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.'"

Comments

EFF is nice....

[digitalunity]

but it would be nice if the ACLU stepped in. They have vastly greater influence and funding.

If ratified, a treaty such as this could have far reaching consequences for privacy and leave ISP customers beholden to 3rd parties under the guise of 'IP enforcement'.

What sort of hacktivism efforts have we seen?

[jollyreaper]

Seems like the quickest way to stir up some controversy here is to hack the computers of the people running these agencies and see if they're into salacious yet legal pr0n or, even better, nasty illegal stuff. Not that I'm advocating this sort of thing, of course, but there was news of this sort of thing being done to Justice Scalia. He saw no problem with privacy violations and a law professor had his class comb the interwebs for PI on Scalia. They put together a very revealing dossier with all his info. Word was that Scalia was not amused. Heh. Payback's a bitch.

Re:Funny...

[Red Flayer]

Democrats = More govt = More regulation of citizens
Republicans = Less govt = Less social benefits for citizens

I think you're a bit off.

Dems == more government [more regulation of citizens + more spending on citizens via social programs]
Reps == more government [more regulation of citizens + more spending on business via defense programs].

Please note that "defense programs" includes things like war.