Politicians Worldwide Asking Questions About ACTA

An anonymous reader writes "Legislators around the world are demanding more information on the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. US Senator Ron Wyden demanded answers in a letter to the USTR (PDF) this week, ACTA arose in the UK House of Commons yesterday, and French Deputy Nicolas Dupont-Aignan raised ACTA questions in the National Assembly late last year. All of this comes on top of earlier efforts from Swedish Member of the European Parliament Jens Holm, as well as New Zealand MP Clare Curran, who has repeatedly raised concerns about ACTA, and NDP MP Charlie Angus, who posed questions about ACTA in the Canadian House of Commons late last year."

Comments

It's good to have the spotlight shone on ACTA..

[NeuralAbyss]

Even though the spotlight's being shone on the dodgy practices behind ACTA, what's the bet that this will still result in just plain old stonewalling until the final agreements have been ratified by treaty, and all is needed is legislation in each member state?

ACTA comes from utterly fraudulent governance, and not from the public's mandate.

Re:It's good to have the spotlight shone on ACTA..

[Anonymous Coward]

ACTA comes from utterly fraudulent governance, and not from the public's mandate.

True enough, but you're leaving something out. ACTA comes from the union of fraudulent governments which are owned and operated by multinational corporations. These multinationals have no allegiance to anyone or anything except money and power. This agreement or treaty or whatever they want to call it is just one symptom of a much larger problem.

Re:It's good to have the spotlight shone on ACTA..

[funkatron]

what's the bet that this will still result in just plain old stonewalling until the final agreements have been ratified by treaty, and all is needed is legislation in each member state?

In a few of the member states, all thatt would be needed to pass said legislation would be the approval of the politicians that had just been stonewalled. Lets hope there's still some working democracies out there.

I'll correct this post when my cynicism wakes up

Re:It's good to have the spotlight shone on ACTA..

[furytrader]

" ... fraudulent governments which are owned and operated by multinational corporations ... " Don't be so eager to wave the white flag. You have more power than you imagine.

Checks and Balances . . . ?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Franken's staffers seemed particularly bothered by the fact that since ACTA is being negotiated as an executive agreement, they neither see negotiating texts (which are being done in secret) nor have any chance to review the agreement before it has the force of law.

I thought that the US Government had a system of Checks and Balances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checks_and_balances#Checks_and_balances), where each branch of the Government (Legislative, Executive, Judicial) was supposed to keep an eye on the other ones. The above sentence seems to imply that the executive branch can make laws without the approval of the other branches.

Can someone explain this to me? What exactly is an "executive agreement?" Could this be challenged by the Supreme Court? It seems like Congress has no say at all in the matter.

Re:Checks and Balances . . . ?

[bzipitidoo]

The fact ACTA is secret and isn't concerned with matters vital to national security is all we need to know that this shouldn't be allowed. I am thinking such secrecy is intended for things like agreements over nuclear weapons and wars. Though those do not have to be and shouldn't be secret either, it's more along the lines that if the other parties to negotiations insist on secrecy, the US can agree to that for the sake of getting them to negotiate at all. So those questions about whether ACTA has 3 strikes provisions, or really is within the bounds of existing law are academic.

Now, how to stop it? A preemptive law might do it. Congress could pass a law that clarifies acceptable use of executive secrecy. If lives are not at stake, then the executive may not negotiate in secret. But, I can just see them making the ridiculous claim that lives are at stake, or even tossing in a minor missile or bomb agreement the way movie producers throw in a four letter word solely to upgrade a rating from G to PG. So, perhaps require some proof of such an assertion, and non biased and independent judgment of that proof.

