out of the business of defining "marriage". About time, too.