Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?

from the openness,-transparency dept

Fri, Mar 13th 2009 6:11pm — Mike Masnick

Plenty of folks are quite concerned about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations are being negotiated in secret. This is a treaty that (from the documents that have leaked so far) is quite troubling. It likely will effectively require various countries, including the US, to update copyright laws in a draconian manner. Furthermore, the negotiators have met with entertainment industry representatives multiple times, and there are indications that those representatives have contributed language and ideas to the treaty. But, the public? The folks actually impacted by all of this? We've been kept in the dark, despite repeated requests for more information. So far, the response from the government had been "sorry, we always negotiate these things in secret, so we'll keep doing so." At one point, even the ACTA negotiators held a closed-door meeting and then released a press release saying they discussed being more transparent, but haven't actually followed through.

When the Obama administration took over, there was a public stance that this administration was going to be more transparent -- especially with regards to things like Freedom of Information Act requests. The nonprofit group Knowledge Ecology International took that to heart and filed an FOIA request to get more info on ACTA. The US Trade Representative's Office responded denying the request, saying that the information was "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." This is a treaty about changing copyright law, not sending missiles somewhere. To claim that it's a national security matter is just downright scary. As KEI points out, the text of the documents requested have been available to tons of people, including more than 30 governments around the world and lobbyists from the entertainment industry, pharma industry and publishing industry.

But when the public asks for them, we're told they're state secrets? This is transparency? This is openness?

As Declan McCullagh points out at News.com, Executive Order 12958 only allows material to be classified if revealing it would do "damage to the national security and the original classification authority is able to identify or describe the damage." Can the US Trade Representative please describe the damage to national security if the public gets to see what's being proposed that would require governments around the country to enact significantly more draconian intellectual property laws?

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Filed Under: acta, copyright, national security, secrecy, state secrets, sunlight, trade agreements

49 Comments

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UBW, 13 Mar 2009 @ 6:34pm

I see this as backfiring greatly, you can bet that the EFF and many other organizations will be on this in an instant and lawsuits will be filed in the near future. And I for one do not any court accepting the argument that somehow a proposed copyright treaty, already seen by a good number of businesses and many governments, is a state secret that can cause damage to national security.
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Reed, 13 Mar 2009 @ 6:52pm

State and Corporate security
Seems like the line between national security and the entertainment industries security is getting blurred.

Considering that we are heavily reliant on IP rights and litigating to make money is it any wonder that Uncle Sam is stepping in to protect one of his most important constituents?

They know that any public debate would quash their ridiculous ideas so they do it behind closed doors. The government then steps in to protect yet another failing business model at the detriment of our ability to create and innovate.

This is the same old story for any industry out there. Once a group of corporations attains the type of undeserved wealth as our entertainment industry has they quickly use their power to manipulate markets so they can continue to make their "cut".

If you really want to see who is pulling the strings just follow the money.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 7:09pm

Security Clearances?
If this is information really has a national security classification, then do all those entertainment industry people who have accessed it have national security clearances? If not, then shouldn't the federal swat teams be going after them? Or is the FBI really so much in the entertainment industries pockets these days that they'll even overlook what should be serious criminal violations comitted by the industry?
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Winrar is you, 13 Mar 2009 @ 9:35pm

Re: Security Clearances?
You sir, have just won the ten free internets.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 9:46pm

meet the new boss....same as the old boss....

then again.. I might get sued
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hegemon13, 13 Mar 2009 @ 11:27pm

Re:
As painful as it is to say...it's looking like it might even be "worse than the old boss." I didn't think that was possible. God help us.
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Tinfoil Chapeau, 14 Mar 2009 @ 12:00am

Re: Re:
You sir are out of line!
We have the best government money can buy!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2009 @ 1:24am

90% of the iceburg is below water
What is this really about? I believe it's ensuring a $500 Louis Vuitton handbag that could be manufactured in China for $3.50 never makes its way to market, with hopes it remains with a $700 price tag. What tangible value does it have? Does it have $700 worth of materials, or are you buying into an intangible, a brand, which peddles a product with an inflated value? Someone needs to brush off their old econ books and re-read EMH (Efficient Market Hypothesis).

Mark my words: Actions such as this will eventually fully legitimize Creative Commons, GPL and GNU, and lead to further shunning of yester-years accepted models.

