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IP Enforcement Treaty Still Being Kept Secret
Hugh Pickens writes "More than a thousand pages of material about Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), are still being withheld, despite the Obama administration's promises to run a more open government. The EFF and Public Knowledge filed suit in September of 2008, demanding that background documents on ACTA be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 'We are very disappointed with the USTR's decision to continue to withhold these documents. The president promised an open and transparent administration,' said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. Publicly available information about the treaty shows it could establish far-reaching customs regulations over Internet traffic in the guise of anti-counterfeiting measures. Additionally, multi-national IP industry companies have publicly requested that ISPs be required to engage in filtering of their customers' Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material, force mandatory disclosure of personal information about alleged copyright infringers, and adopt 'Three Strikes' policies requiring ISPs to automatically terminate customers' Internet access upon a repeat allegation of copyright infringement. 'What we've seen tends to confirm that the substance of ACTA remains a grave concern,' said Public Knowledge Staff Attorney Sherwin Siy. 'The agreement increasingly looks like an attempt by Hollywood and the content industries to perform an end-run around national legislatures and public international forums to advance an aggressive, radical change in the way that copyright and trademark laws are enforced.'"
Encryption unfortunately only works if you trust everyone you communicate with.
This gradual strangulation of internet freedoms needs to be stopped now, or perhaps all people who don't want to be sued/arrested/punished randomly for crimes you may or may have not have committed need to start protecting themselves with more serious countermeasures.
Something like a layered approach of Truecrypt+One Swarm/TOR/other anonymization. That will of course also benefit people who commit actual crimes, as they can hide in the crowd.
Obama showed what he thinks of liberty when he decided to appoint someone as an "intellectual property czar".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
When did you type that, 1963? Big business has ruled the US for decades.. welcome to the past.
'm not advocating torture or waterboarding, but when we're talking about a relative handful of people, most of whom are almost certainly guilty
So most of those held at Gitmo were guilty? As were most of those at Abu Grab? All that was required to end up at Gitmo was for a person to be turned over to the US military in return for some money.
'It's better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted'.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I think when people say "Republicans or Democrats, it's all the same to me" they don't literally mean they have the same platform. They mean that electing either party will bring about the same result - the same corrupt politics that dominate our country. The parties are very much the same in my eyes.
Almost every single one of those issues you pointed out are just election year platform gimmicks.