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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."
If it's an international treaty, then why is the secrecy a "national security" matter?
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Otherwise people would know the extent and bounds of the laws, and avoid breaking them.
Police states need lots of secret laws.
If the contents of this treaty are so abhorrent that politicians cannot survive being associated with it, then that seems like a great reason why everyone should walk away from the table.
Alphanos
If people will walk away from the table if they become associated with the effort, then what does it tell you about the effort?
It tells me that ACTA is something that companies want to increase their profits without the bad publicity of trying to throw their "customers" in jail.
Perhaps it's better if we stopped the charade here.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
agreed with all you said.
we need more people to see thru the 'BS cloud'.
we need democracy 2.0. 1.0 is bug ridden and ceases to function, at this point. the only thing working IN favor of government is that they're too large to really do the evil they want to do, effectively. imagine the harm this government could do if they really had their act together? scary!
sadly, I don't expect a revolution in our lifetime timeframe. we would have to hit rock-bottom for americans to take to the streets. we've been softened by TV and 'gaming' and other distractions for a long time. we would not know what it means to 'take to the streets' and those in power know this and depend on it.
our system sort of worked about 200 yrs ago. its not at all working now. the sooner we re-invent ourselves, the better. but again, it won't happen because - just because ;(
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Oh, treaties concerning the military powers should be secret, except of the most general gist ("we are cooperating", "we have a non-aggression pact" and such.)
But this is a treaty about the fucking entertainment industry. Using the "national security" excuse here is a sign of the absolute abuse of power.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It would be a bad thing to those who are trying to get make this garbage law. By all appearances, any scrutiny of these plans would inflame the public's ire, and anyone with a public image to care about would not want to collect this kind of tarnish. We can only hope the two senators calling for transparency get some kind of traction going, but Big Media has money in so many pockets, it might be frivolous.
If he really wanted it to survive, you'd assume he'd be a tiny bit more subtle than, "If this shit is known, this treaty is fucked."
Can't get your way? Lie. That's what sociopaths are supposed to do, isn't it? How in the hell could copyright have anything whatever to do with national security?
How stupid do they think we are?
Free Martian Whores!
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. I can also understand that they may not want to disclose the nitty-gritty of the treaty until they have a lot of the kinks worked out so that parts that will get changed aren't attacked and destroy hope for the treaty ever being passed in any form.
However, everything I've heard about it, admittedly "leaked", is terrible. They're using the secrecy of the process to hide the severeness of the treaty rather than "working out the kinks". Also, the treaty seems very much focused on protecting America's corporate copyrighted interests rather than respecting the authors and the people who use the author's works. This is a huge opportunity to fix our system, but instead it's being used to make everyone else's more broken.
It worked because 200 years ago the only people who had say in gov't were wealthy white land owning men. A fairly homogeneous class that didn't have too many internal divisions. Now-a-days we have a huge spectrum of voters which makes it much harder to agree on anything.
Blar.
... and though most of us won't want it, most of us won't really do or say anything until our friends, family, and selves, are spending time in jail or paying huge fines for actions we generally thought were harmless.
Like the opinion machine on TV is gonna spin it any other way than 'we need it, you just don't know it'.
Oh please. Our system is "working" just fine. 95% of American's get plenty to eat (too much, including me). We get fresh clean water at a moments notice - even the poorest among us can get free clean water. We can even manage jobs for 30+ million illegal immigrants.
America has problems, but to spout revolutionary rhetoric over copyright laws is just as silly as the mountain men in Montana holed up with 100s of guns and 10 years of canned food. It's just that, rhetoric. Stop being an ostrich, a sheep - get involved, get your friends involved. Let your elected officials know exactly how you feel. You are but one voice, but one voice among many - motivate them.
Politics isn't just for the politicians, you know.
Okay, so the text *is* shown to corporate lobbyists, but *not* to the public?
He's worried about people walking away from the table? No kidding. People *should* walk away from such a table!
see a Text Widget
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
George Orwell
Secrecy is necessary to plan the indefensible; what's rare is the Ambassador's honesty in admitting it.
