EFF and PK Reluctantly Drop Lawsuit For ACTA Info 150
mikesd81 notes a press release on the EFF website that begins "The Obama Administration's decision to support Bush-era concealment policies has forced the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge (PK) to drop their lawsuit about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Federal judges have very little discretion to overrule Executive Branch decisions to classify information on 'national security' grounds, and the Obama Administration has recently informed the court that it intends to defend the classification claims originally made by the Bush Administration. ... Very little is known about ACTA, currently under negotiation between the US and more than a dozen other countries, other than that it is not limited to anti-counterfeiting measures. Leaked documents indicate that it could establish far-reaching customs regulations governing searches over personal computers and iPods. Multi-national IP corporations have publicly requested mandatory filtering of Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material, as well as the adoption of 'Three Strikes' policies requiring the termination of Internet access after repeat allegations of copyright infringement, like the legislation recently invalidated in France. Last year, more than 100 public interest organizations around the world called on ACTA country negotiators to make the draft text available for public comment."
Anti-Internet Freedom Agreement (Score:5, Interesting)
ACTA will mandate software patents, criminalization of copyright infringements, censorship lists, data retention. States that today resist such measures due to local democratic pressure will be able to cite "Obligations under International Law" as an excuse to move towards eFascism. The goal is to send 4chan, piratebay, and anyone else who offends the powerful to jail.
This is a major campaign in the war on the future, by the past. Winning this war will push the digital majority towards adulthood.
Bring it on, I say!
Re:Look at Iran for an example (Score:3, Interesting)
Energy and knowledge lead to discontent.
A full belly is enough for most people.
what is probably in it (Score:5, Interesting)
if it is anything like the bank secrecy act it is probably .... like what they do for money now, but applied to 'intellectual property'. and full of the following:
specific indications of what should 'trigger' investigations of people, and/or their transactions, i.e., certain amounts of certain types of IP put through within a certain amount of time.
requirements to 'report' all transactions over a certain amount to government authorities... ie in money its , say, 3,000 $... in data it might be, 1 terabyte or something.
the illegalization fo trying to 'avoid' aforementioned 'reporting requirements'. IE, in money, if you separate out your transactions into smaller ones, it doesnt have to be reported to the government... its illegal, so... in data maybe they will say 'you cant split up a 5 TB file into smaller pieces to avoid reporting'
requirements about proof of identity for anyone performing transactions of certain amounts. ie, you have to prove youre a citizen or something before you can transfer a large file, with a photo ID or some other proof.
gag orders against all government and corporate employees who are responsible for reporting these suspicions to the federal government department in charge of the program. ie, these workers cannot discuss anything they report with anyone, including coworkers, or they will be in violation of law and subject to punishment.
add in a bunch of international crap to this...
maybe some standradization on what is in the reports... banks in the US have standard forms to fill out to report transactions over certain amounts to the government.
there is also the state department list of countries you cannot trade money with or whatever. well, now they will probably apply that to data too, or something.
who knows what other crazy shit they will put in here. it is absolutely ridiculous though to keep it a secret.
the trouble is that Mark Felt types dont usually work in huge corporations... not a lot of leakers on the board of goldman sachs or microsoft.
Re:WTF (Score:3, Interesting)
That is probably exactly what will happen, and when people acctually gets a chance to read the law and start protesting against it, they already have a set of cosmetic changes ready to make it appear more resonable. It i exactly what happen with the last three laws that are supposed to protect us from internet terrorism where I live.
We seen this happen quite a few times now, and still people in general does not seem to wise up to this after the fact "door in the face" tactic.
Re:National Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WTF (Score:3, Interesting)
When the details do come out, and the public starts to scream about it, the Aussie government are likely to back away from it. I'd guess that other involved countries will take a similar stance. I mean, what are we? Iran?
Obama is just a tool as any other president (Score:3, Interesting)
He'll be better than GWB (heck, even my cat would be) but he still has orders to execute. For those who live under a rock, keep in mind that the US President decides absolutely nothing: he jumps when the Congress says to jump, and the Congress says "jump" when the financial/economic oligarchy that rules the western world says "tell him to jump". If we as a whole don't change tha way the economic world got corrupted until today (ie, corporations being more important than people) we shouldn't expect a single human, be it the US President, to do anything good.
Re:National Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
Propaganda and convenience. Hollywood's been manufacturing the propaganda for the US gubermint for a long time. Small wonder the gubermint will throw them a bone back when asked. And covering it under "national security" totally removes any need to _work_ to justify the law.
So exactly how much money... (Score:4, Interesting)
... did the Obama Campaign receive from IP holders? Was it a landslide enough to help him get elected, I wonder?
