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Rep. Darrell Issa Requests Public Comments On ACTA
langelgjm writes "After repeated dismissals by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Congressman Darrell Issa has taken matters into his own hands by posting a copy of ACTA online and asking for public comments. ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a secretly negotiated multilateral trade treaty with the potential for profoundly affecting the Internet. 'ACTA represents as great a threat to an open Internet as [do] SOPA and PIPA and was drafted with even less transparency and input from digital citizens,' Issa said."
I thought it was already approved and signed by the US.
What we essentially have is International SOPA 2.0 here... and it requires only the signature of a diplomat (who works for the PotUS) and 60 Senators. Why a Rep is getting involved is a sign we've got a publicity hog who doesn't know what he's doing. If you want to do the right thing for this, send a campaign contribution to Obama's primary campaign... even though he doesn't have a credible challenger for the Democratic nomination he can use the money, and if you can afford to max things out your limit resets when he accepts the nomination at the convention.
Please, dear god, read some of it and post an intelligent comment. If you put in a generic rant, you merely become a statistic. However, if ou present a relevant comment, they are required to annotate it.
...and his name is U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa. Darrell Issa is kicking ass and taking names out there 'in the open' and he deserves your support too.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
its election season.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This agreement was written by the U.S. entertainment industry. It was written by them with one, and only one, purpose in mind: to advance the interests of their own industry at the expense of the freedoms of every other group and citizen in every country that signs it. It was secured in the U.S. by the open bribery of the U.S. Congress and President. It has been foisted on the rest of the world through the hostile use of U.S. economic might, in illegal secret negotiations that violate the laws of almost every country involved. It only serves to harm the international reputation of the U.S. and its citizenry at the expense of the interests of one industry.
It should be soundly rejected by all remaining free counties.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Okay, this may have me holding my nose and filling in the oval next to Romney or Gingrich in November.... Obama signed ACTA in Janurary 2012 Mr. President, how could you?
As I discovered looking for Obama's stand on the issue, the "rogue diplomat" who signed ACTA is the PotUS himself. This makes no sense...
Where was I January 29.... that's the day Obama signed ACTA and now we've only got the Senate remaining for a chance to keep the ball out of the end zone.
Soooo, after internet went belly up on SOPA/PIPA somebody from the government critizises it? Cry me a river. Maybe they wanted to get rid of him and he is using the Streissand effect to try to shield himself?
So a republican wishing to jab Obama does the right thing by posting a secret treaty online. And he's a California republican as well - land of the Entertainment Industry. Does this count as a good thing or a bad thing? I'm thinking it's both but it works out for the citizens so it's a net good despite potential partisan motivations.
bah.
Tries to stop government from demanding Open Access to scientific publications sponsored by government.
How much Elsevier is paying you, Darrell?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Opening Paragraph - "The Parties to this Agreement"
This chapter establishes the tone of the treaty and from the beginning obfuscates the differences between actual property/trademarks (and their centuries of legal baggage) and the relatively new concept of intellectual property and copyright infringement. it also emphases focus on the digital world and copyright. The treaty itself offers few guidelines in respect to protecting citizens from specifically dangerous counterfeit products, making no differentiations based on physical safety, low quality counterfeits.
Also introduced here is the concept of balance of the the rights and interests of the relevant right holders, service providers, and users. This is a common talking point of the media lobby, and is used often to justify increasing the rights of IP holders at the expense of the rights of internet operators and citizens fundamental rights to free speech, privacy. The language is crafted to imply a sense of fairness and balance, however, civil liberties and human rights are enshrined at the highest levels in law. Weather the ideology of Intellectual Property should hold equal standing should be an issue of vigorous debate and not an issue to be taken at face value.
Article 5 part (l)
Right holder is defined in the treaty as including "includes a federation or an association having the legal standing to assert rights in intellectual property". it's worth mention that this agreement is designed primarily to hold these organisations interests ahead of individuals creative rights holders.
Article 8: INJUNCTIONS
"Each Party shall provide that, in civil judicial proceedings concerning the enforcement of intellectual property rights, its judicial authorities have the authority to issue an order against a party to desist from an infringement, and inter alia, an order to that party or, where appropriate, to a third party over whom the relevant judicial authority exercises jurisdiction, to prevent goods that involve the infringement of an intellectual property right from entering into the channels of commerce."
This definition is vague and very much open to interpretation. What goods are we talking about here? physical goods like VCRs, Cassette recorders, DVD burners, or even computers? Software goods that allow the copying of home videos and music production, Real player, Adobe Premier, etc? or even goods in the form of packages by internet service providers, would providing access to a means of a communications channel to the internet, through which copyright infringement might occur count as providing goods that involve copyright infringement?
This kind of uncertainty is often passed down while making local law, and opens individuals and small business to the threat of defending themselves from injunctions, involving expensive legal fees.
Article 9: DAMAGES
This is a tricky section, paragraphs 1 and 2 are presented as mild suggestions of damages, but paragraph 3 states that these suggestions must be implemented as an alternative at the request of the rights holder (defined earlier as media companies). This to me requires participants of ACTA to sign into effective law, the myth that every single illegal download of a copyrighted work represents a lost sale and that the right holder should be compensated as such. In reality this is not the case, and there are several conflicting studies carried out by interest groups and independent researchers around this topic.
This topic is important as you will see later, as an individual downloader of a single song can be classified legally as a mass distributor of the same song and charged for tens of thousands of lost sales as a result. This is what happened in the US thousands of times over since the introduction of the DMCA act, on which ACTA is based.
Article 10: OTHER REMEDIES
This article has huge impact on on physical copyright infringement liability because of it's vagueness, there is no reference to the suitability of the product or regard of if it's fitness for
So a republican wishing to jab Obama does the right thing by posting a secret treaty online.
It's no longer secret. It has been officially opened as soon as the first countries started signing it.
Your smugness smells like the shitpile it appears. If you knew anything about Darrell Issa you would understand that Hollywood did not elect him. Hollywood is funneling money to Obama. You should pull your head out of your ass sometime and at least try to research your own bias.
Yep, Issa is very partisan. It gets complicated when somebody does the right thing for what are not necessarily the right reasons. I wonder what'll happen when this issue no longer garners him any press coverage?
Some Issa info: http://www.salon.com/topic/darrell_issa/
This agreement was written by the global entertainment industry in order to advance their own interests at the expense of the freedoms that make a modern democracy possible. It was secured in the U.S. by the open bribery of the U.S. Congress and President. It has been foisted on the rest of the world through the hostile use of U.S. economic might, in illegal secret negotiations that violate the laws of almost every country involved.
This single agreement represents the undermining of thousands of years worth of social evolution, and those in public office who support it should be immediately dismissed, criminally charged, and incarcerated for their remaining years on this Earth.
Changelog:
elrous0 - original comment
Idou - revised to blame global entertainment and added some action items
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I'm really confused. I thought Issa was a completely evil bad-guy. Is this just pandering on his part, or does he actually have some virtue?
piece of shit.
Fuck ACTA and anything like it.
Since the money they spend may go to be spent on drugs by their employees.
Healthcare, in the USA, is part of the EMPLOYEES renumeration, NOT part of the owners' taxes.
So you're admitting the President himself is pushing ACTA, considers it a done deal, in violation of the Constitution and your own personal beliefs.
But your reaction is that anybody publishing ACTA who is not a president or senator is simply a publicity house.
And so your reaction to a President who is violating the Constitution & Your Personal beliefs is to *DONATE MORE MONEY* because you don't like Daryl Issa, *EVEN THOUGH DARYL ISSA ISN'T RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT*.
I will refrain from making any sort of partisan jab here, because frankly, the jokes write themselves.
The first is that the "story" Fluke wanted to tell was a personal anecdote (hardly fit material for a discussion, unless you are attempting an emotional appeal... which again, is not exactly what we want our laws to be based one).
Of course personal anecdotes are fit material for discussion when you are trying to determine the effect of a policy. A policy-maker should consider the worst part of a policy. Here, a girl had a cyst the size of a tennis ball form on her ovary because of the former policy, needed surgery and lost the ovary, and went into early menopause--all because an insurance policy *that was supposed to cover* birth conrol for non-contraceptive purposes regularly makes it almost impossible for people to get that birth control. Ms. Fluke was there to share that story and other stories. The men were religious people (e.g. priests) there to testify about their faith. Neither one is particularly scientific, but a policy maker should listen to both.
In addition, Ms. Fluke shared some polling data collected on an affected campus.
Second, they put the fact that she was a minority in the headline (as if that was the issue) when clearly at least one of the witnesses was already black (so, not the actual issue).
There have been over seven thousand stories about this. You are saying there is a problem with one headline? And even if the differences were as you say, it could easily be explained because (1) she was trying to testify for the minority party in the House, and the minority party had no other witnesses, or (2) she was the only woman to testify in the morning, and being black doesn't make one a woman.
And finally, since when was a student at a university considered an expert witness on anything like this? Seriously. A professor, sure. A random person they happened to find in a university with a (no doubt) heart wrenching story?
A professor is not necessarily an expert, nor is a student necessarily a non-expert. Here, you're talking about a student who has a passion on a subject, who has researched it extensively, and who has had many stories shared with her by people who have been affected by it. That makes her an expert, especially compared to Congress, which has just taken up the issue and does not have anywhere near the same level of experience with it.
I'm sorry, but she doesn't actually have any standing to testify.
Um, no. One needs standing in order to bring a lawsuit. One does not need standing in order to testify before Congress.
I can demonstrate that with an easy (ridiculous) example: have a white person testify that black people beat him up, at a hearing to pass a law to throw all black people in jail. Does that testimony offer any credible reason to pass the law? No, and neither does Fluke's.
