Secret ACTA Treaty May Sport "Internet Enforcement" Procedures After All 239
Andorin writes "Ars Technica writes about the recent work on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and reveals that while the public does not have access to the text of the agreement, a handful of lawyers representing Big Content and numerous companies and organizations do. 'Turns out that... ACTA will include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures" after all. And how many people have had input on these procedures? Forty-two. ... Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) found out in September that the US Trade Representative's office had actually been secretly canvassing opinions on the Internet section of the agreement from 42 people, all of whom had signed a nondisclosure agreement before being shown the ACTA draft text.'"
Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking of....
I CLEARLY remember an emergency session being called right after they went into recess a few years back (4-8 years ago I believe) because they passed a budget that contained a provision that removed privacy protections from tax return information.... and of course.... nobody read the bill.
Of course, as much as many hate the idea, it could be REALLY BAD for political figures, big businessmen etc, so they held an emergency summer session, and fixed it.
Anyway, I clearly remember it.... maybe my brain is broken in a way that makes it not interface seamlessly with google, but I can't find a single article or reference to this incident, which is too bad, because it is a link that could be really useful in say.... discussions like this.
Anyone remember this? Anyone have a link?
-Steve
Single point of failure (Score:3, Interesting)
Wipe it from Google, wipe it from history.
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Interesting episode, but obviously the scifi
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HR 1226 made it illegal for IRS employees to "browse" tax returns.
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No way. It had to be more recent than this. (in 1997 I had just left HS, was in college, and my head was way too far up my own ass to care). I am pretty sure I know where I was working when it happened, which places it somewhere between 2000 and 2005... possibly somewhat later, but no earlier.
As far as I understand the law now, Law Enforcement can ask the IRS to review a return for fraud. However, the IRS (this is my understanding now, please correct me if I am wrong) can review it and decided fraud was com
Re:Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't anyone bothered by government asking commentators to "sign a non-disclosure agreement" about a proposed law disturbing?
This makes republishing a law that's "copyrighted" look like a free and open society.
Back-room, off-the-record, tit-for-tat haggling over laws' formation is bad enough as it is. The only possible reasons for this NDA are precisely the reason it should be blasted out over public loudspeakers.
Re:Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone else suspect that it won't be much longer before we just ignore the dictates that come from central authority utterly? I'm looking forward to it, personally...
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Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the ti
Re:Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:5, Insightful)
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You mean it's hard for 307 *million* people to ignore the few LEO amongst them? Even with the 1,473,900 active personel in the millitary, they still vastly outnumber the cops/soldiers.
And you should never forget, that even a soldier with a tank is likely to join a giant group of so many protesters, that he does not see any chance other than dying inside that completely locked down tank.
The real problem is the retards out there, who are acting like passive, easily influencable cattle.
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Isn't anyone bothered by government asking commentators to "sign a non-disclosure agreement" about a proposed law disturbing?
No, and anyone who is could only be motivated by racism.
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Why do you hate America? Why are you trying to fuck America?
Re:Senate likely to pass treaty (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe that's not how *governments* should negotiate (at least not ours), and if I heard a strong enough argument I might even agree with that position. But it's not a sign of sinister intent. It's the status quo for treaties.
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It's not a proposed law yet. It's a pile of paper that may someday become a proposed law. When it becomes a proposed law it'll be up there on Thomas with everything else.
With all the crying about the health care reform bill text, they want to minimize the text of the law's exposure to the public. It'll be proposed and voted on a late night Friday, whisked quickly through the other chamber, rubber stamped through the Prez, and, poof, instant gestapo, paid for by the taxpayers whose necks they'll have their knees against.
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Isn't anyone bothered by government asking commentators to "sign a non-disclosure agreement" about a proposed law disturbing?
How does the government prosecute someone who broke the law? Make the jury sign NDAs? Or maybe use a military court?
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They want to send the Internet back to 42BC.... (basterdised content).
All they see is (devalued) Dollars, and (devalued) Euros in front of their eyes.
