Proposed Final ACTA Text Published 148
ciaran_o_riordan writes "The US Trade Representative has published a text which, subject only to a last legal review, is proposed to be the final text of ACTA. The differences between this text and last month's, from the Tokyo round, are mostly cosmetic but there's an important positive change giving signatories the option of excluding patents from section 2. As for software patents, most harm has been avoided. If signatories make use of the section 2 exclusion option, there might be no harm at all. Lobbying for this will be important. Meanwhile, the many problems regarding Digital Restrictions Management, and the extra powers given to businesses to obtain personal and identifying information about accused copyright infringers "in the Digital Environment" are still there (mostly section 5). Earlier texts were much worse. The improvements in recent months are surely due to public outcry, leaving us indebted to the anonymous friends who scanned and leaked the various secret versions and the activists who made text versions and spread them across the Internet. There's a chance we can still influence the text in this legal review phase, but the bigger task ahead will be working on the national implementations. It's not yet clear what procedure the US will require for its own ratification."
No problem here (Score:3, Insightful)
Right?
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Re:No problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
Not if you get on them HARD right now.
Many in the Senate are still stinging from the voter rebuke that just occurred, and the rest are not in a mood to pick a fight with the voters.
The entire thing should simply be rejected due to the excessive secrecy with which it was negotiated. Even if this treaty gave a gold brick to every citizen, capped punishment at one dollar and 50 cents, and baked you pies every Wednesday, the mere fact that they had to build a world wide conspiracy of silence to try to get this one over means it should be Dead On Arrival in the Senate.
But I suspect it might never go to the Senate. Obama will simply try to impose it by edict as a "trade agreement" without treaty status.
Treaties modify the US Constitution. People have to realize that.
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
No, people don't need to realize that, since its not true.
The Constitution, treaties ratified by the Senate, and federal laws adopted under the authority granted by the Constitution together form the "supreme law of the land", superceding the constitution and laws of the states (U.S. Const, Art. VI) but the only thing that modifies the U.S. Constitution is amendments to the Constitution adopted under Article V.
Putting falsehoods in bold print doesn't make them true.
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Informative)
The "Supremacy Clause" of the U.S. Constitution is contained in Article VI:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
So your own citation proves you wrong.
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Not so. The text that you put in boldface does not indicate that the Constitution itself is changed, just that it is overridden. There is a subtle difference. For example, if a treaty expires, or is overturned by the courts, or deratified by Congress, any laws that it put into place that override the Constitution are null, and the Constitution takes over.
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While in effect, Treaties are the same as amendments.
They CHANGE the Constitution.
The fact that Amendments and Treaties can be repealed does not change that fact.
Amendments and Treaties carry the full force of the Constitution. They become a part of the constitution.
Re:No problem here (Score:4, Informative)
Saying that, even putting "change" in all caps, doesn't make its so. Treaties don't change anything. Treaties, taken along with federal laws and the federal Constitution, supercede state laws and state constitutions and are binding on state judges. That's all the Supremacy Clause says.
Wrong. Amendments under Article V change the Constitution. Treaties don't change the Constitution any more than regular laws passed by Congress do, and there is nothing in the Constitution that suggests otherwise.
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I bet the Enterprise could beat the Constitution.
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't even indicate that the Constitution is overridden. It just says that the U.S. Constitution, the national laws which implement it, and national treaties, taken together, override state constitutions and state laws. It doesn't spell out any particular precedence between the various national elements. Based on just the quoted text, the U.S Constitution could still take precedence over treaties. After all, it certainly takes precedence over national laws, which are part of the same list.
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and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
That doesn't say that treaties override the Constitution. Instead it says that the "supreme law of the land", which includes treaties, overrides the judicial power of any state.
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Isn't the text you copied EXACTLY what the GP said?
Are you interpreting the "Constitution" in "Constitution or Laws of any State" to mean the US Constitution? Wouldn't it be a much more straightforward interpretation that this is referring to state constitutions?
You seem to be suggesting this reads basically:
The overall context and pur
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The overall context and purpose of that sentence seems to make it patently clear that is rather "{Constitution or Laws} of any State".
No, because there were no State Constitutions. There was only one State Constitution [wikipedia.org] (MASS) predating the US Constitution.
