President Obama Orders Intel Agencies To Produce Report On Russian Election Influence

from the but-will-it-be-made-public? dept

We just recently wrote about Senators on the Intelligence Committee requesting that President Obama declassify information about the Russians' activities in trying to influence the last election. While much of "the Russians did it!" chatter that's been going around has felt exaggerated, the real issue is that so little actual evidence has been presented one way or the other. It would be good to actually reveal publicly what has happened, if anything. Now comes the news that President Obama has, at least, asked the intelligence agencies to compile a report on the evidence:

President Obama has ordered American intelligence agencies to produce a full report on Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, his homeland security adviser said on Friday. He also directed them to develop a list of “lessons learned” from the broad campaign the United States has accused Russia of carrying out to steal emails, publish their contents and probe the vote-counting system.

“We may have crossed a new threshold here,” Lisa Monaco, one of Mr. Obama’s closest aides and the former head of the national security division of the Justice Department, told reporters Friday. “He expects to receive this report before he leaves office.”

Receiving the report before he leaves office is one thing. Declassifying it and releasing it to the public is another. Hopefully he is willing to do both. Of course, the article notes that some agencies, such as the FBI, consider it an "active investigation" and thus are not happy about the idea of revealing anything publicly. Of course, without revealing the evidence -- one way or the other -- it just leads to greater speculation and conspiracy theories. And even just a report summarizing the findings will be kind of useless as well. Remember, we've already had the administration accuse Russia of hacking in relation to the election -- but without providing any actual evidence to back it up. And, again, that has resulted in people not being willing to trust the claim.

Given all that, it seems the most logical response should be to get this report and then to declassify it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there's little in the Obama administration's history that suggests this is the path it will take.

Filed Under: elections, hacking, president obama, russia

Key Congressional Staffers Who Helped Rein In Surveillance Overreach In The 1970s Ask Obama To Pardon Snowden

from the make-it-so dept

While it seems pretty darn clear that President Obama has no interest in issuing a pardon for Ed Snowden -- despite the well-organized campaign in support of such a pardon -- more and more people are stepping up to argue why Obama should change his mind on this. The latest is a big one: fifteen members of the Church Committee have sent President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch a memo outlining the reasons why Snowden deserves a pardon.

The Church Committee, of course, was the Senate Committee that investigated excessive surveillance efforts by the CIA, NSA and FBI in the 1970s, and eventually led to a series of sweeping reforms that helped to rein in many of the worst abuses. Of course, after 2001, many of the restrictions were watered down, which gets us to where we are today. It's also notable, of course, that the Church Committee eventually morphed into the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, better known today as the Senate Intelligence Committee. Yes, if you're a bit confused, the committee that was created to stop intelligence community surveillance abuses changed over the years into becoming the intelligence community's biggest defenders, rather than overseers. Today's Intelligence Committee (minus a few members) seems 100% focused on whining about Snowden. So it's fairly telling that the members who made up some of the key staff positions on the original committee are now speaking out.

The letter was put together by Frederick Schwartz, who was the Chief Counsel of the Church Committee and William Miller, who was its Staff Director (i.e., these weren't lowly staffers -- these were the guys who ran the show). And they're pretty damn concerned. The full letter is worth reading, but here's just a small excerpt:

Without Snowden, it would have been decades, if ever, until Americans learned what intelligence agencies acting in our name had been up to. We know first hand that lack of disclosure can cause just as many, if not more, harms to the nation than disclosure. When intelligence agencies operate in the dark, they often have gone too far in trampling on the legitimate rights of law-abiding Americans and damaging our reputation internationally. We saw this repeated time and time again when serving as staff members for the U.S. Senate Select Committee, known as the Church Committee, that in 1975-76 conducted the most extensive bipartisan investigation of a government’s secret activities ever, in this country or elsewhere.

They also point out the hypocrisy of Obama and his administration ignoring or granting leniency towards others who abused positions of power in the surveillance state, and who did so not to benefit the public, as Snowden did:

Some oppose leniency for Snowden because he violated the law. But many in the national security establishment who committed serious crimes have received little or no punishment. President Obama’s decision to “look forward, not backward” absolved from liability the officials who designed and implemented the torture and extraordinary rendition programs at the CIA and Defense Department during the George W. Bush Administration. It also meant that those who destroyed evidence of these crimes and misled Congress about illegal torture and surveillance would never face charges.