The uneducated politicians pander to these people, because they give out campaign contributions / BIG brown envelopes. Maybe we should start demanding politicians with REAL degrees who understand the REAL world, not worthless cr@p subjects like English, law, art, history that politicians seem to specialise in.
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They want to send the Internet back to 42BC.... (basterdised content).
All they see is (devalued) Dollars, and (devalued) Euros in front of their eyes.
The uneducated politicians pander to these people, because they give out campaign contributions / BIG brown envelopes. Maybe we should start demanding politicians with REAL degrees who understand the REAL world, not worthless cr@p subjects like English, law, art, history that politicians seem to specialise in.
English, Law, and History help so that you can see when a coup d'e'tat is imminent. That then allows you to run and hide in your bunker.
But seriously [most of] our current politicians are useless idiots that are almost as bad as a dictator
Freedom of Information Act (Score:5, Interesting)
EFF asking people to ask for Senate Hearings (Score:5, Informative)
It would be nice to see this linked from the article but.... the EFF has a page up to send your reps a request to call senate hearings on this issue:
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=383 [eff.org]
I have been forwarding the link to everyone that I know, I recommend that everyone else who cares about transparency in the legal process to do the same.
-Steve
Re:EFF asking people to ask for Senate Hearings (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be nice to see this linked from the article but.... the EFF has a page up to send your reps a request to call senate hearings on this issue:
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=383 [eff.org]
I have been forwarding the link to everyone that I know, I recommend that everyone else who cares about transparency in the legal process to do the same.
-Steve
This is super important, thanks for posting. I have also begun sending it to everyone I know. Can we get this as an update to the main article, please?
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From TFEFF:
However, despite that, it is clearly on a fast track; treaty proponents want it tabled at the G8 summit in July, and completed by the end of 2008.
Apparently their definition of "fast track" and mine are significantly different.
Not that I don't agree with the EFF, just saying that maybe the breaks have been applied after all.
Re:EFF asking people to ask for Senate Hearings (Score:2)
So much for transparency (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for having a truly transparent administration. This president operates the same as all the others.
Re:So much for transparency (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to due with the current administration. The ACTA was formed in 2007 and is an international organization. Sure the administration could try and force them to open up... but who knows how high on their list this issue is.
People seem to forget that Obama hasn't even been if office for a year yet. Very few presidents accomplishments are visible in their fist TERM let alone their first year.
If you work for the government, or even a large corporation, having the president say "We will do this" results in several months of people writing and implementing policies, changing the way things have been done, etc. Then you need to break the habits of folks who have been doing it differently for years. Finally you need to fix everything that no one thought of. I could be several years before Obama's transparency promise truely begins to be noticeable... though I have been reading of a lot of things that show of a shift in that direction since he came into office so the trend is in the right direction.
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You missed the memo. This bill is perfectly transparent. It's so clear no one can see it. Just like a living room window that birds fly into.
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Re:So much for transparency (Score:4, Informative)
The Administration and Congress are both worse (Score:2, Flamebait)
but what really compounds the issue is that the Press is still enthralled with Obama and Co that they press on nothing. The Administration showed their hand, using their own people to bash news companies that report in a manner they don't like, while patronizing wholly sold out organizations like MSNBC.
What does that leave us with? A bunch of right wing talk show hosts? They are even easier to box than the traditional broadcasters because if they truly do become a threat they will diversified/regulated ou
The number is... 42? (Score:2)
Yes.
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If they were drafting an agreement seeking to protect whiny sensationalist articles on the Internet I'm sure Slashdot would be given advanced versions of the draft.
If you think this, you are wrong.
Re:The number is... 42? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, but I have a serious point too: The "Big Content" and other companies are the ones that have a stake in anti-counterfeiting legislation, of course they are going to have primary input. If they were drafting an agreement seeking to protect whiny sensationalist articles on the Internet I'm sure Slashdot would be given advanced versions of the draft.
What. The. FUCK?! I'm a citizen of a country covered by this treaty, I have a stake in this treaty. "Companies" are just groups of citizens, they are not actually citizens. Companies don't have a stake in this, it is the individuals who have a stake in those companies that do, as this will affect their profits. Does their right to profit trump my rights as a citizen? I think not, but you've got the unmitigated gall to call this a whiny sensationalist article and imply that we, the citizens, don't have a right to complain or even see this bill. What patronizing garbage. Companies shouldn't have rights, and they certainly shouldn't trump the rights of citizens. Companies should not get to dictate treaties to the rest of us. They shouldn't get preferential treatment, and you shouldn't go around kissing the ass of Big Content and telling the rest of us we need to bend over and take what's coming to us, you anti-democratic toady.
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And now you know why I've recently realized that I'm an anarcho-capitalist: the only way I can see to eliminate pigs feeding at the trough is to eliminate the trough.
Funny, I thought capitalism was the trough, which is why I'm an anarcho-syndicalist who believes in democratic control of the means of production. Well, at least you got the 'anarcho' part right. Down with Archons! [wikipedia.org] :P
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Okay, but I have a serious point too: The "Big Content" and other companies are the ones that have a stake in anti-counterfeiting legislation, of course they are going to have primary input.
Hate to break it to you, but not a single "Big Content" company would even exist in the first place without citizens of a country.
That places us citizens at the top of the food chain when it comes to what is best for us.
So no, it's not 'of course' they get primary input. They get LAST input.
That is why the outrage.
Remem
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Of course, from an economic view, IP legislation is very similar to taxation, except the tax rates on the specific monopoly products are set by private interests. (And with 5-20% efficiency, it's also a whole lot less efficient than most government run tax-financed programs).
IP isn't free. The wider it's applied and the harder it's enforced the more it costs the economy and IP is one of the reasons the west has difficulty competing with low-cost countries.
Just calling a taxation form 'property' doesn't make
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have you seen my representative government lately? (Score:3, Insightful)
I love my country, I hate my government (because it is no longer "my" government). We need a change. We need to break the stranglehold the Republican and Democratic parties have on the machinery of government. We need the populous to wake up and act...vote. Vote for repealing rights that the federal government has usurped from the state governments. We need to limit federal legislation of states and depend upon each state to make the decisions that affect the people that they know better than the federal government (you know, they way our founders intended it to be). I'm going to stop here and get ready for the onslaught of all of the knee-jerk, anti-American flames aimed squarely at me.
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You sound like my kind of patriot.
I swear, NOTHING has radicalized my views, like reading about the ideals of the radicals that started the American Revolution and founded this country. Nothing has so quickly shown the current system to be one of utter hypocrites.
Frankly the only place I disagree is in that this would even be useful. I think my state, and the few that surround it, should all consider secession. Then we can go and sign our own treaties.
As was pointed out at the time, even on the republican s
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And no federal government yet has represented California's interests. Hell we don't even get 80 cents on the dollar back in federal tax money, and what we do get is so wrapped in pork and idiotic regulations it costs almost as much as we get to use. Hell without the drain of the federal government California would be a profitable state (and yes, that includes if we hired our own army)
We are tired of subsidizing the rest of the country as they tell us we cannot live the way we want to.
Secession! *waits to ge
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Hmmm Northeast leaves.... and CA leaves (probably taking the rest of the west coast with it).... I have to imagine that the midwest/south would then split.
For some reason this leaves me with the image of Texas becoming the Lone Star State again and being overwhelmed by a rush of Mexicans looking to take their land back.... and that makes me giggle and want to see this even more!
-Steve
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Canada would welcome the north east states as provinces btw. I'm sure at least Vermont would gladly be Canada's 11th province, and with New York being such a tax happy state, they would fit right into Canada too.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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And no federal government yet has represented California's interests. Hell we don't even get 80 cents on the dollar back in federal tax money, and what we do get is so wrapped in pork and idiotic regulations it costs almost as much as we get to use.
I hope you realize that's your own damn fault for voting for politicians that seek to expand Government.
I hope you realize that this is completely irrelevant to the parent's point.
