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Ambassador Claims ACTA Secrecy Necessary
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to Ambassador Ron Kirk, the head of US Trade Representatives, the secrecy around the ACTA copyright treaty is necessary because without that secrecy, people would be 'walking away from the table.' If you don't remember, that treaty is the one where leaks indicate that it may contain all sorts of provisions for online copyright enforcement, like a global DMCA with takedown and anti-circumvention restrictions, three-strikes laws to terminate offending internet connections, and copyright cops. FOIA requests for the treaty text have been rebuffed over alleged 'national security' concerns. One can only hope that what he has said is true and that sites like Wikileaks will help tear down the veil of secrecy behind which they're negotiating our future."
The Administration also recognizes that confidentiality in international negotiations among sovereign entities is the standard practice to enable officials to engage in frank exchanges of views, positions, and specific negotiating proposals, and thereby facilitate the negotiation and compromise that are necessary to reach agreement on complex issues. A unilateral release of text by one trading partner would risk breaching the mutual trust that is important to successful trade negotiations.
International politics is an insanely complex and yet dreadfully boring game played by suits behind closed doors. I'm not personally advocating secrecy, but welcome to the status quo.
On one hand, I see why a treaty like ACTA might be desirable to establish a common copyright law across all nations. Especially given how much copyright infringement is going on between nations and how hard it is to enforce laws nationally when the economy and the access is global.
We already have plenty of international agreement on copyright law: the Berne convention, WIPO copyright treaties, the TRIPS agreement, etc. All of those have plenty more signatories than ACTA will have, anyway.
There are also more appropriate venues to be negotiating changes to international copyright law (namely, WIPO). ACTA is not being negotiated there because WIPO requires transparency and broad participation, and ACTA's supporters know that it would not stand a chance at WIPO.
From what I have heard from people who have seen ACTA, as well as the few leaks about it, the reason it's being kept so secret is because it is exporting a lot of crappy US policy, including fundamentally flawed bits, like the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
(b) This section does not apply to matters that are--
(1)(A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive order;
People interpreted that as meaning national security, but it clearly means foreign policy in this instance.
Basically, whenever there is a hiatus between two vowels, the diaeresis mark can be used over the second (like GP did) to indicate that it is not a diphthong. I've had teachers insist that I use either a diaeresis or a hyphen on this word, but this is a stupid attitude because of its lack of ambiguity and the fact that not many other English words are really pronounced how they look either. However insisting on it is no more stupid than saying that it is incorrect. This is an often cited example of an English word with a diaeresis such as here I think it is reasonable to use one here if one wants, it is as valid as any other spelling and is _the_ valid spelling in certain reference books.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem