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U.S. Senator Wyden Raises Constitutional Questions About ACTA
bs0d3 writes "In a written letter which can be found here, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden questions President Obama's authority
to sign ACTA without Congressional approval. 'It may be possible for the U.S. to implement ACTA or any other trade agreement, once validly entered, without legislation if the agreement requires no change in U.S. law,' Wyden writes. 'But regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law ... the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress' authority, absent congressional approval.'"
Trade agreements are a form of treaty, and treaties have to be voted on by the Senate. The Constitution does this for a good reason, preventing the President from unilaterally committing the United States to international agreements. Wyden is right on this. And ACTA is clearly a trade agreement. Send this to the Senate first for a vote.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
has "The One" cared about his constitutionally mandated authority limits? The man violates the Constitution so often he makes GWB look like a rank amateur.
Expect him to tell Congress to take a flying leap, sign the evil thing, and then go back to playing golf with Soros et-al. It's not like Congress will do anything. Even if the Republicans try to impeach him, the Dems running the senate will stop it cold. Nobody else has the authority or will to stop him. So we will be stuck with this monstrosity (like all the others foisted upon us by him) until we can voted him and his buddies out and replace them with people who actually respect the Constitution.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Those morons can't agree on what color the sky is, let alone whether to approve a treaty. They'll all be gone after their next election anyway. Just get it done, Mr. President.
Sorry, you lack the constitutional authority to post first on issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress' authority, absent congressional approval.
The Constitution? Pfft.
We've moved past that a long time ago.
Asset forfeiture, warrantless search and seizure, restrictions on the freedom of the press on the internet...
First, the link to the letter in the article tries to get you to sign up for some file storage service before reading the document. Here's the original from Sen. Wyden's U.S, Senate site.
The reason this isn't being submitted to the Senate for ratification as a treaty is because of a conflict between the pharmaceutical industry and the Department of Defense. The pharmaceutical industry insists that national governments not be allowed to override intellectual property laws to make low-cost drugs available to their citizens. That's in ACTA. DoD insists that they be allowed to override intellectual property laws when they want to use a technology without paying for patent rights first.
If ACTA were ratified by the Senate, it would be binding on the U.S. Goverment. This would give patent holders rights against the U.S. Government they dont' have now. DoD doesn't want that.
Yeah, except you didn't have to listen to anything Jobs said. Obama says you have to buy insurance, better buy insurance or you get fined. But I do see you underlying point, the difference being between a toddler whining "Give me cookies" and a 6'10" thug with a gun saying "Give me your money."
(oh, can't wait to feel the heat on this one)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Barrack Obama is a lot like Steve Jobs in that he feels that he knows better what is right for us and what we need than we do ourselves.
I disagree, since most of us did not graduate from Harvard Law School, we are obviously too stupid to be able to function on our own. All hail King Obama, the Harvard graduate!
You don't have to buy his products.
Also, Jobs was actually right at times.
The one thing Congress can still do is starve the Executive of money.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I mean, treaties are for little countries to obey and big countries to ignore. As long as the USA can browbeat every other country into signing ACTA, why do they need to sign it themselves - or were they actually planning to abide by this one?
Every time I see Ron Wyden associated with something he's the one asking intelligent questions or proposing reasonable legislation. It's gotten to the point where I have to watch myself to make sure I don't agree with him reflexively.
I'm incredibly impressed with him, and I sure wish *he* would run for president. I'm nauseated at the prospect of choosing between Romney and Obama next year.
Sometimes I even want to do this with pictures of Ron. Secret Love Lair
Simply torch a copy of the Constitution in front of the class and say "Do whatever the hell you want. Class dismissed."
OTOH, I'm not sure he actually ever taught a class. He was given a position there to write his book, then to give him credibility while he furthered his political career. Sweet deal, money for nothing, if you have the connections to get it.
Between two really unattractive options, backing DoD or pharmaceuticals, I think we picked the wrong side of that one. Pharmaceutical companies are just about the most corrupt, manipulative organizations around. And I'm not saying that because of some CNN sound bite, I've read some good books by business ethics and public health experts on the topic. This one was not only argumentative but surprisingly scholarly and accessible; great stuff. Profits Before People
The people in sales and marketing of prescription drugs are seriously the scum of the Earth. They manipulate prices, patents, medical education, public opinion, public policy, and a thousand other things. What makes them especially annoying to me is their constant press statements and ad campaigns about how they're so generous, so sensitive, and how they're practically non-profit in the long run. At least banks and arms dealers occasionally admit it's all about the money.
No, he's not. He's a pawn for his corporatist handlers, just like Bush was.
Been a long time since 99% of politicians cared about it, not like they are going to start caring now.
At the expense of mutually assured destruction, no doubt. Remember the debt ceiling debate a few months ago? Remember when new debt couldn't be issued to fund spending in excess of tax revenue, so the Treasury Dept. started looting government pension funds? Good times...
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Completely off-topic, but...
Hey, the party affiliation of Wyden isn't mentioned in the article! Where are all of the typical whines about the lib'rul media neglecting to mention that the dude(s) mentioned in the article are (D)s? Oh, is it because he's doing something that's good?
This story is a perfect case to illustrate the confirmation bias of butt-hurt whiners and their persecution complexes.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
It's about the cushy position given to him for 12 years at University of Chicago Law School as a lecturer for constitutional law. His colleagues at the school didn't find him to be particularly engaged, as he had other priorities at the time, namely his political career.