"My government is not representative" != "My government is TOO BIG! [google.com]"
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Re:have you seen my representative government late (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not. I see people throwing around numbers like that, but like every other kind of accounting the number you end up with depends on what you include in your analysis. Some things they tend to forget about:
I suspect if you included all this in the analysis you'd find California a net beneficiary of federal largess.
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I think my state, and the few that surround it, should all consider secession.
While I understand your sentiment, I'm not really eager for another Civil War. The first one was bloody enough. (And make no mistake... there would be another Civil War.)
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I don't think voting is going to be enough at this stage. I agree that the federal government needs to have its power diminished severely and be given back to the states. The problem is that most career politicians see big government as a way to increase their own wealth and personal power, and these people have built such safe districts for themselves that the chances of getting them voted out are slim to nil unless they do something bad enough to wake up the average uninformed voter. At this point, I'm af
Re:have you seen my representative government late (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to stop here and get ready for the onslaught of all of the knee-jerk, anti-American flames aimed squarely at me.
So what you are saying is that any criticism of your ideas must not be well thought out, and must be anti-American. Wow.
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incorrect:
"we the people are no longer the boss"
If that was true, they wouldn't need to hide it.
Re:have you seen my representative government late (Score:4, Interesting)
Really. Show me on single 'love it or leave it' comment directed at the state's rights types. It seems to me that we had eight years of the right wing claiming any dissent was unpatriotic, and we lefties should 'love it or leave it.' But now that the left is in power, they are whining that we are doing it to them. Even if we were, which we aren't, turnabout is fair play.
Funny thing, when the left criticizes the government, we are unpatriotic commies bent on destroying America. However, when the right criticizes the government, they are being patriotic. Our criticisms are 'knee jerk' while theirs are calm and rational. Do you not see the utter hypocrisy?
Re:have you seen my representative government late (Score:5, Funny)
now that the left is in power
...left? In America?
Well, you see, here in America we have three right wings. And as we all know, three rights make a left.
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Hey, don't blame me. I voted for Kodos!
Re:have you seen my representative government late (Score:4, Funny)
Why settle for the lesser evil?
Vote Cthulhu! F'tang R'ley!
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You just got a Change(tm), with some free Hope(tm).
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"We need to limit federal legislation of states and depend upon each state to make the decisions
when some corporations have revenue (and sometimes profits) greater than entire nations (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/worldbusiness/01iht-exxon.4.9679416.html [nytimes.com]), state budgets (http://www.nasbo.org/Publications/PDFs/FSS [nasbo.org]
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Maybe you should get involved. You know actually go places and meet people.
It is our government, and I've seen it in action, i've seen it change, and it does.
Our founders intended the constitution to be adaptable.
States ahve rights, but the politician are afraid they might lose money so they just cave to the feds.
That is entirely different then the feds taking away states rights.
"anti-American flames aimed squarely at me."
see, that's your problem. you thing by my government means they should do what you say
How has noone leaked this yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
$100 to the first person to post the fully draft here or on wikileaks. Seriously we can leak SpiderMan movies, crack supposedly uncrackable digital encryption schemes and share giant files, but nobody is willing to post perhaps 60kb of text? IANAL but, Considering the type of legislation, leaking this sort of thing isn't likely to follow with litigation against the mole.
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the whole thing will be over once we do.
I can't believe Patry didn't remove his traces of it and send it to wikileaks for them to make further anonymous.
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Then you truly are naïve.
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since your examples our widely circulate it's not a fair comparison.. I can go to any store, pick up spiderman and put it on a torrent.
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There is an older (2007) version available on Wikileaks. [wikileaks.org]
The reason that the newest draft hasn't been leaked is that the only people who have access to it are politicians and greedy corporate lobbyists, and neither group particularly likes freedom of information. If they were the only ones allowed to watch the Spiderman movies then we wouldn't be able to download those either.
No Mainstream Media Coverage (Score:5, Funny)
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The major news corporations report the news that they think will get them viewers, readers or listeners. The only possible conclusion from this is that not enough people in the US are interested in that kind of news.