When knowledge of these atrocities and complete whoring out of the IP system come to light, it will result in wholesale rejection of the establishment that created the legislation. True Artists, Inventors, Guilds, and otherwise will go elsewhere. The creators themselves won't put up for it, and instead will move to Public Domain, Creative Commons, GPL or GNU-friendly licensing and outlets that follow the spirit these alternatives put forth and release their creative through 3rd avenues.

Valuing the creation over the creator won't work. Creating secret laws to take protect the Creation is stupid. Thinking that slapping a brand name will inflate a product's value 2000% is delusional.

As a country, we have had enough shell games, ponzi schemes, and blatant lies told to us to last several generations.

Either you have transparency to the real issue or you don't. You don't create wealth by fancy politics or taking advantage of people.

In America, you create wealth with hard work. This is just another paperwork scam to create false inflation of paper akin to CDOs and MBSs. A house of cards.
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yogi, 14 Mar 2009 @ 1:25am

The new Musuc business model
This is just like catch-22: if your business is in trouble
all you have to do is convince congress that your business is vital to national security and therefore must be supported by the taxpayers.

"The Commies are stealing our music! America will not stand for that"

The next step: bombing homes of Communist file sharers.

Clearly the guys at the RIAA and MMPAA have a great sense of humor.

The U.S. is fastly becoming a most unattractive place to live in.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2009 @ 1:43am

Corporations abuse welfare more than any individual ever has. Women who live off of it to feed their children need it more than multinational corporations sending lobbyists to congress.

Change.
Nothing is going to change until it is forced to. When corporations have raped the Earth enough to where the population can no longer be supported, that's when things will change. Anyone who knows anything knew that nothing significant would change when a corporate whore like Obama took office.
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Bob, 14 Mar 2009 @ 2:03am

The Truth
ACTA will be Obama's 9-11, and Clinton's DCMA:

Absolutely, completely and unequivocally worthless when the real truth comes out-

Merely special interests saying "Let's not innovate"
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drew, 14 Mar 2009 @ 3:39am

if this information is being shared with other government's and put into law in those country's why not just ask them for it, e.g if the uk government is part of this cartel get a uk citizen to put in a freedom of information request to get access to said document
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2009 @ 6:10am

I highly doubt there will be anything done by this socialist does that doesn't turn out to be very troubling for all our children. It makes me very angry to think of the suffering my son is going to have to suffer because of a bunch of haters who think they are to good to work and that the government should provide for all their needs have brought to his life.
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Milton, 14 Mar 2009 @ 7:54am

Hold on a minute
My problem here is that this claim is astoundingly short on support. I click on the links to arrive at other TechDirt Blog entries and if i keep going and going, I find a couple obscure blogs that specialize in paranoiac shit...who also don't support their claims.

I want more than self-affirmation to these claims before I start hooting cliches from my open window and writing even tireder ones. (see that old/new boss, adnauseum thing...God, that's older than Mithridates)

I thought this readership was the cynical type...I ought to have researched that one better, I guess.
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bikey (profile), 14 Mar 2009 @ 8:09am

national security
Yes, new boss, old boss same thing only worse. New boss has mental capacity, potential to be much more disappointing as what can we hope for after this.
Anyway, OF COURSE it's national security - this is the only card the US economy has left to play. If IP fails them, it's lights out. Why isn't this clear to everyone?
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bikey (profile), 14 Mar 2009 @ 8:12am

natsec
Re rumor quality, see http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/obama-declares.html with links. Not all that obscure.
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Makaainana, 14 Mar 2009 @ 11:08am

Trade Secrets/ National Secrets
"I am committed to a more open transparent government." Isn't that what the President said?

How is cloaking trade rules a national secret? The law allowing for the classification of documents says the classifying agency has to state why the item is a secret does it not? So...

My concern quotient is going up with the President's administration...
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Matt, 14 Mar 2009 @ 11:25am

And everyone thought Bush was bad... Ha Ha on those of you that bought the Hope and Change BS. Welcome to the Obama Nation! Say good bye to the First and Second Amendments... more to go next week.

Hello China my old friend, I've come sleep with you again.
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bikey (profile), 14 Mar 2009 @ 12:59pm

Re: Trade Secrets/ National Secrets
ACTA is not about trade rules. It's about making sure nothing that would break IP national monopolies goes over borders. It authorizes all electronic equipment searches by all signatory states' customs officials, and combined with data retention and disappearance of privacy, and high criminal penalties, it will assure that no one downloads or carries anything that these guys think threatens their last claim to hegemony - IP.
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Ryan, 14 Mar 2009 @ 1:24pm

Re:
Corporations abuse welfare more than any individual ever has. Women who live off of it to feed their children need it more than multinational corporations sending lobbyists to congress.