Most states still had Charters. It did not become in vogue to have a Constitution until AFTER the US Constitution 1789 ratification date.
The words "The Constitution" everywhere else in The Constitution refer to the Constitution of the United States (as proposed).
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If you take the words "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" in Article VI to mean "any Thing in the Constitution [of the United States] or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" rather than the more obvious "any Thing in the (Constitution or Laws) of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding", then you have to believe that it
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That clause says the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties overrule state constitutions and law. to interpret that last "Constitution" to mean the Federal Constitution would require that Federal Laws override the Federal Constitution, which is absurd.
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The effect of treaties is to amend the constitution.
A ratified treaty holds the same sway as an ammendment.
Argue ans split hairs all you want, the fact remains that the Supreme Court has yet to hold a treaty unconstitutional [asil.org].
It has NEVER happened.
Therefore, The point remains that if this treaty is ratified, we are stuck with it just as much as we were stuck with any other amendment to our constitution, until repealed. If any provision violates our Constitution, history has demonstrated in EVERY instance th
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No, it is not.
No, it doesn't. The Supreme Court has ruled on many occasions, e.g., that a simple federal statute can abrogate a treaty (just as it can repeal a law.) Federal statutes cannot remove Constitutional amendments. A ratified treaty, then, has priority similar to that of federal statute law, but not the greater priority of a Constitutional provision.
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Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.
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Treaties in reality are empty whishy washy things and countries only stick to them for as long as they want to. It basically is an excuse for corrupt politicians to point to the treaty and say, we can't do that because we have a treaty, at which point the citizens either shut up or remove the corrupt politician and replace them with one who will ignore the treaty.
Treaties have been ignored all the time through out human history. The current government can make all the bullshit crappy treaties it wants to
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Supremacy Clause" of the U.S. Constitution is contained in Article VI:
Yes, it is. Too bad you don't understand what it says.
No, it proves me right. Let me refresh your memory on what I said, which was:
The Constitution, treaties ratified by the Senate, and federal laws adopted under the authority granted by the Constitution together form the "supreme law of the land", superceding the constitution and laws of the states (U.S. Const, Art. VI)
And -- that's exactly what Article VI says. To avoid any confusion from reading too much at once, and with your oddly placed emphasis, lets break it down. First it defines what the supreme law of the land shall be:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;"
IOW: The Constititution, federal laws, and ratified treaties are the supreme law of the land.
Then it goes on to say what it means for those things to be the supreme law of the land:
"and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
IOW: The things that are defined as "the supreme law of the land" in the first clause (the Constitution, federal laws, and ratified treaties) are binding on State judges and superceded the constitutions and laws of the states.
It does not say that treaties modify or supercede the federal Constitution, any more than it says that federal statute law modifies or supercedes the federal Constititution. It just says that, taken together with the federal Constitution, treaties and federal laws supercede state constitutions and laws, and are binding on state judges.
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In "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" refers to the state constitutions not the U.S. Constitution. Neither treaties nor federal laws may be in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. State constitutions and laws are subordinate to the U.S. Constitution, federal laws and treaties.
The U.S. Constitution is supreme over all other legislation.
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You're wrong & there has already been a Supreme Court case regarding it. Re: Reid v. Covert, October 1956.
Stop spouting this nonsense.
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Also (and no I can't be assed to make links this time):
http://inclusion.semitagui.gov.co/Subjects/LawAndGovt/Articles/Treaties.htm [semitagui.gov.co]
http://www.asil.org/insigh10.cfm [asil.org]
http://florida.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/05/treaties-do-not-override-the-constitution/ [tenthamendmentcenter.com]
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The controversy here seems to hinge on:
shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The key phase can be interpreted as
or
If the first meaning were intended, the sentence would have been constructed with "this Constitution" rather than "the ...". Therefore I think the latter interpretation is correct. Treaties are superior to state law & constitutions, but not to the federal Consti
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The constitution supersedes any treaty. Period.
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Treaties modify the US Constitution. People have to realize that.
No. False. What the constitution says is:
In other words, these things are the supre
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You will find that self executing treaties are not all that rare, and even non self executing treaties often affect everything up to and including the USC.