Between having so many "friends of the RIAA" in the Department of Justice, VP Biden bragging that Big Media will love the new Copyright Czar, and this continued tight-lipped-ness about ACTA, I think it's pretty damned clear what Obama's REAL agenda will be for the next four years.
All of you fools that thought Obama was the Messiah screwed-up: you voted for Judas instead. The real Messiah might have been Dennis Kucinich, and coincidentally he got crucified... both by the DNC *and* voters.
Re:Obama is just a tool as any other president (Score:1, Interesting)
He'll be better than GWB (heck, even my cat would be) but he still has orders to execute.
Not much better, with a near filibuster proof D congress we're going to see some crazy stuff get passed.
Gridlock in government is good, it forces compromise and lessens the amount of crap in each bill (lest someone wants to be accused of adding "pork" to a bill).
When we lose the mild protection of a two-party system all that goes out the window as the ruling party tries to pass as much crap as possible while they're in power.
Re:Anti-Internet Freedom Agreement (Score:2, Interesting)
I know many things worse than death.
So I say, bring it on!
I my plan is successful, I will be able to battle a small government (not on any front you may think about now) in some years anyway.
Re:National Security? (Score:4, Interesting)
They can try to charge all they want. I don't know anybody who still buys music. Most of them could not even play it back anymore. Much less would be able to change their mind.
ACTA is a supernova. But a supernova still annihilates the star it comes from. It's the death cry of a dying industry.
Re:So exactly how much money... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd never even heard of Dennis Kucinich (though I'm not american so cut me a bit of slack), just looked him up and although I would agree with most of his policies, I think the big vote killer is his anti-handgun stance. On a purely populist level it would mean the campaign would mostly be spent trying to explain to americans why it would be justified and on a more political level it contradicts some of his other policies from the view of a lot of liberals. I think the main reason Obama got such widespread support was he didn't actually look like he was going to make any radical changes beyond undoing what the last government did.
I think that is a good example of why the system is flawed more than the candidates.. no one is going to have a perfect set of policies and the voting system in american is very much centered around the presidential candidates policies. The idea that one man is running a country is plain unrealistic yet that is how they market it and how it tends to work out in the guise of party politics. We have similar issues in England and we're a hell of a lot smaller. The candidates keep talking about proportional representation but I'd be surprised if most of them know what that would really be, they tend to use it like a buzzword. Our recent expenses scandal showed just how unwilling they were to get their own house in order before considering what would work for the country.
Re:Look at Iran for an example (Score:4, Interesting)
That's something I've pointed out before -- you don't get revolution unless a significant part of the population (I'd guess about half) are actively starving, and have nothing left to lose. And that's why real revolutions have always been bloody, and haven't necessarily made things better for the starving (frex, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution).
America is nowhere near that point, and probably never will be. However, with the increasing interest in states' rights, secession is not out of the question, and in today's world it would be damned hard to justify a shooting war to prevent it -- it would be seen as imperial rule preventing the Will of the People from being expressed in their choice of government.
'-MY- party is the actual saviour!' and other lies (Score:5, Interesting)
The party flag you're waving seems to have flapped in front of your eyes.
One more time, for the slow kids... BOTH MAJOR U.S. PARTIES ARE CORRUPT. The Republicans are going to vote for this just as surely as the Democrats will. You and your "loyalist" (remember where we've used that word before, historically?) friends are just as slow on the uptake as the people who still think that Obama represents some kind of "change". Our only hope as a nation is to band together and shed ourselves of both infected limbs. Unfortunately the "my party is better than your party" games are apparently too fun, and will continue until we are inconsequential at best.
I know you don't want to hear it, and you've got "but but but" trembling on your lips, but it's so obvious that people really have to WANT to believe in their party to avoid seeing the (very thinly veiled) truth. The simple fact is that, like the Democrats before you, hoping that YOUR party is going to come to the rescue is the utmost in childlike naivety. Hell, it was even oh-so-slightly understandable from the Democrats, because at least that party was PRETENDING they were going to change to course of the nation, no matter how transparent that lie was (voting records are more indicative than speeches), you Republicans have nothing to offer by way of rhetoric other than "the Democrats suck" and some vague and uneducated mumbling about communism.
In short, stop the Republican trumpet call, it will do nothing but fail you, just as it failed you with Bush, just as the Democrats were failed by Obama and Clinton. The partisan squabbling does nothing other than to cement the control of those who don't give the slightest thought toward neither your wellbeing nor your freedom.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say rather that politics is the only business where by default, the fox guards the henhouse, and the fox very often knows that business very well... of course, it's not the business you want experts in when the object is to maintain live hens.
Lawyers (the majority of politicians being of that ilk) making laws will not make them for everyday and the common man, but rather for the courts, and for the corner cases that lead to loopholes, rather than for real life.
In short, laws are made for lawyers, not for We The People.