Change.
Nothing is going to change until it is forced to. When corporations have raped the Earth enough to where the population can no longer be supported, that's when things will change. Anyone who knows anything knew that nothing significant would change when a corporate whore like Obama took office.

Ignoring the fact that this is a different situation than the topic at hand, there is no such thing as a government that passes out welfare derived from general taxation completely honestly and altruistically. Anytime the men in power are in charge of determining who gets what, the system will get gamed. Wish for a utopian dreamworld where a well-meaning government takes from the successful and gives to the needy and nobody takes advantage in one hand, take a shit in the other, and see which hand fills up first.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2009 @ 4:19pm

Re: The new Musuc business model
The U.S. is fastly becoming a most unattractive place to live in.
Really? Name another place you'd rather live - then move there and let us all know how it is in your utopia.
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LinkP, 14 Mar 2009 @ 4:34pm

We allow it...
As long as "We the People" allow this to happen it will continue and it *will* get worse. Writing about it on the Internet is a good start but more needs be done. Write your congressman (or whatever your country calls it). Start petitioning those in charge. If nothing else works, replace the damn government! I believe the phrase was: "Taxation without representation"?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2009 @ 4:54pm

The Obama Administration is claiming a lot of "stuff", such as:

http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-white-house-enforces-right-of.html
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2009 @ 6:44pm

Re: Hold on a minute
news.cnet.com is a "paranoiac shit" site? Uh uh, riiight...
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Happy Phil, 14 Mar 2009 @ 8:27pm

Ask again.
If one reads the story, you will notice that, "someone at the trade representative's office", said it was a matter of security.

I would suggest that "Knowledge Ecology International", put in another request and find out who the "someone" was, that denied their first request, before getting outraged and offended, (Like some of the posters, here).
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Jason K, 14 Mar 2009 @ 8:40pm

National Security?
I think by being transparent on this issue may do damage to an already bad economy. I can see the public boycotting a lot product if this gets out. It's still in the negotiation process, and I don't think there has been another meeting on ACTA since Obama was swarn in.

I think they should just walk away from this. If they are that worried about damaging evidence being presented to the public, it sounds as though it's not good policy to begin with, why bother pursuing it?
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Luci, 14 Mar 2009 @ 11:05pm

Re: Re: The new Musuc business model
Canada. Now cough up the cash so I can emigrate. The 'don't like it get out' attitude doesn't fly. It's just like saying 'things need to change, but I'm too busy to care.' Stand up for your rights, you sheep.
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Don'tBlameMe-IVotedForHunter, 15 Mar 2009 @ 6:11am

Bait & Switch
Our new President [Spit] is a master of the ol' "bait & switch". Lure you in with his sweet, "tell you what you want to hear" campaign teleprompter (and the good little lib sheeple drank it all in like a bum chugging a free keg), only to start swinging the hammer & sickle now that he no longer needs the useful-idiots that elected him.

With his approval rating already dipping below where Bush was at the same point in his administration, the eye-opening "buyer's remorse" now being expressed by more and more libs is becoming too loud to be hidden any longer.

Rush Limbaugh and many others tried to warn you before the election (loudly and often) and you refused to listen.

So if you voted for the fool, quit your whining and lay in the bed you have made for yourselves. Perhaps you can form a new "angry drum circle" (or whatever other non-substantive, unproductive, emotion-driven waste of time makes you feel "empowered" against "the man").

The rest of us are going back to work to try and clean up your mess.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 7:33am

Change
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 7:44am

how did that saying go?
The more things change, the more they remain the same
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 7:53am

documents on Wikileaks
Here is the link to a Wikileaks search on ACTA: http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=ACTA&go=Go
There are plenty of documents available ranging on different topics in the ACTA agreement. Wikileaks is the shit.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 8:23am

EU Response to document request
This comes from an Ars Technica article by Nate Anderson dated November 7, 2008:

"The EU has turned down a request for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents filed by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). In a letter to the group, the EU said simply that "the documents contain negotiating directives for the negotiation of the above mentioned agreement. These negotiations are still in progress. Disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations.""
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 12:06pm

Re: Re: The new Musuc business model
How's about:

France
Australia
Spain
UK
Norway
Netherlands

I'd rather live in any of the above, and have done, than live in the US.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 2:55pm

Re: EU Response to document request
What they said:
"Disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations."