But its worse than that, because the Supreme Court has NEVER declared a treaty unconstitutional. EVER [asil.org].
So a ratified treaty ends up having the same effect as an amendment to the constitution. No judge will rule against it.
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Treaties modify the US Constitution. People have to realize that.
No they don't. According to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
This means that treaties override state constitutions not the U.S. Constitution.
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Treaties modify the US Constitution.
Is this one of those lies that become true if you say it often enough?
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Many in the Senate are still stinging from the voter rebuke that just occurred, and the rest are not in a mood to pick a fight with the voters.
If they are stinging from it, they are morons. It happens every damn midterm, and every damn midterm people paint it as some big revolution, or some big protest. If, in two years, a Republican is sitting in the White House, two years later we will have a Democratic senate and house. Its how things work. It is a completely normal, and predictable, event.
Its actual
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Exactly my point.
So tell me why again it should be come law of the land?
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It's your corporate overlords who want to inflict this on the rest of the world. Why shouldn't you suffer from your own bullshit? Maybe that'll teach you to reign those bulls in, and not let them crap all over the world.
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True. We should work on lopping off all of our senators' hands and giving them all laryngitis the day of the vote.
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Easy peasy. Tell them it's a new tax on REITs.
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Informative)
I know that Slashdot frowns on this kind of thing, but if you'd followed the last link [american.edu] in TFS, you would have discovered that the US Trade Representative has declared that ACTA will take effect in the US by Executive Order. Why? 'Cuz they said so.
That's right, folks, it's a treaty, but it's not a treaty! So that little part of the U.S. Constitution [wikipedia.org] requiring ratification by the Senate doesn't apply! Really! This is not the treaty you're looking for!
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Well, the Europarliament and various national parliaments have. But it's still not entirely clear to me whether they'll be having any say in this. They should, of course, because much of this treaty goes way beyond established laws, but the EU isn't always as democratic as it should be.
idiot (Score:2, Informative)
they shaped this.
Re:idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Democrat/Republican both = politician (Score:3, Insightful)
Once you get a contract which is paid a fixed rate no matter what your performance, it doesn't make too much difference what you do during that time. In a contractor position where your job is mostly about "networking" not networking, but "networking", in reality, as long as your talking with your friends and bitching about your enemies, you are in fact doi
Re:idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
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acta proceedings were prepared during bush years, with republican senate and house. it was well underway in 2006 when democrats got the houses. and it was already being negotiated in 2008. not that it would matter much, since democrats are too in the pockets of the private interests. but, the head of the snake, were republicans.
I think it might be more accurate to say the head of the snake were politicians.
Because you know... ACTA and more powerful, more draconian, more extensive copyright and busines
and (Score:2)
This was done by corporations that have become scarily powerful, so scarily powerful they can apparently buy enough supporters now to get whatever laws they want.
there are still fools who are thinking that 'free market capitalism' actually can work. despite it ended up with this.
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Vicious circle (noun):
The one who has the gold makes the rules, and the one who makes the rules gets the gold.
See also: futility.
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I think it might be more accurate to say the head of the snake were politicians.
The head of the snake is the corporations. The politicians are the snake's fangs.
thank you (Score:2)
keep up the good work.. world is counting on you !
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If you didn't vote independent (or 3rd party) in 2008, you asked for this.
Re:Hopenchange! (Score:4, Insightful)
I voted Independent in 2000.
In Florida.
My bad.
Re:Hopenchange! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you didn't vote Republican in 2008, you asked for this.
I've found that...
If you voted you asked for this.
If you didn't vote you are responsible for letting it happen.
is true of about 2/3rds of what the governement does... if not more.
Re:Hopenchange! (Score:4, Insightful)
Aww, isn't that cute? The little AC still thinks he has a major party looking out for his interests!
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If you voted Republican OR Democrat you asked for it. Both parties are subsidiaries of Corporatti Incorporated, both overwhelming voted for the Bono Act and the DMCA.
Like Walt Kelly said in a Pogo cartoon about the time Nixon was President, "you got two choices, Tweetle Dum and Twettle Dumber".
I split my votes between the Greens aand Libbies (not that they're all that much better).
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Copyrights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, the original goal of copyright was to give exclusive copy rights to the authors for a limited period in exchange for their work to become public domain after that limited period.
