Two Former White House Tech Advisors Tell The President To Actually Be Transparent About Trade Deals

from the what-a-concept dept

Two former Obama tech staffers -- Professor Colleen Chien (who advised the administration on intellectual property issues) and Quentin Palfrey (who worked for years in the Commerce Dept and the Office of Science and Technology Policy on intellectual property issues) -- have written a fantastic opinion piece for The Hill, arguing that the White House has one last chance to actually be transparent in trade negotiations as it moves forward with the TTIP agreement with the EU. The piece notes that part of the reason that the TPP agreement is in so much trouble was its secrecy:

Largely due to the secrecy of the negotiation process, the TPP long bred suspicion. When its terms finally became public last fall, opposition to the process quickly hardened into opposition to the agreement’s terms – which both Democrats and Republicans say need improvement before it can be passed. The text has been 10 years in the making, but only recently did the public get access to its terms. Since multiple leaks made most of the negotiated terms an open secret, why did the Administration wait so long to formally disclose the text?

They admit that the USTR's standard answer -- that trade negotiations rely on secrecy, and you don't want to give up an advantage -- may have some validity, but argue that it's almost certainly outweighed by other factors. They then raise three key points for being much more open and transparent on trade deals (all issues we've raised in the past):

1. Quality suffers when there is no free and open debate.
2. "Exporting U.S. law" is hard and can lead to unintended consequences.
3. Trade policy should reflect our democratic ideals

To be honest, all three of these are basically the same argument phrased differently, but they're all valid points. And they then urge the White House and the USTR to take the (not really that big) step of opening up the negotiating texts of the TTIP agreement. Since it's just between the EU and the US, it's not even as complicated as the TPP where you were negotiating with over a dozen countries. And the EU has been much more transparent in negotiating its trade deals, and has pledged to be on the TTIP as well. So, really, why does the USTR continue to take such an undemocratic, archaic viewpoint in negotiating these deals? The only explanation that makes sense is that it's the best way to sneak in favors for certain industries -- and given the ongoing "revolving door" between the USTR and certain large, legacy industries, perhaps that really does explain most of the issue.

Filed Under: colleen chien, democracy, obama administration, quentin palfrey, secrecy, tpp, trade, transparency, ttip, ustr

Direct Democracy: Successful Petition Gives Swiss Citizens Chance To Vote Against New Surveillance Law

from the time-to-watch-Switzerland dept

A common lament these days is that people have no real political power. Yes, elections take place, but after that, politicians just seem to do what they want, with little concern for what the public really thinks about the laws that they push through, as many stories here on Techdirt indicate. In particular, there is generally no mechanism to cancel a new law except by waiting for the next elections, and voting for a party that might repeal it. Often that's not an option, which means the public has no way to stop harmful legislation from going into effect.

Most assume that's just the way things are, but the example of Switzerland shows that's not the case. Citizens there have a number of options if they want to influence politicians directly. For example, when new laws are passed, they can collect signatures in support of a formal referendum on the measure:

if 50,000 signatures are collected from Swiss voters or eight cantons [Swiss states] demand a referendum within 100 days, then a popular vote is held.

That's precisely what has been done in reaction to a new surveillance law that was passed last September, as this post from the Swiss email company, ProtonMail, explains:

the Swiss parliament passed a new surveillance law known as the Nachrichtendienstgesetzt (NDG) or la Loi sur le renseignement (Lrens). The law would have severely curtained privacy rights in Switzerland. Due to our use of end-to-end encryption, the ProtonMail secure email service would not be negatively impacted by the new law. However, we strongly believe in protecting privacy rights, so together with other opposition groups, we decided to mount a challenge against the new law. Due to Switzerland's unique system of direct democracy, any law can be challenged by collecting 50,000 signatures within a period of 3 months after the passage of the law.

Today, we are happy to announce that this effort has succeeded and this afternoon at 13:30h, the referendum will be officially presented to the Swiss government in Bern. This means at the next election, the Swiss surveillance law will be put to a public vote by the entire country, and for once, the people and not politicians will decide the future of privacy in Switzerland.

That's a pretty amazing result, not least because signatures had to be physical ones on pieces of paper, which then had to be verified before they could be counted towards the threshold figure of 50,000. In the end, over 70,000 signatures were sent in, 64,500 were processed, and 55,000 were certified. The success of this exercise in direct democracy contrasts painfully with how things are proceeding elsewhere around the world. In too many countries, new surveillance laws are being rushed through with little scrutiny from politicians, and no input from the public.

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Filed Under: democracy, direct democracy, public vote, surveillance, switzerland

Colorado Residents Vote Overwhelmingly In Favor Of Municipal Broadband

from the deconstructing-protectionism dept

Colorado is one of roughly twenty states where incumbent ISPs like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and AT&T have quite literally purchased protectionist state telecom laws that prohibit towns and cities from building their own broadband networks, or in some cases even partnering with private industry to improve existing ones. Only after a fifteen year nap did the FCC recently announce it was going to pre-empt such laws in Tennessee and North Carolina, something that was immediately met with hand-wringing and lawsuits from the broadband industry and its allies.