What do the negotiations matter? The politicians, or most of them, aren't usually involved in negotiations anyways. What counts is the ratification. That's where the politicians wear it.
Well, ratification would count, except that in the U.S., ACTA is being negotiated as an executive agreement, and thus doesn't require ratification by Congress.
A few Congresspeople have sent a letter to Obama expressing their concern over the secrecy of the treaty, but others are just parroting the line about protecting American business and innovation, etc.
I agree there are good reasons for some negotiations to be kept private, then ratified later. However, when there is no ratification, the negotiation is entirely secret and simply presented to us as a fait accompli, where is the opportunity for public involvement and comment?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Nobody will revolt as long as food, shelter, television and mind altering drugs are cheap and widely available. Even in places like Haiti, which has much worse conditions than the USA, no significant part of the population is revolting.
That being said, I'm skeptical that our new soviet planners in the Congress of Goldman Sachs can continue that happy situation indefinitely. Central economic planning tends to fail eventually.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I just wrote the President, I urge you to do the same. I think they deserve to get slashdotted in that way. Tell them what you think and that there Is interest in the topic and that you have an opinion. Then they have some more information on which to base a decision, especially when you think that this is an issue that effects all the people.
What I am concerned about is that this looks like an end run by another group that was seeking net non-neutrality. In this case the corporate owners of copyrights, here we know that it is not the singer song writter (like it ever was) that is being effected, or for that matter consulted. It appears as though big corporations, I suspect news and entertainment are a big part of it as well as software companies. That want to get a hand on the internet spigot to have prior-constraint control over information especiall information they feel they own. But then I suspect a handful of countries would love to have access to request internet connection be broken for filtered if they think the message is not what they want. That is being done in China now certainly and the some Middle Eastern countries. That is not a good trend. It would be like only being allowed to listen to Fox news all day, is it really fair and balanced and calling it news might be a stretch. And it is a small step from corporate control to a corporate state (or one that is corporate controlled).
The key here is the controls that are being hinted at may not be in the countries , or the worlds best interest. We need to know what they are contemplating before we as a people are committed to an action that effects our information infrastructure. We own it, not them. They forget that sometimes.
The trouble with Democracy 2.0 is that it will be designed with "Rights Management." May as well call it "Government Vista."
Sadly, you seem to have missed the entire point.
If you are merely satisfied with having enough calories per day and enough clean water to continue surviving, that's fine. Some of us, however, feel that more than mere physical necessities are necessary for our happiness. Free discourse, without threat of retribution or harm, the freedom to travel as we see fit without the Government saying who may or may not go where based on how politically 'risky' they may be (as the TSA watch-list brings back memories of McCarthy era communist-blacklists), and the ability to be allowed to live our lives in peace so long as we harm no one.
The Government may not punish us for what we may do. It may only punish for what we have done. You cannot lock a man up on suspicion of likelihood of his committing murder, only once he has in fact attempted or committed said murder.
The attitude of the common people, the faex populi, is that security can be purchased. We have been lulled into believing that the world can be made 'safe.' Life in inherently unsafe. Being 'free' means that you give up security.
We are coming all too quickly to a nation where papers are required to move about, where every single aspect of our lives is monitored by the Government for 'suspect' information exchange, and where we, Human Beings, are being treated as commodities and resources to be traded, purchased, and sold, instead of being treated as Human Beings, with inherent dignity and with respect afforded to us.
One need look no further than any modern corporation and its "Human Resources" department to see this mindset. I am not a resource. I am a human being. We have been desensitised to the callous manner in which we commonly treat each other. We have lost, as a nation, the concept of personal responsibility for our actions. There is always someone to blame.
The death of Democracy (which we are, in fact, not -- we are a representative republic) is that of scapegoating.
