Copyright treaty is classified for 'national security'
Last September, the Bush administration defended the unusual secrecy over an anti-counterfeiting treaty being negotiated by the U.S. government, which some liberal groups worry could criminalize some peer-to-peer file sharing that infringes copyrights.
Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958."
The 1995 Executive Order 12958 allows material to be classified only if disclosure would do "damage to the national security and the original classification authority is able to identify or describe the damage."
Jamie Love, director of the nonprofit group Knowledge Ecology International, filed the Freedom of Information Act request that resulted in this week's denial from the White House. The denial letter (PDF) was sent to Love on Tuesday by Carmen Suro-Bredie, chief FOIA officer in the White House's Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Love had written in his original request on January 31--submitted soon after Obama's inauguration--that the documents "are being widely circulated to corporate lobbyists in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. There is no reason for them to be secret from the American public."
The White House appears to be continuing the secretive policy of the Bush administration, which wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (PDF) on January 16 that out of 806 pages related to the treaty, all but 10 were "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958."
In one of his first acts as president, Obama signed a memo saying FOIA "should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure."
Love's group believes that the U.S. and Japan want the treaty to say that willful trademark and copyright infringement on a commercial scale must be subject to criminal sanctions, including infringement that has "no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain."
A June 2008 memo (PDF) from the International Chamber of Commerce, signed by pro-copyright groups, says: "intellectual property theft is no less a crime than physical property theft. An effective ACTA should therefore establish clear and transparent standards for the calculation and imposition of effective criminal penalties for IP theft that...apply to both online and off-line IP transactions." Similarly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called for "criminal penalties for IP crimes, including online infringements."
Last fall, two senators--Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.)--known for their support of stringent intellectual property laws, expressed concern that the ACTA could be too far-reaching.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
I'm not sure what copyright has to do with national security. I guess Obama is afraid those racist Looney Toons from the 1940s will get out and start an international incident. Why, didn't a lot of people in Hollywood make huge donations to his campaign. No conflict of interest there.
Although, I still think McCain would've been worse.
How about calling this "Mission Accomplished"; and, Continued!
The CFR's (banking, military contractors, oil, **mainstream media**, etc) influence is not over-stated by people that rant on about it. Secret meetings behind closed doors that result in the writing of secretive policies... of course things aren't going to be much different to Bush... at least not while fascists maintain a grip over the US government and pursue the writing of policy that favor corporations to the detriment of citizens.
Well, if you were following the news from outer space you would have heard about the Space Dwellers aboard the International Space Station scrambling to the Russian Space Vehicle; and, with the European's Concorde sitting on an old Aircraft Carrier in New York's Hudson River on the right and all the Baby Milk Formulas, Pet Food, Leaded Toys..... to the left; therefore, if ya don't like Buy America in the middle then you could have what ever you and your family like on the left or right.
Anyway, just remember from the recent American Airlines incident and the near miss of the International Space Station pretty soon your/our chances of survival will be reduced. So, what is it going to be for you and your family - An underground bunker (for safety from falling space debris) stacked with baby milk formulas, toys.... or Buy America (Boeing.....)!
What is it going to be to help get in touch with the outside world while being - an HP, Dell or Lenovo (do ya remember a company named IBM PC Company?); and, some company in "Europe" is yet to get OS/2 running on dem Lenovos while Microsoft's Windows have an 89% Internet Connection share - Duh!
with this decision would do well to send in their concerns in the coontact link
at www.whitehouse.gov. I've already done so myself.
The copyright cartels are so full of crap sometimes...
Units of product are not physically taken, if I download something nobody is going to find their property has disappeared, therefore nothing has literally being stolen and as such it is ABSOLUTELY a different type of "theft" because the loss is only perceived and projected, it's not a literal loss.
Projected profits lost from this virtual "theft" would usually not have been profit anyway, most people who download or copy copyrighted material would not have bought the product anyway.
So, in summary, to state that IP violations are equal to actual "theft", is to completely mislead the public.
The ICC and the copyright cartels are just being propaganda ****** with statements such as these. They're just trying to reinforce the impression of criminality because they know most politicians are too out of touch and poorly-informed to know otherwise.
The Obama administration is demonstrating that they are simply the other brand of fascist government (blue bulls**t instead of red bulls**t), maintaining secrecy not for national security but to avoid personal embarassment for their collusion with the plutocrats that really have far more control over US policy than is healthy.
It's a particular disgrace for Obama considering the promises of transparency that were made. Yet another promise broken by what I'm sure we'll increasingly witness as being a dishonest administration.
So-called "intellectual property" laws have become so egregiously warped that it's no wonder people are increasingly of the opinion that they are a joke that pits monied bullies against the common man. They're becoming something of the poster-children of corporatocracy. "Intellectual property" law is effectively falling into desuetude because the public no longer regards it as valid -- just ask the movie and recording industries. Respect for these laws is not only low, but driving off a cliff. In a decade, those scofflaws are going to be out there managing these businesses and finding it hard to justify endorsing the current regime.
I think that if the current trend of companies grabbing support for stricter laws to allow them greater powers to restrict freedome to operate and to abuse consumers, they're going to foment a potent backlash. You're already starting to see law professors and economists pushing for the elimination of copyright and making it radically harder to get patents. College kids today could give a rat's tuchas about copyrights, and it appears a majority of people that understand what DRM is are interpreting it as devaluation of copyrighted media, and even concluding that it has no value until they obtain an illicit DRM-free copy to go with their legitimate license.
Oh right, remember, the RIAA is a lobbying organization for EMI, Sony, Warner... The MPAA have some of the same clients. Check and see who funds your favorite politician. It's a rigged game, and end users aren't part of it.
Cheers, have a nice day, and thanks for all the fish.
Nope, the real power resides in birds in flight, falling air planes engine parts, satellite debris, meteorites. At least, now we know, so, prepare to duck or get to the nearest escape space capsule. Cool!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/12/BAV516EE2F.DTL
SAN FRANCISCO -- A 328-foot-long crane that will soon start working on Bay Bridge eastern span project arrived Thursday afternoon in San Francisco Bay. The unique contraption, built in Shanghai, cost about $50 million...
On the other hand, John McCain's Administration would have been doing the same damn thing.
We should have elected Ron Paul instead!
- by PR_Finn March 16, 2009 10:03 AM PDT
- Patents are the new currency in the knowledge-based economy. Everyone can connect the dots from there, right?
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