Also, persuade Obama that it's not worth it. Why is he even thinking about this ACTA garbage? And why won't he lift the secrecy? What possible hold could these ACTA backers have over the President to both keep him mum and get him to even look at it and spend time on it? Let the President know that this is not a minor matter and that he can't just blithely allow and do things in unjustified secrecy while everyone else is focused on other matters. If a group of Congressmen told him to forget this heinous secrecy or else face opposition over those other matters, or something like the above bill becoming law, especially with enough support to override a veto, I expect he'd cave. He may even want to be "forced" in this matter, and needs Congress to show a little life and give him the excuses he needs to tell these ACTA backers that he tried but was thwarted. When the Republicans ran Congress, they pretty much gave Bush carte blanche, and the result was poorer governance, as explained here: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62091/norman-j-ornstein-and-thomas-e-mann/when-congress-checks-out . I hope the Democrats are a little smarter, and don't make that same mistake.

It's good to have the spotlight shone on apathy.

[Ostracus]

"ACTA comes from utterly fraudulent governance, and not from the public's mandate."

And which public would that be? The one's that take their civic responsibility seriously, or the public that yells at their politician through the TV? Your complaints about "fraudulent governance" or "public mandate" would actually mean something if people were actually participating and the entire failure was they were simply being overpowered. But it's rather hard to be sympathetic over someone who simply lies there and takes it. Get back with me on "fraudulent governance" and "public mandate" once the global public grows a backbone and actually starts understanding that mandates don't come from silence, but faulty governance does.

the copyright bubble

[girlintraining]

I've posted most of this before on slashdot; This is just a cleanup of previous posts -- it has details of why the ACTA is secret.

A Private War

I used to read stuff like this and get upset. But then I realized that my entire generation knows it's baloney. They can't explain it intellectually. They have no real understanding of the subtleties of the law, or arguments about artists' rights or any of that. All they really understand is there is are large corporations charging private citizens tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, for downloading a few songs here and there. And it's intuitively obvious that it can't possibly be worth that.

An entire generation has disregarded copyright law. It doesn't matter whether copyright is useful or not anymore. They could release attack dogs and black helicopters and it wouldn't really change people's attitudes. It won't matter how many websites they shut down or how many lives they ruin, they've already lost the culture war because they pushed too hard and alienated people wholesale. The only thing these corporations can do now is shift the costs to the government and other corporations under color of law in a desperate bid for relevance. And that's exactly what they're doing.

What does this mean for the average person? It means that we google and float around to an ever-changing landscape of sites. We communicate by word of mouth via e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking sites where the latest fix of free movies, music, and games are. If you don't make enough money to participate in the artificial marketplace of entertainment goods -- you don't exclude yourself from it, you go to the grey market instead. All the technological, legal, and philosophical barriers in the world amount to nothing. There is a small core of people that understand the implications of what these interests are doing and continually search for ways to liberate their goods and services for "sale" on the grey market. It is (economically and politically) identical to the Prohibition except that instead of smuggling liquor we are smuggling digital files.

Billions have been spent combating a singularily simple idea that was spawned thirty years ago by a bunch of socially-inept disaffected teenagers working out of their garages: Information wants to be free. Except information has no wants -- it's the people who want to be free. And while we can change attitudes about smoking with aggressive media campaigns, or convince them to cast their votes for a certain candidate, selling people on goods and services they don't really need, what we cannot change is the foundations upon which a generation has built a new society out of.

Culture Connection

Just as we have physical connections to each other, we now have digital connections to one another. These connections actively resist attempts at control because it impedes the development and nature of the relationships we have with one another. People naturally seek the methods which give them the greatest freedom to express themselves to each other. That is a force of nature (ours, specifically) that has evolved out of our interconnectedness. Copyright law has been twisted to serve as a bulwark against the logical result of increasing social interconnectedness between people and computers: Access an ever-increasing amount of humanity's history, knowledge, and culture. Ultimately, this is a battle they cannot win -- they can only delay, building dams and locks to stem the tide, but they will fail. It's how, when, and where it fails that will decide the fate of economies worldwide.

Every law advantages one group while disadvantaging another. And every engine, be it physical or social, functions because an energy imbalance exists and by moving energy from one potential to another, we can skim some off to do useful work. Laws work the same way -- by creating artificial differences between groups of people, society produces goods and services. This is why we will always have new Prohibitions. It's not a comfor