In addition, the government has also been lenient to high-level officials who made illegal disclosures or destroyed classified information. Examples are cases involving National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and CIA Directors David Petraeus and John Deutch.

CIA Director David Petraeus, who also had been a top general, violated the law and his obligation to protect national security information when he provided his biographer, who was also his close friend, with voluminous notebooks documenting Top Secret military and intelligence operations, as well as sharing classified information with reporters. He also made false statements to the FBI to avoid accountability for his actions. Yet he was allowed to plead guilty to just one misdemeanor for which he received no jail time. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger broke the law when he removed several highly classified documents sought by the 9/11 Commission from the National Archives and then destroyed them. He too was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and received a fine and probation. President Bill Clinton pardoned former CIA Director John Deutch before the Justice Department filed a misdemeanor charge against him for improperly taking hundreds of files containing highly classified information and storing them on an unprotected home computer. In all these cases, recognition of the public service the individuals had provided weighed against strict enforcement of the law, to come to a fair and just result.

There are, of course, differences between these cases and Snowden’s. But the crucial point is that only in Snowden’s case was the motivation behind his illegal activity to benefit America. The three others involved efforts to gain glory or avoid criticism, or simple convenience and simple disregard for the law that put our security at risk. Yet the perpetrators were treated leniently.

The memo goes on to explain why people claiming Snowden should have gone through "the proper channels" don't know what they're talking about, by pointing to the examples of those who did follow those channels, only to have their lives ruined with bogus Espionage Act cases. Of course, I'm not sure how that will appeal to Obama, since he supported those cases.

Still, it's good to see these individuals, who know perhaps better than anyone what happens when you have a surveillance state run amok, explaining to the President why what Snowden did was so important, and why he deserves a pardon.

Filed Under: church committee, ed snowden, loretta lynch, oversight, pardon snowden, president obama, senate, surveillance

In His Final Days, Obama Quietly Expands War Powers Before Handing Them Off To Trump

from the hey-that's-a-big-deal dept

While we knew it was impossible for President Obama to truly rein in the massive executive powers that he helped expand (following on the massive expansions from previous administrations) concerning national surveillance and war -- we had still hoped that maybe his concern about a President Trump would let him do a few small things to limit some of the most egregious powers. Instead, it appears that President Obama is doing the opposite, and expanding his war powers, just as he's about to hand them to someone that he, himself, has loudly criticized as being unfit for the Presidency.

For years now, we've written about how the Obama administration has regularly rewritten the dictionary in order to pretend that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) hastily granted by Congress in the wake of 9/11 enabled him to go to war with basically anyone. If you don't recall, the AUMF granted the President the power to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to go after those who "planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." That's already fairly broad, but over the years basically our entire government has pretended that (1) the AUMF included the ability to also target "associated forces" (even though it does not) and (2) it allowed the President to simply lump in anyone he wanted as an "associated force" allowing him to bomb them without any Congressional authorization. This is how you get a war without end, in which the explicit authorization to go after Al Qaeda is now being used on a surprisingly long list of groups that didn't even exist in 2001.

And, just a few days ago, President Obama expanded the list yet again, allowing himself to go after yet another group: Shabab. Now, no one is trying to claim that Shabab, or ISIS or any other group that has been added to the list aren't out to do serious harm to the US. But, this seems to go way beyond the basic functions of the office of the President and the simple Constitutional requirement for Congress to declare war. As Trevor Timm notes at the Guardian, this is a big deal:

Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Micah Zenko didn’t mince words in the Times when describing what the Obama administration is doing: “It’s crazy,” he said of the administration’s redefining the law out of existence. “This administration leaves the Trump administration with tremendously expanded capabilities and authorities.”

Make no mistake: Trump will have a free hand to use the law meant for the perpetrators of 9/11 to wage war around the world, fashioning it to different enemies at his command, and he will be able to point to precedent set by the Obama administration as he does it.

Per usual, all the White House’s decisions are being made under the veil of official secrecy. The only reason we know about it is not because the administration announced it, but because the New York Times reported it after unnamed officials leaked it to them.

And that's not all. The Obama administration has also given more powers to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) -- the organization that helped find and kill Osama bin Laden. And, again, people are raising concerns about how this power will be used by the next President. As Timm notes:

Trump is now coming into office with ever expanding war powers, and they’re being served to him on a silver platter by the same people who told the American public two months ago that Trump was so unstable and thin-skinned that he couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes.

