Will ACTA Be Found Unconstitutional?

DustyShadow writes "Harvard's Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig have an interesting op-ed in Friday's Washington Post, arguing that it would be constitutionally dubious for President Obama to adopt the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as an executive agreement. '[T]he Obama administration has suggested it will adopt the pact as a "sole executive agreement" that requires only the president's approval. ... Joining ACTA by sole executive agreement would far exceed these precedents. The president has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, and there is no long historical practice of making sole executive agreements in this area. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which is charged with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property.'"

Comments

Re:The Constitution

[tm2b]

The sheer amount of 5-4 decisions on the court should indicate that the court makes political decisions, and not merely informed, unbiased interpretations of law.

Not really. It just suggests that cases where the law is clear (and thus would have larger majorities) don't tend to make it to the Supreme Court.