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It hit the newspapers here a long time ago - they called it "Is your iPod illegal?"
That is what's needed to get the public interested - tell them how ACTA will hurt them.
Since there's been nothing but bad news coming out of the way, how about full page ads saying stuff like:
"Jailed for copying t
*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
You know the world's in trouble when the Business Software Alliance is at the head of a list of representatives privy to secret international treaties about the Internet that the US is going to sign off on.
Looking at the list.. (Score:2)
I see 36 people who one one at all would miss.
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Oops, I meant "no one".
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The list isn't accurate, because I'm pretty sure they would have to at least hat-tip to F. Kafka , expert on the process of making and enforcing laws using mysterious agencies and refusing to share the details about how one might go about breaking (or not breaking) the law.
How can this be secret? (Score:4, Interesting)
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A treaty is not legislation despite the fact once signed it acts as such. It's a little constitutional loophole the government loves to exploit.
Re:How can this be secret? (Score:4, Informative)
Or is it the fact that ACTA is a 'treaty' make it substantially different?
Yes. It wouldn't become law until ratified by the Senate, and they are still in the stages of negotiating the draft text. Right now it's just a piece of paper, which apparently no one is allowed to see, despite FOIAs that have been filed, because both administrations have argued it's a matter of "national security." That's BS of course; the real reason is probably a combination of 1) public interest groups wouldn't like what was in the draft and 2) parties involved in the negotiation feel that opening up a draft text will impede honest negotiations.
Both of those are probably true, however I think that fewer people would be up in arms of the secrecy of the draft text if some public interest groups were among the stakeholders allowed to see it. As it stands now, the groups being allowed to see it are not at all representative.
Re:How can this be secret? (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually a fairly old tradition that treaties are negotiated in secret. In most democracies, that's not supposed to be the point at which things are scrutinized. It's when you bring the treaty back that whatever branch of government responsible for ratifying the treaty does so and then the legislative branch passes laws to enact the treaty.
That's why I'm not exactly losing sleep yet. Before most countries sign on to it, there's going to have to be a debate. Even in the UK, where the Queen technically is the ratifier, an Act of Parliament is required, and her ratification is going to be based on the advice of Her Ministers. In the US, the Senate does the ratification, so the terms are going to be heard anyways.
Re:How can this be secret? (Score:4, Insightful)
So by the time the democracy part actually happens the negotiations are finalized and it's just a "take it or leave it" situation? I say screw that tradition and give us openness and accountability.
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Yes...after we've already committed ourselves by making a binding international agreement to enforce it.
Once it's time to vote on it we will have little choice as a nation to reject it without some international repercussions.
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That may very well be. But treaties are almost always negotiated behind closed doors. It's been that way for centuries, and for a number of good reasons, most importantly because it allows for frank discussion. If every word the negotiators say and every draft of every clause is out there, it would make negotiations difficult, if not impossible.
I know this is hard for a lot of us, used to the idea that governments should practice disclosure save for matters of security or personal privacy, but a lot of f
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And one additional thing. This isn't a "secret" treaty. A secret treaty is one in which the signers don't tell anyone (including their own citizens) that it exists. ACTA is not a secret treaty, these are examples of secret treaties:
Don't forget about Cybersecurity Act of 2009, too (Score:5, Interesting)
That bill would allow the President to shut down the private internet in the event of an emergency--a phrase so broad as to allow any excuse he chooses--along with unrestricted access to data by the Secretary of Commerce under regular conditions. The EFF has an informative overview [eff.org] of the legislation. It's currently in a committee, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Thankfully, the EFF has done a good job of keeping an eye on things like this.
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Guess what?
The president has the authority to shut down every think else in the event of an emergence.
How many times ahs the president shut down a freeway? Airline traffic? phones?
Not very often. It would be political suicide to shut down anything where there isn't a clear public emergency that impacts specifically whatever he is shutting down.
Yes, t should be open. Lets not get paranoid.