This isn't about which President or which party you support. It seems like we should all be concerned with the ever growing power of the executive branch in general, and especially its willingness to grant itself more powers to go around and kill people.

Filed Under: aumf, donald trump, executive power, president obama, surveillance, war

President Obama Claims He Cannot Pardon Snowden; He's Wrong

from the yes-you-can dept

In a big interview with the German media outlet Der Spiegel, President Obama was asked about his interest in pardoning Ed Snowden in response to the big campaign to get him pardoned. Obama's response was that he could not, since Snowden has not been convicted yet:

ARD/SPIEGEL: Are you going to pardon Edward Snowden?

Obama: I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves, so that's not something that I would comment on at this point. I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.

At the point at which Mr. Snowden wants to present himself before the legal authorities and make his arguments or have his lawyers make his arguments, then I think those issues come into play. Until that time, what I've tried to suggest -- both to the American people, but also to the world -- is that we do have to balance this issue of privacy and security. Those who pretend that there's no balance that has to be struck and think we can take a 100-percent absolutist approach to protecting privacy don't recognize that governments are going to be under an enormous burden to prevent the kinds of terrorist acts that not only harm individuals, but also can distort our society and our politics in very dangerous ways.

And those who think that security is the only thing and don't care about privacy also have it wrong.

This is simply incorrect -- as is known to anyone who remembers the fact that Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon before he had been indicted.

And it appears that the President knows this. Because, as the Pardon Snowden campaign points out, Obama pardoned three Iranian Americans who had not yet stood trial. That happened this year. So for him to say it's impossible to pardon someone who hasn't gone before the court is simply, factually, historically wrong.

And there's a Supreme Court ruling that makes this abundantly clear. 150 years ago, in the ruling on Ex Parte Garland, the Supreme Court stated:

The power of pardon conferred by the Constitution upon the President is unlimited except in cases of impeachment. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. The power is not subject to legislative control.

A pardon reaches the punishment prescribed for an offence and the guilt of the offender. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities and restores him to all his civil rights. It gives him a new credit and capacity. There is only this limitation to its operation: it does not restore offices forfeited, or property of interests vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment.

Separately, the argument that if Snowden goes to court he can "make his arguments" is also wrong. And President Obama also knows this. The Espionage Act, under which Snowden is charged, does not allow any sort of whistleblower or public interest defense at all.

As Snowden’s lawyer, the ACLU’s Ben Wizner has explained, this isn’t hypothetical. When Daniel Ellsberg stood trial under the Espionage Act, his attorney asked him why he decided to leak the Pentagon Papers to journalists. The prosecution objected to the mere question, and the judge sustained the objection. No matter the egregiousness of the government’s actions, a whistleblower’s motivation has no place in an Espionage Act trial.

That means that Snowden wouldn’t be able to explain why he felt the public should know what the NSA was doing, he wouldn’t be able to point to the federal courts that ruled against the NSA in the aftermath of the disclosures, and he wouldn’t be able to cite subsequent advances to cybersecurity. His conviction and severe punishment would be a foregone conclusion.

There may be reasons why the President doesn't wish to grant a pardon to Snowden, but his stated reasons are completely bogus.

Filed Under: ed snowden, pardon snowden, pardons, president obama

Stopping Turnkey Tyranny: What The Obama Administration Can Do About The NSA On The Way Out

from the not-much,-but-something dept

Last week, I was a little unfair to our friends over at Fight for the Future in noting that it was too late for President Obama to "dismantle the NSA" as was suggested in a Time article written by FftF's awesome campaign director Evan Greer. I was focusing on why the President should have limited the NSA much more seriously earlier on (like way earlier...), but some interpreted it to mean that I was suggesting that FftF had only just jumped on the bandwagon to stop mass surveillance. That's clearly not true -- as it's been one of the leading voices in the fight to get the President to scale back mass surveillance since the group took on that issue many years ago.

My point was really just that waiting until now really limited Obama's options greatly. Even if he wanted to limit what a President Trump could do with the NSA, there's not much he can do that President Trump couldn't immediately roll back. That might be different if Obama had done a full scale surveillance reform program years ago, including much more comprehensive legislation than the USA Freedom Act.

But just because there isn't much he can do, that doesn't mean there's nothing he can do. Timothy Edgar, who served in both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations handing civil liberties/privacy issues related to the intelligence community (he was Obama's director of privacy and civil liberties for the White House's national security staff), has written a very interesting article laying out a number of things that the President can do on his way out the door that certainly won't stop the possibility (or even likelihood) of abuse of surveillance powers, but could at least make it somewhat more difficult.

