Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I believe the only hope in passing ACTA was to keep it secret. The cat's out of the bag with the leaked and commented document. Yes, I've read it and yes it's very scary. Much of it goes way beyond countering counterfeiting and piracy.
Now that the public has access to the leaked document, hopefully a lot of people will read it, make their own conclusions, and let their representatives know how they feel about it. That's the way to defeat this. At least here in the EU, our MEP's have said wait a minute, let's take a deeper look into this.
If ACTA passes as it is today, we are all going to be screwed. Keep up the pressure on your elected representatives.