I fail to see how having a black person testify to that would make the law any more legitimate. Your analogy fails because you chose a law which necessarily would note be open for debate. How about a law prohibiting the sale of condoms without a prescription? Should women be able to testify who were forced to have abortions because of the law?
Actually, Issa wants the government to not be involved in the bedroom: i.e. not to have the government fund their contraceptives, or, rather, to force religious organizations to provide them (which contradicts religious principles).
It's just not that simple. The religious organization needs to set the Cost of Attendance, which is the amount students can borrow. The CoA covers insurance purchased through the University. That insurance does not include contraceptive coverage, and discriminates against people who try to use contraceptive drugs for other medical needs. The University already provides contraceptive coverage to its employees. This is not a question of forcing the university or taxpayer to provide contraceptive coverage; it is a case of stopping the University from preventing students from getting contraception coverage by the manner in which it arranges financial aid and insurance coverage.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Having people who are clearly biased and acting on their own self-interest are not the type of people that should be used to inform decisions regarding the law.
Actually, this is how pluralism works. People bring evidence and arguments and support to positions that are in their self-interest for financial, politicial, or moral reasons and try to convince their elected officials why they are right.
If people not biased and acting in their own self-interest are the ones determining policy or giving input into it, you wind up with a very paternalist state that has no input from the people whose freedoms are affected by government policies before those policies are made.
Sandra Fluke's arguments were weak at best, giving anecdotal evidence of the importance of birth control pills for medical reasons other than pregnancy prevention. She gave an example of a woman who had a clear medical need for these pills, yet then extended this to include all uses of contraception. There are many women (my girlfriend included) who are 100% pro-contraception, yet believe that you should pay for your own sex life.
She is not asking others to pay for her sex; she is asking that the health insurance she pays for include birth control.
The reason for the extension--aside from being pro-contraception, if we adopt that terminology--is that the difficulty in convincing an insurance carrier to cover contraception for non-contraception purposes when they don't cover it for contraceptive purposes creates a practical barrier to getting contraception for non-contraceptive reasons.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Discussion of the law *must* include those whom it affects. When people file lawsuits, one of the concepts is that the person filing must have standing. Wikipedia: "In the United States, the current doctrine is that a person cannot bring a suit challenging the constitutionality of a law unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the plaintiff is (or will imminently be) harmed by the law."
That's Article III standing. It applies to courts, not Congress.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
He's posting copyrighted material on the internet!
Check your premises.
http://issa.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=581&Itemid=70
Check your premises.
...the fact that you can be vegan and have super high cholesterol. Unless you meant to present a flawed argument to illustrate their flawed argument.
So a republican wishing to jab Obama does the right thing by posting a secret treaty online. And he's a California republican as well - land of the Entertainment Industry. Does this count as a good thing or a bad thing? I'm thinking it's both but it works out for the citizens so it's a net good despite potential partisan motivations.
To butcher a quotation that I'm unable to find online right now: you don't want to have to depend on having good people in order to get a good outcome, you'd like to set things up so that the system produces good results even when the people operating it aren't necessarily good themselves. Maybe you suspect Issa's motives (personally I don't, but your mileage may vary), but if the outcome heads toward a desirable goal, then I'd say things are working as they should. Bad motives, good result, I'll take it over the reverse any time.
I don't know. This guy's resume and accomplishments sound very good, but he just did a pretty questionable AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit yesterday:
A lot of dodging and unanswered questions. At the end of the day, he's yet another typical politician. Just this one is slightly more concerned about technology than the rest of them...
All Treaties/Acts, etc. that come out of the U.N. have to go through the U.S. Senate for approval before they can be signed by a legal sitting President. No to ACTA!!!
OK, who modded the ten-year-old's comment as 'insightful'?
I read the whole thing. I looked up terms. I thought about it. It may not be "great", but it isn't that bad. Many references to each Party's own laws, etc. not being contravened - so the Constitution and the Bill of Rights still stands. I guess if I were a Representative in the House I might be a bit put out that Obama signed without consulting me. That's OK, by G*d, on the other hand we finally got something done, so I'm not so ticked at Obama for doing this. I also like being able to read the silly thing (after all this time - even Joe Lieberman couldn't get me a copy). Yes, it is about an industry striving to protect its sources of income and its (old fashioned) business practices - and perpetuating the control of certain groups (which have profited heavily in the past). I bet buggy whip manufacturers felt the same way.
It does remind me of the strenuous effort which went into the creation of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) - which I blessed every day I was doing business in 46 states at the same time. This IS just another step toward viable commercial law circling the globe and making business feasible in many countries at once.
So, don't fight this fight here - fight the laws which are built to "comply" with it which may (or DO) contravene our reasonable rights as individuals.
Bless you all, fight nicely now.
A Coward