His connections were gained while doing community organizing work in Chicago. I have to admit, he is extremely smooth. He'd do anything, pretend to believe anything, live a complete lie, just to get ahead.
No, it was the Republican minority that somehow maneuvered the health care bill into a situation where the individual mandate was the *only* way to pay for it. I'm not sure how else they expected it to work when they took the single payer option off the table.
I'd claim that it was just an unintended consequence, except I'm pretty sure this was *exactly* what was intended. They get to force the issue, then blame Obama for what they did. Brilliant, really, especially considering how many dupes will happily swallow the lie whole as long as it fits with their "Obama and the Democrats are big spenders!" mantra.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
"They" didn't sign the bill into law, though. Obama did. He did precisely what they wanted him to do. He willingly and eagerly participated in their plan. He deserves as much blame as they do.
.. to the resurgence of pettiness as the primary means of political discourse ....
+7 incisive
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Lets be honest here, this isn't an elected official gunning for our rights, this is someone that feels cheated that Obama took HIS right to vote for this.
That's not very likely to happen whether we replace him with a Republican or a Democrat.
This link explains the difference: Treaties and Executive Agreements.
Since George Washington, presidents have been entering the US into international agreements that were not approved by the Senate, i.e., agreements pursuant to the constitutional authority of the president.
The constitutional sources of authority for the President to conclude international agreements include:
(a) The President’s authority as Chief Executive to represent the nation in foreign affairs;
(b) The President’s authority to receive ambassadors and other public ministers;
(c) The President’s authority as “Commander-in-Chief”; and
(d) The President’s authority to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
So the Obama Admin will obviously claim this falls under his constitutional authority based on existing law. It will be interesting to see if SCOTUS takes the case, assuming one arises.
Please don't argue with the messenger here, I'm just presenting the law and the facts, not issuing a conclusion on ACTA's legality.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
AH, did you forget about the 2 previous elections?
You know where republicans attack vote counting setter, destroys ballots, and called any one names who dared question what happened?
I am not fanatical, or an irrational worshiper. I use logic and history. I suggest you begin to do the same.
Do you know what cause the enthusiasm for Obama? the complete and utter fuck ups the republicans did. People seem to forget that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So What the fuck was he waiting on? The ACTA has been an issue for a long time and he waits til now to question it?
Because it is the type of politics that effects how you can use technology.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Due to him being black, he was the one best able to get across the message of "I'm not Bush." And then he proceded to be pretty much like Bush in various areas, only even more incompetent.
You mean how Gore tried to steal the election through the classic "Recount until the Democrat wins" strategy, but was rebuffed by the Supreme Court? You mean how the efforts of the networks to stop votes in heavily Republican Western Florida by declaring Gore the winner over votes in the East, where polls had closed, didn't work even though it cost Bush 7,500-15,000 votes? You mean how the Democrat effort to have military (mostly pro-Bush) ballots thrown out wasn't enough? How about ACORN's widespread voter registration fraud in 2004? How about the Black Panthers intimidating white voters in 2008? Obama even paid them back by having Holder basically drop what was a clear-cut, strong case against them.
Using logic and history, you'd know both parties equally use dirty tricks to try to steal elections.
As a DoD contractor, I see that all the time. DoD employees are rightfully pissed when contractors develop tech on the government dime, then take the tech a half step further and start calling it proprietary. It's total BS. The DoD always wants the simple right to use the things they paid for without paying again. And in years past, DoD contracts departments have sometimes done a poor job and then been burned by buying something on a low initial bid, being sold a proprietary technology, and then being stuck with ridiculously overpriced maintenance costs and no way to cost-effectively hire someone else to do the work.
I've never seen the DoD just try to directly use a foreign patent for free, although it's not an issue of whether or not they want to--I think it's more functional roles. The DoD is primarily composed of enlisted guys who do the work and generalist officers who lead them. They employ pockets of specialists to keep the generalists out of trouble, and those few specialists usually end up responsible for technical management of programs and contracts so the officers don't need to do day to day management and can focus on strategic items. That way DoD officers don't have to learn how to manage highly technical staffs--which is a very different task from managing soldiers in the field, so this significatanly cuts DoD overhead--and the DoD doesn't have to figure out how to keep paying for a costly technical staff if congress reduces funding since they can just not extend contracts.
The DoD will still be crying for the new features and capabilities provided by new patents, but they generally don't care how it gets done, and consequently, the patent is an issue the contractor can figure out. The DoD just wants 'sharks with frikin lasers attached to their heads.'
And now they buy the documentation too so they can later get competitive bids on upgrading those lasers down the road.
1) U.S. companies and legislators practically dictate ACTA to cushion the corporate interests of the entertainment industries. ... then it suddenly might not be acceptable to the people who (in practice) started the whole circus?
2) ACTA is presented as an "offer you cannot refuse" to the rest of the world.
3) Eventually, ACTA comes back to the U.S. as a treaty, ready to to be signed
4)
5) ???
6) Confusion!
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/cl/us-1498.html identifies the statute which allows *any* Federal agency (not just DoD) to use or authorize a contractor to use (which is what usually happens) a patent or copyright without licensing it. That article also lists a few examples of when the Government has been caught doing this ... even with respect to patented drugs!
The DoD is the agency which most commonly uses patents "for free" rather than paying the Government-determined fee for a compulsory license simply because the DoD gets a mostly-open pass to claim risk to national security if they acknowledged telling their contractor to steal another company's patents. Yeah, that's the DoD indirectly using foreign and domestic patents for free but it is as unethical as when MegaCorp creates an easily-disolvable subsidiary to violate employment laws, etc.