The People want their bread and circuses. They want someone to blame when things seem bad, be it the Anarchists, the Communists, the Pinko-Commie-Sympathisers in Hollywood, the Hippies, the Socialists, the Terrorists. These targets are paraded in front of the people to drum up the necessary excuse for the acquisition of greater and greater power by the Government. The Government does not need to read my e-mail, or tell me what weapons I may and may not own. If people truly wanted to be safe from gun-totting madmen, the easiest way to do so would to arm everyone so that as soon as a man opened fire on a crowd, everyone in that crowd would be able to respond in kind.
If people truly cared about the lives and living conditions of prostitutes/sex-workers, they would legalise prostitution so that pimps cannot beat their girls without fear of the girls going to the police, so that prostitutes would not be raped in back alleys because their trade would take place in safety and not in secret.
The right to swing one's fist ends where the other man's nose begins. Likewise, the right to dictate correct behaviour ends where your body ends. Murder is not a curtailment of one's freedom (as something being illegal does not stop anyone from doing it), but is a protection of the freedom of others to remain unmolested in their person.
You, and the people like you, are what have driven this country to the dire straits it is in. Government is not a good, sir. It is a necessary evil. It must necessarily, therefore, be kept as small, impotent, and powerless as it can be.
We need no great standing army to defend our nation. If every man and woman who has reached the age of majority was required, as in at least one country I can think of, to keep in their home a fully automatic military weapon, then any invading force would be met with resistance the likes of which our standing army with its tanks and planes and bombs could not match.
The only true way to security is through freedom -- the freedom of the
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Very. For the most part they'd be right.
really, you get free clean water? I have to pay for mine. Seriously. I get a bill every month and if I don't pay it, my source of clean potable water gets shut off.
America has problems, but to spout revolutionary rhetoric over copyright laws is just as silly
and until they come for YOU (by mistake or othewise) things are just Fine and Dandy(tm), yeah?
let me guess, you're a 20something who thinks things are 'just fine'.
wait until you see a bit more of the world and its reality. the time to worry about our trend is now, not later.
but I see your point; you have enough NOW to eat and your TV has not shut itself off and your gaming console still works. you have a mall to go to each weekend and your parent's basement has not rejected you, yet. life is great. why complain?
(grow up! this isn't about copyright, its about FAR reaching things. can't you see that? guess not.)
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
But Copenhagen still would be public
Sounds great to me.
Do you have additional changes to the moral law of publication that would encompass Copenhagen?
Why would we want to?
But I suppose you have to slam the black man, in case he slams your women, huh?
Typical, someone raises a question about what the government is doing, but because the president is black then anybody who questions him must be racist right? "You're a racist" is such an effective way to censor people these days.
I hope you recognize the irony of just how incredibly racist it is to call "racism" when nothing racist was even hinted at.
Asshole.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Oh please.
I'm a decade past being a 20something. I know things aren't "just fine". But there's a profound difference between "we have problems" and "we have problems so bad we should scuttle the whole thing". Having a functioning infrastructure is a huge accomplishment, and if you've seen what it's like in countries that don't have that, you would be more appreciative. Plus, rosy nostalgia aside, this country (the US), like all others, has had waxing and waning authoritarianism for decades. Or are you ignorant of internment camps, McCarthyism, union busting, etc.?
The real problem here is that the people as a whole have abdicated their responsibility as citizens, either by completely ignoring the problem except on voting day (at best), or by spouting revolutionary rhetoric. Nobody wants to do what is ACTUALLY necessary, i.e., getting their hands dirty in the political process, with the full understanding that they may see little if any direct result. When you have a field full of garbage, picking up one piece won't make a noticeable impact, but over time and with enough people doing it, it's how you clean up your messes. "It's hopeless, I give up" is a fundamentally lazy and cowardly position.
While I do agree with many of your sentiments, technology has rendered the citizen-militia / obscenely-funded-military balance untenable. Other nations can muster weapons of such power that assault rifles become a laughable response. Your assumption that an invader has to occupy - and therefore engage in the kind of warfare which USA is waging in Iraq - is false (also note that even though Iraqis had a lot of AK-47s in pretty much every house, their "liberation" was crammed down their throats despite of that, with millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed). I case of vast riches hoarded by a population armed only with anti-personnel weapons, a nation-state enemy has only to employ a sufficiently powerful WMD system with reasonably short lived post-effects. Then there are also issues of naval blockades etc.
