U.S. Senator Wyden Raises Constitutional Questions About ACTA 239
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.'"
It's a real issue, because of a DoD privilege (Score:5, Informative)
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. [senate.gov]
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.
Re:I actually agree with the Democrat here (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I actually agree with the Democrat here (Score:2, Informative)
No he didn't. Clinton never signed it because the Senate voted against it 95 - 0. At the very end of his term he did sign an executive order reaffirming America's adherence of Kyoto, but he didn't actually sign the treaty. At that point in time not a one of the 167 signatories of Kyoto had actually ratified it.
No (D) in the article, must be a conspiracy! (Score:1, Informative)
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
This isn't about his law school (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:This President... (Score:3, Informative)
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
DoD IP rights (Score:4, Informative)
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.