Edgar picks up on a point that Ed Snowden made early on, that we've built a system that will enable "turnkey tyranny" in the wrong hands:

we delude ourselves if we think they have made the NSA tyrant-proof. In Snowden’s first interview from Hong Kong, warned against “turnkey tyranny.” One day, he said, “a new leader will be elected” and “they’ll find the switch.” With Donald Trump’s election, it is important that this warning not be proved prophetic. While the United States has a robust system of intelligence oversight—the strongest in the world—it still largely depends on the good faith of Executive Branch officials.

Edgar then goes through the things that Obama can do, but notes that they "require immediate action" if they're to have any impact at all. Some of them may seem like they're unlikely to have much of an impact -- such as reaffirming to the intelligence community their oath to the Constitution, and that what they do is supposed to be above politics, or even appointing new staff (which Trump could replace, but might not given the rumored staffing troubles he's been having) -- but could actually set a tone that at least acts as a minor buffer. Some of the other suggestions, though, could be more effective: committing to real transparency including declassifying a lot more information about surveillance programs, helping the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board finally get out its long awaited report on Executive Order 12333 and dropping the various attempts to use bogus "states secrets" defenses to various legal challenges to surveillance programs. All of those could be really useful.

Edgar also recommends pardoning Snowden, commuting Chelsea Manning's sentence and dropping or wrapping up whatever other leak investigation and excessive Espionage Act cases the DOJ has going. They won't necessarily stop a President Trump from using the same tools against other people, but it will take away gift wrapped cases that could set awful precedents in using the Espionage Act go go after public interest whistleblowers and reporters.

Edgar concludes by pointing out that if Obama believes in his own oaths to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution -- which are obviously still in effect -- he should do whatever possible to make sure that the next administration cannot completely ignore the Constitution, as many fear (and as Trump has suggested he'd like to do concerning the 4th Amendment and surveillance).

Obama has twice sworn an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. Normally, this means making it possible for the new president to fulfill his promises, even if you disagree with them. Given Trump’s autocratic tendencies, Obama’s oath entails a countervailing obligation. Obama’s last challenge is to do everything in his power to thwart Trump’s promises to abuse our constitutional liberties.

Again, these are all fairly limited moves, but they're what's left that can be done. Given how little Obama did in the almost eight years he's had, I won't hold my breath that he'll do any of these things, but lots of us will be watching closely, hoping that we're wrong about what we expect to happen.

Filed Under: donald trump, ed snowden, nsa, president obama, surveillance, timothy edgar

It's Too Late For President Obama To 'Dismantle' The NSA's Mass Surveillance

from the shoulda-done-it-earlier dept

I should say up front that I'm a big supporter of Fight for the Future and the work they do, and while some may take this post as a slam on them, it is anything but. We're very much on the same page on nearly everything, but it caught my attention when FftF's Evan Greer wrote a piece asking President Obama to "shut down" the NSA's mass surveillance systems before Donald Trump gets control of it all. Specifically the article says "before it's too late." While I'd love to see Obama shut down the NSA's mass surveillance system, it's time to admit that it is too late. Anything the President does to that effect in this lame duck session can, and will, be reversed on day one of the Trump administration. Perhaps there's some value in the symbolic gesture, but let's face the facts: it's too late.

This is why we've been calling out illegal and warrantless surveillance all along -- from the Bush administration right through the Obama administration. And it's why it's been so damn frustrating to see people who flip flopped on these issues when "their guy" was in power (which, frankly, includes President Obama himself). Watching their expected flip flop back won't be any consolation. As we've said before, laws should always be designed as if the people we distrust the most are in power. Because one day, they will be.

Filed Under: donald trump, mass surveillance, nsa, president obama, surveillance

Obama's Last Gasp At Trade Deals: Lame Duck Push On TPP; And 'Lite' Version Of TTIP

from the this-is-not-legacy-building dept

Lots of people have expected President Obama to push for a Congressional vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) ratification in the "lame duck" session after the election, but before the new administration takes over. Last week, the President made it pretty clear that he was planning to do exactly that, and magically a bunch of "business groups" that make up the "President's Export Council" are suddenly pushing for a lame duck TPP vote, and lots of old school business lobbying groups are out talking to the press about how totally amazing the TPP is. Meanwhile, on the flip side, TPP opponents are (not surprisingly) gearing up to oppose a lame duck vote.