So clearly something beyond the home-kept assault rifles and RPGs is required.
Certainly not me.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
You are pretty close to the mark.
Empires of Earth developed and evolved and eventually moved into an "economy based economy" and that's when their empires eventually fall -- people realize that it's a house of cards at that point... an economy that works only when people are in a "good mood."
Now we, in the U.S., are essentially at that point -- an economy based economy that only works when people are not panicking or doubting that the system actually works. (People who are paying close attention to the economic crisis must realize by now that the market is based on the mood of the traders...more specifically, that selling is better than buying at the moment.) So what do we do when the bottom is about to fall out of this economy based economy? Make laws to protect and support it of course!
I have an unlimited supply of data. I can copy and copy and copy it without loss or error. How can I get people to pay me for it? Make it illegal to do otherwise of course!
We are nearing a breaking point. What happens when things break? Who knows. But whether or not such treaties and supporting laws are passed, we will see the break.
We will lobby Congress to keep this law in the penalty box for 90 days (one senator on a filibuster) once it is revealed so that the layperson can review it.
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
Hmm, the mortgage crisis was actually and primarily caused by the removal of the Glass–Steagall Act in the late 90s. Freddie and Fannie certainly played a part but without this act being removed, there wouldn't have been the mortgage security mess that ended up causing the crisis in the first place. No investment banks merging with real banks to create the massively screwed up financial instruments nobody understood. And of course you had Dubya (and everybody else) massively encouraging loans for everybody. Almost the definition of a perfect storm.
Single payer healthcare would in fact SAVE the country money. Even the completely stripped, watered down Bill currently in the Senate will save something like 600 BILLION dollars going forward. Imagine how much more it would save if we had actual health care reform and choices. Yet the Republicans are fighting giving people CHOICE. Funny they usually like the 'free market'.
I don't know that anyone promised anything like that unless you're talking Dubya who cut taxes by a TRILLION dollars and then started 2 wars that he wouldn't account for in the budget. Everything Obama has done has a plan to pay for it.
Last I checked, Iraq is doing well enough that we might actually get out earlier than planned. The GOP has harped on Obama precisely BECAUSE he is planning for our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Libertarian policy is putting your head in the sand. It works great until there are disagreements about who can take what resources. That's exactly what government is for. Anti-trust laws exist because the libertarian philosophy run amok. Monopolies need to be regulated hence the need for government.
You can claim less is better, but then you need to also claim that the most recent financial crisis was just 'works as designed'.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
You're a patriotic cliche-spouting quack that would destroy society. So?
Sure, there are problems with corruption, much of it systemic. While you're calling it "stupidity and evil", other people are thinking about ways to fix it (try Lawrence Lessig, whose essays on corruption are quite insightful). Your notion of the state of things is deficient (Royalty? seriously? and our government actually does a lot of things pretty well), your notion of history is ignorant (the founding fathers had very serious disagreements with each other, had problems with corruption more severe than we have today, and the first government they made was even more lousy than the one we have today because it was far too decentralised).
A few criticisms of yours are appropriate, but what you want to do about them is utter rubbish.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
but it clearly means foreign policy in this instance.
And like most classified material it actually means 'in the interest of protecting the people involved from political embarrassment'.
But it's great way to launder policy; take an internal policy for which you have no democratic political support, push it in a secret international forum as 'foreign policy', then take it back home and adopt it, claiming it's an international treaty requirement. Great way to bypass any democratic forms.
The problem is that the second always disintegrates into the first, eventually. Of course, at some point the people rise up, throw off their overlords and for a brief period we have a situation where people are free and well off. But then, small groups begin to vie for power, and the people that just want to be left alone ignore them. We progress to the second stage, which leads to the first stage, which exists until the people rise up....
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
We're not stupid. We're disempowered. Get it right.
