US Rejects Demands For ACTA Transparency

An anonymous reader writes "The US Trade Representative issued a release just prior to the launch of the New Zealand round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations that has left no doubt the US is the biggest barrier to official release of the ACTA text. Unlike most other ACTA countries that have called for transparency without condition, the US has set conditions that effectively seek to trade its willingness to release the text for gains on the substance of the text."

Comments

People are fighting ACTA

[click2005]

http://www.stopacta.info/alertbox

Re:Then fuck it.

[Austerity Empowers]

"We're afraid of our own democracy, it tends to interfere with corporate interests"

maaaan

[unity100]

they actually said it. one member of this 'trade house commitee' assured corporations recently that 'consumer groups' participation would be kept to a minimum'.

Re:maaaan

[commodore64_love]

Corporations (or tress or rocks or other non-humans) should not be allowed to lobby the People's representatives.

And yes I know corporations consist of people. They are still allowed to speak, as individuals.

Re:maaaan

[metrometro]

Can you post a citation to that? Sadly "some dood on Slashdot" is not as authoritative as we'd like.

Re:maaaan

[PopeRatzo]

Here's what to watch for: In a political environment where Republicans have been completely unified in opposition by every single act of President Obama, there will suddenly be wide bi-partisan support for ACTA. It will be sloughed off by the media as an aberration, and you'll hear how "It must be a good treaty since there's bi-partisan support".

Then you'll know that in fact the people who get commonly laughed at with claims of "Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same" were right all along.

But nobody will see it that way, because like with NAFTA and the PATRIOT Act, there will be some trivial partisan issue that will pop up immediately after its ratification that will wipe ACTA right off the front pages so the people who use political parties they way sports fans use home teams can get all exercised again and never realize that they've just been bent over a chair and dry-fucked.

Just watch.

Re:Then fuck it.

[hypergreatthing]

can any of the americans explain this to us here ?

As an American, no i can't. We the public did not create this, have no say in this and have nothing to do with this. I wouldn't even know where to send a strongly worded letter to.

Re:Then fuck it.

[Hatta]

Corruption. Next question?

Let me decide

[UninformedCoward]

We hope that enough progress is made in New Zealand in clearing brackets from the text so that participants can be in a position to reach a consensus on sharing a meaningful text with the public.

Hey, how about letting the people decide what is meaningful?

People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[TheMeuge]

It's very simple, no conspiracy required. The situation is as follows:

1. Large IP holders' lobbyists are applying direct financial pressure to the gov't in general and undoubtedly the negotiators personally
2. The public reaction is only important if it is large enough to affect an election outcome. This is blunted by the fact that the negotiators are appointed, not elected. In the US, even the election pressure is largely blunted by the nature of the winner-takes-all system. In Europe individual votes matter far more to the politicians. Here in the US, they don't care as long as they get their 50.1%
3. The negative reaction from the public will only come about if they find out about it, and most will not waver from mainstream media.
4. Mainstream media is largely owned by large IP holders, and will not only avoid stories about the ACTA, but will create a massive campaign to smear any protest that becomes public.

That's it. There's no conspiracy. Just self-interest all around.

Re:People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[Shotgun]

Now, that's some change we can believe in. Let's all hear it for the most open government in the history of the United States.

Re:People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[causality]

It's very simple, no conspiracy required. The situation is as follows:

1. Large IP holders' lobbyists are applying direct financial pressure to the gov't in general and undoubtedly the negotiators personally 2. The public reaction is only important if it is large enough to affect an election outcome. This is blunted by the fact that the negotiators are appointed, not elected. In the US, even the election pressure is largely blunted by the nature of the winner-takes-all system. In Europe individual votes matter far more to the politicians. Here in the US, they don't care as long as they get their 50.1% 3. The negative reaction from the public will only come about if they find out about it, and most will not waver from mainstream media. 4. Mainstream media is largely owned by large IP holders, and will not only avoid stories about the ACTA, but will create a massive campaign to smear any protest that becomes public.

That's it. There's no conspiracy. Just self-interest all around.

That actually is a conspiracy for it requires many people to cooperate together to accomplish a shared goal. Self-interest is assumed in a conspiracy since it is unusual to form conspiracies for purposes of charity. It's also a conspiracy because the same small (compared to the whole US population) group that owns the large IP also owns the media. That's evidenced by conducting a smear campaign which by its very nature is not terribly interested in factual accuracy.

