Will ACTA Be Found Unconstitutional? 260
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.'"
Only hope has passed... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Rule by proclaimation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Do we need a new revolution?
Re:Uh, isn't that covered in the constitution alre (Score:5, Interesting)
How is a "police action" (a la Vietnam) not a war? Hairsplitting and semantic quibblings go far in the world of politics. After all, nobody is more powerful than the politicians and courts themselves to challenge them, and so long as they give themselves the appearance of expertise and authority political consensus can do whatever the hell it wants.
It will be against many Constitutions (Score:4, Interesting)
We really do not know what is really discussed in the ACTA context. But the few things which leaked are not compatible with the German and the French constitution. It is against rules in the European human rights agreement and the Lisbon-Treaty (which made the EU a little bit more democratic). The European Parliament has expressed their concern that ACTA is not discussed in the public, which is not very democratic, but big companies especially US-companies can have treaty documents. So a elected parliament is kept in the dark while the money jerks are directly involved. In short the parliament is pissed. And they will dismiss it, just they did with the SWIFT-spying treaty between the EU and the USA. When do executive politicians learn that we life in a democracy?
Re:So, who did you vote for again? (Score:2, Interesting)
If one were to take a time machine back to October 2008 and show them an article dated 2010 labeled "President claims power to implement agreement by executive fiat" or some such thing, you'd think that obviously McCain won, right?
Just more evidence that Obama = Bush.
With all due respect, and with as much restraint from trolling you as possible... I have a simple question for you:
Do you honestly believe that any of the presidential candidates (not counting the libertarian ones) would act in a significantly different manner on this issue? In other words, do you believe that members of the Republican or Democrat parties won't bow before the pressure of large, copyright-vested companies?
Waiting for your honest reply.
Re:The Constitution (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The people's will (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny how someone who didn't needlessly start a war over lies and waste trillions outside the country can be "one of the worst".
Somewhere in the bottom 50, you mean?
Civil War (Score:3, Interesting)