What better way to revive your failing business models than by destroying competition by using a Secret "Government" Treaty that you have funded?
Who can blame the bloated record companies and overpriced distribution companies pushing DRM compromised media?
After all it wasn't them that slammed a repressive set of draconian laws down on once-free countries! It was their pawns the Congress! It was their pawn Obama!
So hurry to buy the wares of these companies and blind your eyes to the "special" new prices that have sprung up overnight (and that is part of the plan).
It's all just a special deal to make bigger fortunes more quickly for the rich - presumably with our bewildered cooperation.
And of course Obama feels it's Change We Can Believe in! Gotta love that man.
Oh please. Our system is "working" just fine. 95% of American's get plenty to eat (too much, including me). We get fresh clean water at a moments notice - even the poorest among us can get free clean water. We can even manage jobs for 30+ million illegal immigrants.
My cat gets plenty to eat, fresh clean water at a moments notice (she'll let you know). And, she has a "job" keeping rodents away. But... she desperately wants to go outside, and I won't let her. She doesn't have Freedom, she has creature comforts.
Hmm, the mortgage crisis was actually and primarily caused by the removal of the Glass–Steagall Act in the late 90s.
Close. It was actually and primarily caused by the notion that we need a Federal Reserve Bank to specify what interest rates needs to be, and that this entity can use its discretion to artificially manipulate the world market. So while you're correct that deregulation was (and continues to be) an issue, it is the artificial manipulation that's actually to blame here. No entity - not even one as powerful as our government - can create money from thin air. It will all come due in the end, and it has to if the currency is to retain any value.
Even the completely stripped, watered down Bill currently in the Senate will save something like 600 BILLION dollars going forward.
Most of this money is 'savings' and 'cutting waste' which has absolutely zero connection to reform. These changes could, and should, be made IMMEDIATELY, with the discussion on reform a completely separate topic. Bills to that end have been floated and shot down principally because they remove this carrot from the package thus watering down the desire to undergo reform. Never mind how they're unconnected in any way, common sense need not apply.
Imagine how much more it would save if we had actual health care reform and choices.
Amen. Take for example a free market system without any insurance at all. We could simply adopt social security as the backdrop for those left destitute by illness and allow people to pay as they go for what they need, and for that alone. 'Reform' is actually doing the opposite by mandating not only carrying coverage but mandating both the features and (with a public option) the price. This cannot and will never work. It is positively incorrect to assume otherwise, and anyone with a high school education understands the economic reasons why this is doomed to fail.
Yet the Republicans are fighting giving people CHOICE. Funny they usually like the 'free market'.
Confusing 'Republicans' with 'Libertarians and Independents' is like claiming all Democrats work for Acorn, but these both fail a simple fact-check. Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same party with the only difference being which corporate interests hold power over them. They're both the 'Status Quo Party', and neither support any form of freedom in the market.
I don't know that anyone promised anything like that unless you're talking Dubya who cut taxes by a TRILLION dollars and then started 2 wars that he wouldn't account for in the budget.
The wars are wrong and need to stop immediately. More on that in a second.
I firmly believe that those who are rich and in power avoid their share of taxes anyway. It actually makes a lot of sense to allow them to prosper in the hopes their greed will be sated. Otherwise you have something similar to what we have where to ease their own suffering they slaughter the little guy's livelihood like so much chattel. I know of examples personally, and I'm willing to bet you do as well, where cuts are being made where executive bonuses are being held constant. More negative dollars against these people will result in more cuts for the little guy. These kinds of greedy bastards will likely never cut their own profits until their company goes under. Then, like robber barons of old, they use their wealth to start a new enterprise.
Everything Obama has done has a plan to pay for it
Obama is presiding over the largest deficit ever. The notion that he isn't making our debt worse is demonstrably false. Most wouldn't even make this claim. More popular is to blame the economic crisis and bailouts, etc. But to simply deny his involvement in this monumental deficit is almost a discussion-ender right there.
Last I checked, Iraq is doi
No different than Adams and several other founding fathers.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.