It's still not clear if there are enough votes in Congress, but of course, no one wants to talk about it before the election, because there's so much populist anti-TPP feelings from the public on both parties that speaking up in support of TPP now may harm election chances. Of course, after the election, when elected officials can go back to ignoring the will of the people, things may miraculously shift back to the way they were before.

Meanwhile, the other big "trade" plan that was supposed to be a part of Obama's legacy is the deal with the EU, known as the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership). That's run into lots of trouble as well, and there are serious concerns on both sides of the Atlantic about how it will work. With time running out on the clock, apparently the USTR is now pushing for a "light" version of the agreement so that something is accomplished:

The U.S. and EU countries supporting free trade are increasingly worried that the landmark Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will collapse if they do not secure a preliminary accord before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in January.

They now accept that a full agreement will not be possible by the end of 2016 because of an impasse over agriculture and public procurement, but they don’t want to surrender what they regard as concrete progress made in other fields over the past three years of negotiations.

So to "lock in" something, they are looking at taking the pieces they have agreed on, and coming up with a simplified deal. What's interesting here is that the agreed upon parts are the ones that are normally used as the example of why we need TTIP in the first place. In the past, we've joked about how frequently those defending TTIP point to the single example of different automobile standards, such that automakers need to build different cars for each market. And it looks like that issue might make it in TTIP-lite:

U.S. and Italian officials are now weighing the option of a “Step 1” deal to lock in elements that can be finalized by December, possibly including joint testing regimes and mutually agreed upon standards for cars, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

So, uh, that sounds good. Why do we need the rest of the crap that they're debating, around corporate sovereignty ISDS provisions -- especially since the entire basis for those kinds of agreements was supposed to be to encourage investment in developing countries. The EU and the US have perfectly decent court systems, so any dispute shouldn't need a special tribunal.

But, of course, those who have relied on shoving all sorts of pork and special interest protectionism through trade deals do not like the idea of a "lite" agreement that covers the officially discussed reasons for a trade deal. Why, that would be horrible! How could they continue to hide all the sneaky stuff they want to get in?

The idea has sparked immediate skepticism in the European Commission and in some EU member countries, which argue that any form of a downgraded deal will be very hard to sell politically, particularly after French Trade Minister Matthias Fekl and German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel turned hostile on the negotiations.

And, of course, anything that's "rushed" through may have problems on its own, so there are legitimate reasons to be wary of a "lite" deal anyway. But it is kind of amusing that they might dump all the "good" reasons for TTIP into a deal, and then have to continue to try to justify the rest of the stuff.

Filed Under: corporate sovereignty, isds, lame duck, president obama, tariffs, tpp, ttip, ttip lite, ustr, white house

ACLU Launching Campaign To Have President Obama Pardon Snowden

from the timed-to-the-movie dept

The ACLU has been hinting at this for the past few months, but with the end of President Obama's term in office coming up and coinciding with the launch of Oliver Stone's feature film about Ed Snowden, the ACLU, along with Amnesty International, are launching an official campaign to ask the President to issue a pardon for Ed Snowden. They'll be hosting a press conference Wednesday morning, where Snowden will show up via video (perhaps using Robot Snowden?) to discuss. Not surprisingly, the ACLU says they've lined up a bunch of "legal scholars, policy experts, human rights leaders, technologists and former government officials," who will all be supporting a pardon for Snowden.

There will also apparently be a sign-on form on the site PardonSnowden.org, which is currently locked up behind a password (get busy cracking that, NSA).

Not surprisingly, I think the president absolutely should pardon Snowden. I also think there's very, very, very little chance that he actually will. I wouldn't put the chance at 0% -- because it's possible. But I'd still put the likelihood in the single digits. I hope I'm wrong -- and I hope that the President recognizes why pardoning Snowden would be such a good thing, and an important part of his legacy. And I hope that the movie (which I have not seen) properly puts Snowden's actions in context (though I'm not entirely convinced Oliver Stone will do so). So, perhaps I'm wrong. But I just find it super unlikely that President Obama would stick his neck out and take a stand like that.