There's nothing magic about the word "conspiracy" except in the minds of people who are desperate to dismiss a notion without actually finding fault with it. "You said 'conspiracy' therefore you're automatically a nut and I'll ignore your ideas without actually investigating them" is how that goes. It's a weak mind that uses such tactics to shelter itself from ideas that it would rather not consider. It's a tool of marginalization and nothing more.

If you're interested, I believe the fifth definition of "conspiracy" is most relevant here. From dictionary.reference.com:

conspiracy
/knsprsi/ [[ask.com]] Show Spelled[kuhn-spir-uh-see] [[ask.com]] Show IPA
–noun,plural-cies.
1.
the act of conspiring.
2.
an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
3.
a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.
4.
Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.
5.
any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

As I have explained from time to time on this site, if you work at a company that produces widgets, you and all of your co-workers are conspiring to make widgets. To put it mildly, it'd be extremely poor form to read that sentence and then dismiss without examination the notion that the company exists, that you work there, or that you make widgets. But that's generally what people want this magic keyword "conspiracy" to be -- an automatic way to end any discussion with zero effort, zero evidence, and no good reason.

Re:People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[commodore64_love]

You could also include Alex Jones' opinion (take with a spoonful of sugar):

- The mainstream media is owned by the banks, so naturally they are not going to talk about it. The banks want to chain the people financially and creatively. The bank-owned media also wants to pass laws to shutdown the net, since it is hurting them financially and politically (people speaking truth to power).

Please don't shoot (mod down) the messenger.

Re:People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[Shakrai]

Why mark the above post Flamebait?

Because any and all criticism of Barack H. Obama is flamebait. The same criticism of George W. Bush using the same language regarding the same topic would have warranted a +5 insightful. Didn't you read that part of the moderation faq?

Barack H. Obama was bought and paid for by Big Media <-- -1, troll
George W. Bush was bought and paid for by Big Oil <-- +5, insightful

Re:People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[Shakrai]

The idea of the Electoral College doesn't make any more sense than the United States Senate does, yet nobody really talks about how California has the same amount of representation as Montana in a national legislative body.

Both make perfect sense if you remember the fact that California and Montana are sovereign states that retain all powers not specifically delegated to the Federal Government nor refused to the States.

Re:People are fighting ACTA = Useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Because any and all criticism of Barack H. Obama is flamebait. The same criticism of George W. Bush using the same language regarding the same topic would have warranted a +5 insightful.

Actually, the same criticism of GWB would've also been modded Flamebait or Troll initially, and only after further moderation would it reach +5 Insightful..... just like Shotgun's post, which was modded Flamebait when you posted, but is currently +5 Insightful.

But, of course, everyone likes to think that their point of view is being stifled by the mindless majority.

documenting it on http://en.swpat.org

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Luckily for democracy, the process is leaking like an old bucket anyway.

• ACTA overview
• 201001 acta.pdf as text - the big leak, pretty much complete
• ACTA-6437-10.pdf as text - earlier leak, including comments from the EU representative

swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help in documenting this is very welcome.

Good negotiators

[DoofusOfDeath]

I feel strangely about this. It's kind of like getting divorced, and hiring a very effective, but unethical and evil divorce lawyer. You want effective representation, but if you weren't interested in the outcome you'd despise the person who chose to employ such a lawyer.

That's how I'd feel about this, if the US trade representative was working in my interests. But of course, he/she doesn't. They're working for Disney / Microsoft / Viacom / Appple / etc. interests.

So now I feel like somone really is acting really sleazy in my name, even when they don't represent my actual interests. I'm pretty disgusted.

Re:Hope, Transparency, Change.

[Sloppy]

and a gop administration would be different, how?

What part of "no change" did you not understand?

Re:Hope, Transparency, Change.

[Attila Dimedici]

The important difference is that people voted for Obama, even though they disagreed with many things he called for, because he promised them "change" and "transparency". It is one thing when you vote for somebody because they claim to be for a bunch of ideas you support and then learn that they aren't going to actually support half of them. It is another thing entirely to vote for someone because of one or two ideas that you think are very important while you disagree with most of what they say they want to do and then discover that they aren't going to do the things you liked, but are going to do the things you were at best ambivalent about.

Re:Hope, Transparency, Change.