What they really meant:
"Disclosure of this information could impede the improper conduct of the negotiations."
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Weird Harold, 15 Mar 2009 @ 5:42pm

Re: Re: Re: The new Musuc business model
Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2009 @ 8:07pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: The new Musuc business model
"Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out."

Of course, the US could be much improved by getting rid of Weird Harold.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2009 @ 5:14am

Executive Order 12958 was replaced by Executive Order 13292 in 2003. I believe the source story at news.com is incorrect. Although, I would not put it past any of them to bend us over and give us the big one, if you know what i mean, and yes, I am just saying....
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2009 @ 5:43am

Re: Re: Re: The new Musuc business model
France has even worse copyright laws than the US, and both the UK and Australia are three steps ahead of the US on the way to a police state. I can't say I know much about Spain at all, though I think I read somewhere that Norway and the Netherlands have some pretty painful income taxes...
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2009 @ 5:51am

Re: Bait & Switch
The rest of us are going back to work to try and clean up your mess.

No you aren't. You're going to sit there and be self-righteous and say things like "don't blame me," and "sleep in the bed you've made," completely missing the point that this isn't about who was wrong and who was right -- it's about where the country's going. And that affects all of us, no matter who we voted for. Still, I'd be surprised if you raise one finger to try to fix this mess than we've all been put in.
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Rick Stone, 16 Mar 2009 @ 6:50am

Change
Is this the transparent change that Obama promised or is this the invisable chains that he is inslaving us with?
Secret laws are the same as no laws or I make the law and everything is against the law.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2009 @ 6:56am

Hope! Change!! Whoever voted for ZeroBama... Epic Fail.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2009 @ 11:57am

Re: Hold on a minute
well, put it this way, there would be more complaints posted elsewhere if they actually were open to the public. And why shouldn't these kind of proceedings be open to the public?
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Grae, 16 Mar 2009 @ 1:24pm

Misleading Article
Man, Chicken Littles running all over the place, kicking up a frenzy over a knock on the noggin.

Guess what, Obama probably wasn't even aware of the request or its refusal, Peter Allgeier, the Deputy US Trade Rep, appointed by Former President Bush would have been the one to receive and act on the FOIA request, and that he acted totally in line with the Bush administration's policies is about as shocking as being told water is wet.

Obama has yet to shake up the USTO, so relax, and stop blaming a man for actions that staff appointed by the old boss made. Obama is not omniscient, unless there's evidence that Obama knew about this FOIA request and did nothing to stop it being blocked, you people need to stop tossing around red herrings.

Honestly kinda disappointed in the article, this information wasn't even difficult to locate.
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ECA (profile), 16 Mar 2009 @ 3:04pm

Laws rules and regulations
ALL laws, are based on 1 ideal..
A consensus between all parties that something IS WRONG, or shouldnt be done.

It can NEVER be 1 party/1 sided..
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Sean, 30 Mar 2009 @ 6:07pm

Why isn't this headline news?
When everybody is basically a pirate station, the goal sounds to create internet boarders while opening the door to privacy violations. Secretly, it just comes down to Russia & China is basically giving the technological "finger" to the west & they don't like it. If this doesn't pass I'll be suprised. LOL
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Jason, 13 Apr 2009 @ 5:06pm

Re: Hold on a minute
If you aren't comfortable with the self-referencing links, then search google. This one is all over the place.

Masnick's always going to link to himself. It's just good business.
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Jason, 13 Apr 2009 @ 5:10pm

Re: national security
Unfortunately no one bothered to tell them that IP holdings are THE absolute most overinflated assets on our collective books.

If this is the ace in the hole, better to fold now.
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Matt, 16 Apr 2009 @ 6:33am

Re: Bait & Switch
It's not just Obama, it's every president. The people of the U.S. aren't being represented anymore. It's almost as if the government brainwashes everyone who becomes president into thinking that money is the best out of everything. It's such a childish act...disgusting.

Yeah...I don't think listening to Rush Limbaugh is the best thing either:
http://mtblog.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2009/03/rush-limbaughs-10-dumbest-remarks.html
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anon, 24 Mar 2010 @ 12:18pm

Executive Order 12958
FYI Executive Order 12958 was signed by Clinton...not Obama.
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