Filed Under: ed snowden, pardon, president obama, whistleblowing, white house
Companies: aclu

American Medical Association Claims False Copyright Over President Obama's Journal Article

from the that's-not-how-it-works,-ama dept

You may have heard that earlier this week President Obama published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled: United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps. It follows typical medical journal format and has lots of charts and figures. A number of people remarked that this must be a first for how the "Author Affiliations" were listed: Whatever you might think of the President's health care policy, you should absolutely appreciate the willingness to publish data and details like this -- and to make it freely available online. But there's something that's still problematic here. And it has a lot more to do with the American Medical Association than the President. And it's that -- in typically idiotic closed access medical journal fashion -- JAMA is claiming the copyright on the article. There's a copyright permissions link in the righthand column, and if you click on it, you get taken to a page on Copyright.com, a site run by the Copyright Clearance Center, claiming that the copyright for this document is held by the American Medical Association: And if you click to download the PDF version of the article, which I've embedded below on the bottom of every page, it claims that the document is covered by a copyright held by the American Medical Association. To put it simply: this is bullshit. Section 105 of US copyright law makes it quite explicit that "any work of the United States Government" cannot be covered by copyright. When the President writes a journal article (and he's listed as the sole author), the document is automatically in the public domain and not subject to copyright. I recognize that, since the AMA obnoxiously wants to claim and take every copyright from every one of its authors, it might not be set up to handle publishing a document in the public domain, but it should figure out how to make an exception, because what it's doing right now is outright copyfraud, claiming copyright on something it does not have the rights to.

And some people have noticed. Professor Michael Eisen, from UC Berkeley and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has sent a letter to the President asking him to ask JAMA to correct this error: If you can't read it, the key section reads:

I would like to bring to your attention an issue that you, as both a constitutional lawyer and President sworn to uphold the laws of the United States, will, I hope, find of interest. As you are undoubtedly aware, US copyright law (specifically section 105) states that copyright protection is not available to works of the federal government. I believe that we can safely assume that a work penned by you as part of your official duties as President is subject to this provision. Nonetheless, the official electronic copy of your article (attached) bears the statement "Copyright 2016 American Medical Association. All rights reserved" on every page in clear violation of coypyright law.

I would like to humbly request that you demand on behalf of citizens of the United States that JAMA remove this illegal copyright claim from your paper. Furthermore, I hope that you can use the opportunity afforded by this incident to shed light [on] the broader issue of scientific journals illegally claiming copyright in thousands of other works of the US government every year, thereby restricting access to and use of these works which by law belong in the public domain.

Hopefully something happens.

Filed Under: copyright, health care reform, jama, president obama, public domain
Companies: american medical association

Watch The President Use Fair Use To Support A Trade Deal That Undermines Fair Use

from the three-step-test dept

Lots of people are talking about the fact that President Obama went on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night to "slow jam the news" and play up a bunch of his accomplishments while stumping for the TPP agreement. If you haven't seen it yet, it's here: Here's the key part on TPP:

"I believe it is of the utmost importance to work alongside other leaders. That's why I signed the Iran nuclear deal, that’s why we reopened diplomatic ties with Cuba, and that is why I negotiated the new trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP," Obama said, to the backdrop of the Roots.

"Now, hold on there, Prez dispenser. Are you saying you’re down with TPP?" Fallon responded.

"Yeah, you know me. Look, Jimmy, the TPP allows American businesses to sell their products both at home and abroad. The more we sell abroad, the more higher-paying jobs we provide at home. It’s that simple," Obama said.

"So what are you saying, that this trade deal would put Americans back to work, work, work, work, work?" Fallon said, singing Rihanna as Obama joined in.

The President is being misleading, but we'll get to that. The really amusing point, as pointed out by Johnjac is that the little Rihanna homage breakdown there is legal thanks to fair use. But the TPP, contrary to the claims of some, actually looks to limit fair use, by putting in place a test (that US fair use wouldn't currently qualify for) -- and making any fair use optional.

So... that seems like a bit of irony. But it's the kind of thing almost no one is going to comment on, because ha ha, the President is singing and it's funny.

As for the claim that the TPP allows American businesses to sell their products both at home and abroad, that's... not really true. Most American businesses can already sell their products at home (obviously) and abroad. The TPP only removes tariffs and other restrictions in a few limited cases. It's not really going to open up that many markets. And as we've seen with other trade deals (e.g., NAFTA) it's arguable how much it helps to put Americans who are out of work "back to work." But if this were just about trade then he might have a point, but as we've pointed out over and over again, trade is such a small part of the TPP. So much more of it is about "non-tariff barriers" which is basically another way of talking about setting up protectionist laws like stronger copyright and patent requirements.

Filed Under: barack obama, copyright, fair use, jimmy fallon, president obama, slow jam, tpp