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I'm just wondering what would constitute an emergency that's not political suicide. 9/11-style attack? North Korea launching nukes towards Alaska? Kiddy-porn? Note that I'm not even bringing up child abuse, because apparently downloading of child pornography is much worse than the creation child pornography.
Sorry, I can't think of a reason where the free flow of information would present a risk to national security.
Re:Don't forget about Cybersecurity Act of 2009, t (Score:5, Interesting)
Kidnapping two people is enough where I come from [wikipedia.org]
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Nice. You mean it would be like China shutting various aspects of the Internet for National Day? I have a friend in Shanghai, and it's getting more and more complicated explaining to him why China is bad and the US is better.
we need a spy (Score:2, Interesting)
to post something to wikileaks
And? Am I the only one who thinks (Score:3, Informative)
They have been getting input from a good, broad selection of people? The corporate interests listed have legitimate interests, whether we like them or not. Others, such as the three representatives from Public [publicknowledge.org] Knowledge [wikipedia.org], are EXACTLY who I would want representing various other interests.
It's not broad enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the corporations listed have legitimate interests. Yes, it's good that there are three PK people and one person from the Center for Democracy and Technology.
However, four people total from PK and CDT are not enough to constitute adequate representation in the public interest. The reason KEI is making such a fuss about this is because there is a big concern in the access-to-medicines community that any ACTA treaty will include provisions making it easier for customs authorities to seize pharmaceuticals that are allegedly "counterfeit". There's a very active effort to confuse the distinction between counterfeit and generic medicine, and KEI and others are worried that ACTA will make it easier for shipments of generic medicines to be seized as they make their way between countries. This has already happened several times this year, and in no case that I am aware of have the accusations been substantiated - it's always turned out that the medicines are legitimate generics.
People from PK and CDT have no history of working on access to medicine or public health issues. None of the groups on that list seem to have any relation to public health issues, yet ACTA could have a very real effect on public health.
Failure (Score:2, Insightful)
Sadly, the blame for this thing goes to everyone. You, me, Big-Content, our elected* Representatives, our 'bought' representatives... It spans across industries, from tech giants like Microsoft, and Google Inc. , to supermarket chains and hobby shops.
Ultimately, this breaks down to ideological differences on the future of information, and 'Copyrighted Content' (not mutually exclusive by any degree), and whether Capitalism, or Corporatism if you prefer, should remain superior to the rights of the public, and
Hitchhiker's Guide... (Score:2)
Am I really the first one to point out the obvious reference to "42" and the "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? "42" is the answer to everything, you know (it worked surprisingly often in calculus).
Or did I just miss an earlier reference...?
-JJS
What are they hiding?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What are they hiding?! (Score:4, Interesting)
I wold imagine they want to keep the lid on the techniques they are looking at for anti-counterfeiting.
Radicalize (v., trans.) (Score:3, Interesting)
ACTA will include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures" after all.
Dear Imperial Overlords,
Are you familiar with the term "radicalize"?
Are you aware that the script kiddies of the world are extremely unskilled?
Do you really think you control, or can control, the Internet?
You are guests in our world. Try reading some cypherpunk. Me, I'm interested in other things, but keep this up, and an increasing number in our community will begin to get defensive and protect our community from you interlopers.
Just the facts, not trying to be a dick or anything.
Have a good day,
Bob
Never got to my Robert Anton Wilson (Score:3, Insightful)
How many Illuminati are there again?
Re:I am definitely not a lawyer... (Score:5, Informative)
Because it isn't a law yet. You do understand how treaties work, right? Treaties are negotiated, then, if agreed upon, ratified by the signatory nations, and then after that's all done, legislation is passed in each country that has ratified the agreement which gives the treaty the force of law. In fact, even after agreement has been met, treaties can be rejected. That's what happened to Woodrow Wilson in 1919 when he went back to the Senate with the League of Nations, and they sent him packing.
Don't they teach any kind of civics courses in high school anymore?
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Couple of years?
It's been going on for centuries. Ever hear of the East India Trading Company?