[jjo]

But this president was going to usher in a new age of transparency, and produce "change we can believe in". Obama has the power to order the US negotiators to push for more transparency, but he has done nothing (or worse than nothing) to open up the process. At least we were able to see the final health-care negotiations televised on C-SPAN, as Obama promised. Oh, wait...

Too many people drank the Obama kool-aid during the campaign and can't bring themselves to see that he's just another lying politician, from the left this time instead of the right.

Re:Message To The World

[ktappe]

Could our administration possibly act in a more corrupt manner on this issue? It seems unlikely. At least this removes all question of whose interests the Obama administration has at heart. I only good I can hope to see from this is that the DNC will lose significant goodwill with people who get their news online, harming their electability in November as people choose to stay home, or cast their vote with a 3rd party.

Except that what will actually happen is people will vote Republicans back in and those Republicans will gladly forge ahead with ACTA just as much as the Democrats are.

Re:Then fuck it.

[JWW]

However with ACTA, and basically every other big content initiative, Obama is openly and completely on their (big media's) side and shows every indication that he'll fight as hard to take away our rights as he did to pass health care.....

Implicit and explicit conspiracies

[spun]

Perhaps we should differentiate between explicit and implicit conspiracies. Generally in the popular conception of conspiracy, the conspirators actually conspire together. Meaning, they get together to discuss plans to achieve their ends, and then carry out those plans. That is an explicit conspiracy, and TheMeuge was hypothesizing that perhaps the interested parties here never needed to sit down and discuss plans together. Perhaps they were all acting individually, in an implicit conspiracy. In fact, this type of 'conspiracy' is far more common. Very few people are comfortable believing they are the bad guy. Explicit conspiracies require some kind of an acknowledgment from the conspirators that they are engaging in a conspiracy. Because implicit conspiracies require no active conspiring, people engaged in them don't even need to admit to themselves that they are doing so. The oppression of the lower classes by the owning class is an example of such an implicit conspiracy. Far from having to admit to themselves or each other that they are oppressing the lower classes, the owning class has the privilege of believing they are in fact helping them.

Re:Hope, Transparency, Change.

[rotide]

I voted for the guy and I agree. Change?

Meet the new boss......

However, I think the real kool-aid is believing that voting Republican or Democrat really gets you want you want. The whole damn thing looks like a sham at this point.

Re:Hope, Transparency, Change.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

But this president was going to usher in a new age of transparency, and produce "change we can believe in". Obama has the power to order the US negotiators to push for more transparency, but he has done nothing (or worse than nothing) to open up the process.

Absolutely. Assuming he is aware of what is going on with this, he seems to be breaking a campaign promise. My real question is, where are the opposition politicians on this? I mean, when the president breaks campaign promises, shouldn't Republican, at least a few of them, be calling him out on it publicly? I've heard not a peep, even from folks like Ron Paul. Are they all so badly in the pockets of lobbyists they won't even bring this up to attack their opponents?

As a liberal, let me confirm that

[spun]

Obama is a corporatist. I knew it from the start. He is much more corporate than even Bill Clinton, who at least acknowledged after the fact that NAFTA was a huge screw-up. John Stewart interviewed Obama's law school adviser on election night, and said adviser admitted that Reagan was Obama's favorite president. Obama is not even close to being a socialist. He's barely a liberal at all.

Re:Hope, Transparency, Change.

[MartinSchou]

The important difference is that people voted for Obama, even though they disagreed with many things he called for, because he promised them "change" and "transparency".

Or, possibly, they voted for Obama, because the idea of Sarah Palin being the VP to a 72-year-old president was scarier than having Joe Biden being the VP to a 47-year-old president.

Or possibly they voted for Obama, because the Republicans decided to go for a guy, who was worse than George W. Bush back in 2000? Or maybe they figured the Republicans had already done enough damage to mess up the country, and that anything but a Republican would be good, but the only viable choice was a Democrat? Sometimes it's a matter of picking the lesser of two evils.

What's being hidden?

[PPH]

The USA wants some language in ACTA. But they don't want to tip their hands to certain parties outside of the process. Or these parties might call 'bullshit' on the whole thing and bring their countries negotiators home. So what's in question? Its not patents or copyrights. Everyone knows the negotiating positions and national interests involved with these issues. And the representatives from various nations are well prepared to defend their own interests in these areas.

It appears that the USA is interested in keeping any outside eyes off their proposals. This would seem to indicate that the language they want added is aimed at something other than the standard IP issues one would associate with such a treaty.