A lot more people would agree to abide by copyright laws if they had not been twisted into the lifetime + 50 years locks that they are now.
Re:Copyrights? (Score:4, Informative)
Remember, the original goal of copyright was to give exclusive copy rights to the authors for a limited period in exchange for their work to become public domain after that limited period.
A lot more people would agree to abide by copyright laws if they had not been twisted into the lifetime + 50 years locks that they are now.
I believe it's now life +70 years in Britain and America.
life of the artist should have nothing to do with it. it should be 'x years from date of first publication'
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In Britain, it's actually life + 70 + next January the 1st. Obviously this makes perfect sense, we clearly need to penalise those dead creatives who make the silly mistake of dying near the end of the year by giving them less protection.
By the way, if life + 70 + next January 1st isn't enough for you, just use the Silmarillion loophole... name some much younger people as co-authors. Even if they didn't do anything at all, as long as you say they did, your protection will extend to the date of the last one o
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Re:Copyrights? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you'd be able to show your kids Disney's rendition of Cinderella, which I suppose would never exist if brothers Grimm had eternal copyright. Want to watch some old loony tunes? Perhaps one of my favourite films, Dr. Strangelove. There is plenty of stuff that is greater than 14 years old, and still relevant.
You know how many films and cartoons use pieces of classical music like Tchaikovsky, etc? Nothing like that is possible with the current bordering-on-perpetual copyright setup. If nothing ever enters into the public domain, things sort of stagnate.
Of course people would still pirate, There's no getting away from that.
The benefit is you would be free to use older material, incorporate it into your own, etc. As it stands most things are lost to the wheel of time before you'll be able to build on them, or include them in your works, and so on. It's detrimental to creativity as a whole, as I see it.
It's not just about wanting to see free movies. Maybe you want to make a short film, and have a song from the 40's in the background. You're probably going to have to pay royalties for that.
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True, but that's not the purpose of eternal copyrights, the purpose of eternal copyrights is to prevent old content from displacing the value of new content.
For instance Soulja's latest album is new and it will sell but it's value would sharply fall if people could freely use Coolio's musical archive, anywhere, be it parties, night clubs, ringtones, friking lifts, anywhere anyhow including youtube videos and birthday videos, etc.
The current archive of copyrighted contents is HUGE and that's only counting mi
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Barbarella ...as well as movies from my dad's time. Yes, I remember movies I saw as a teenager, and I'm 58.
2001: A Space Oddesy
Fritz the Cat
Heavy Metal
Clint Eastwood westerns
Fourteen years isn't that long at my age.
Wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
and, any fool who believes their house of representatives wont rati
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Big business may be corrupting the elected representatives, but the blame still lands at the feet of the voters who keep voting the same people back into office.
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big business owns big media. big business has big bucks to spend. even if your candidate has money to spend, if big business owning the big media doesnt want him to get elected, they wont just give airtime to him/her in their media outlets. and, your candidate wont win.
its as simple as that.
that is of course leaving aside the fact that big
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they have to survive, they have to take care of their Farmville.
FTFY.
OK, not universally true, but true to an extent that pretty much guarantees the success of...OOH SHINY!
"Panem et circenses." Our culture surely has the "circenses" part down pat.
well (Score:3, Interesting)
if the good people dont act, evil has the day.
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Poor, poor excuse. It doesn't take that long to realize that they are ruled mostly by the rich and by people who couldn't care less about them except for their vote. It's just that the average person is so indoctrinated that they think they're making a difference with their pointless little votes for the same two parties over and over.
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Part of the cause of that is the lack of proportional representation, though. So people get stuck in the whole "Go ahead, throw your vote away" dilemma.
They end up voting for the lesser of two corporate ruled evils, as opposed to a party that is more in line with what they actually want.
Well, that coupled with People believing myths due to either propaganda or outright stupidity (ie. republicans being for small govn't, which is patently false these days; or that dems are going to implement any sort of democ
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Part of the cause of that is the lack of proportional representation, though.
No, the biggest problem is the power and size of government. Even with parliamentary systems with proportional representation major parties can be forced to include small and evil parties to form a governing coalition. Witness Israel, whenever the government holds serious talks with Palestinians it has to deal with small ultra conservative Jewish parties who oppose giving Palestinians any land. That is what happened in the talks
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The house has nothing to do with ratifying Treaties.
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fool (Score:2)
the only country in the world is not united states, the only house of representatives in the world is not u.s. congress. and the only place where this term is used, is not united states daily speech.
i cant believe how u.s. centric many americans are. as if nothing exists or happens outside united states. now, house of repr
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house of representatives is the general term that is used in political literature/science to denote an assembly of representatives elected by the people in order to make legislation.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously. Can you provide one example from reputable journalistic or academic sources of the phrase "house of representatives", either in English or from an unambiguous literal translation to English, where that phrase is used generically to mean "legislature"? I would be quite curious to see it.
Now, if you
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Much like lawyers win with suing, Corporations win with politicians. Meaning, it don't matter who you vote for, the corporations win either way.
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talk about democracy. we were just discussing how capitalism easily corrupts and dominates a democratic storefront
Part of Capitalism [merriam-webster.com] is free markets. Well free markets do not exist. The closest we've come to it was in America in the 1820s and '30s and it is what inspired Alexis de Tocqueville to write "Democracy in America [amazon.com]". Of course there was the black mark on free markets called slavery.
Falcon
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Well DUH!
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arguing with anonymous cowards are you?
why not. arent they human beings ?
Name one country where international treaties are binding without ratification.
turkey.
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its true (Score:2)
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Good cop, bad cop played by both parties (Score:2)
Democrats do something bad; partisans say "But Bush did it too".
Party loyalists are the problem. Both major parties are willing to allow the stripping of people's rights so long as the other party did it first.
Executive Agreement (Score:2)
From the last link, and has already been stated in Slashdot before:
"The USTR has stated repeatedly that ACTA will enter into force in the US as an executive agreement that does not require any congressional role"
So in the words of Abraham Lincoln:
". . . that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
. . . until signed away, by Executive Agreement, despite the will of the people.
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". . . until signed away, by Executive Agreement, despite the will of the people."
Uh, the people never really had much power (which, as we see here, was a mistake). The government is making this already bad situation worse, yes, but it was always broken.
If the people really wanted to, they could overthrow the government using their sheer numbers, but too many people are preoccupied with their unimportant little activities to care about things such as freedom and privacy, leaving people who would actually do
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Cool! (Score:2)
"It's bad now, but it could be worse! Everyone just stop trying to get rid of the ACTA, because if something could be worse, there's no sense in improving it!"
I fear that's what some people are going to think. Either that or they will figure that it's not as bad as before and not want to waste their time. The ACTA is, was, and always will be a terrible idea and it must be eliminated.
Let go a little and POUNCE! (Score:3, Insightful)
Earlier texts were much worse.
Stalin: Let's execute all dissidents and paint the Mausoleum green!
Minister: Why green, comrade Stalin?
Stalin: I knew there would be no objections about the first part.
Enforcement (Score:2)
Dear USA,
We noticed that you came up with some agreement called ACTA where you think you will get money to bail out your rapidly sinking economy using spurious "Intellectual Property" claims, and as a means of holding back innovation. We own you lock stock and barrel, so play our tune now.
Your Sincerely,
China
Pirates! (Score:5, Insightful)
The treaty spends a lot of time on "pirated copyright goods", and the bits about "counterfeit trademark goods" seem tacked on. I could find no mention of the public good, the rights of licensees, fair use, public domain, media transfer/backup copies, etc. There is a good bit about the minimum civil and criminal procedures and penalties that should be in place and made available to businesses and rights holders. It seems to be exclusively intended to ensure that organizations like the RIAA can sue and harass "pirates", and god willing, get them a healthy jail sentence too. This is interesting in that it might provide some cover for rights-holder actions that are an abuse of the court system (mass filings) and criminal harassment.
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Propose completely outrageous ideas & then scale it back to the point where people are still unhappy but not as motivated.
Just wait. Once they get this version of ACTA in place they will propose some "minor modifications", one by one over the course of a few years. Some modifications will come "bundled" with other laws, usually as well disguised side-effects. Each modification won't look so bad by itself but when put together they will make ACTA morph back into the original, outrageous version and nobody will care because it happened too slowly. This is the tactic they use all the time.