In Colorado last week voters got the chance to side step that state's awful protectionist state law, SB 152. SB 152 was a 2005 product of lobbying from Comcast and CenturyLink, and required communities jump through numerous hoops should they want to simply make decisions regarding their own, local infrastructure. Like all such laws the ISP pretense was that they were simply looking to protect taxpayers from financial irresponsibility, though it's abundantly clear the real goal was to prop up and protect the dysfunctional broadband duopoly status quo.

Over the last few years ballot initiatives have allowed several Colorado communities like Boulder, Montrose, and Centennial to take back their right to determine their infrastructure needs for themselves. Last week 43 Colorado communities - 26 cities and towns; 17 counties -- all voted overwhelmingly to also ignore Comcast and CenturyLink's law moving forward. And in all of them, the vote wasn't even close:

"This year, results were similar as the majority of voters supported local measures with over 70 percent of ballots cast. In Durango, over 90 percent of voters chose to opt out of restrictive SB 152; Telluride voters affirmed their commitment to local authority when over 93 percent of votes supported measure 2B. Many communities showed support in the mid- and upper- 80th percentile."

ISPs were able to pass twenty such laws in large part because, by framing community broadband efforts as "socialism run amok" and a dangerous infringement on free enterprise, they were able to distract the public with its own partisan bickering. But the reality is that there's nothing partisan about letting communities decide for themselves their best path forward. Similarly, most municipal broadband networks have been built in Conservative cities, suggesting that wanting next-generation networks in the face of market failure has pretty sensible bipartisan support.

Again, these networks wouldn't be getting built if locals were happy with their broadband options. But instead of competing and improving their networks, mega-ISPs threw campaign contributions at state legislatures, who were more than happy to help protect these uncompetitive broadband fiefdoms and ensure these contributions kept flowing. Fortunately, with the rise of Google Fiber and other ad-hoc deployments (like from Tucows) these bills have seen renewed attention, thanks to the fact that low ROI areas need public/private cooperation if they're even to be updated.

Of course Colorado's awful state law still exists, and it's absurd that Colorado towns and cities have to head to the ballot box (and spend additional money on referenda) simply to reclaim their local rights. Still, between the FCC's attempt to set precedent in North Carolina and Tennessee, and Colorado's decision to stand up to the mega-ISPs, it looks like fifteen years of apathy to this kind of broadband protectionism is finally coming to an end. If you're curious, check out this great map by Community Networks -- detailing which towns have embraced community broadband, and which states have passed protectionist laws.

Filed Under: broadband, colorado, competition, democracy, municipal broadband

TPP Will Override Five Years Of Democratic Discussion About Software Patents In New Zealand

from the desperate-for-a-deal,-any-deal dept

The latest news is that the supposedly "final" round of TPP negotiations has failed to produce an agreement, although some "technical" discussions seem to be continuing on the side in an attempt to overcome at least some of the remaining differences. Despite the fact that negotiators are claiming that most of TPP is finished, there are no signs that the corresponding text will be released, which means that people have to fall back on leaks to find out what is being negotiated in their name.

Recently, WikiLeaks released an important, if rather outdated, TPP letter concerning state-owned enterprises (SOEs). If that thinking is reflected in the current text, it could have major ramifications for state-owned broadcasters in countries like Australia and New Zealand. Less high-profile than the WikiLeaks document on SOEs, another leak is nonetheless equally dramatic. ZDNet reports that as part of the TPP deal, New Zealand has sacrificed its new law banning software patents:

[President of the New Zealand Open Source Society Dave] Lane said leaks of the negotiating position show that at one point only Mexico was holding the line on software patents and New Zealand appeared to have already conceded.

The implication is New Zealand's new software patent law, passed just two years ago, will need to be reversed if the TPPA is inked.

As Techdirt reported, the issue of whether software should be patentable was fiercely debated in New Zealand for over five years. After engaging in this open, democratic debate, the New Zealand parliament finally passed a new law on software patents in 2013. And now, if the leak is correct, that hard-won law will be simply discarded without the slightest public discussion -- once the TPP text is published, it can't be changed in any way, so there is no option to remove specific measures from it: it's all or nothing.

Lane went on to echo a point Techdirt made about TPP a couple of years ago:

if New Zealand hobbles the domestic software market by adopting US strong IP, strong patent and copyright terms, then we are effectively "killing in the cradle" an industry that is projected to soon surpass dairy.

Strong IP, he said, was used by incumbents to block innovation and competition from would-be competitors and disruptors.

A strong software industry offers a weightless export that allows New Zealand to rise above the commodity fray of dairy, meat production and timber.

In other words, desperate to sign up to the TPP agreement, however bad, the New Zealand government seems willing to sacrifice 21st-century growth for the sake of shoring up 19th-century industries -- and to ride roughshod over democracy along the way. So much for the common but bogus claim that trade agreements like TPP or TAFTA/TTIP will not require laws to be changed.

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Filed Under: democracy, new zealand, patents, software patents, sovereignty, tpp

Less Than A Week After Failing Last Attempt, UK Lords Try To Sneak Through Snooper's Charter Once Again

from the total-failure dept

A week ago, we noted that a group of UK Lords were trying to rush through the "Snooper's Charter" that had previously been rejected by the UK. The bill, of course, was about giving the government tremendous levels of access to everyone's electronic data with little oversight. Thankfully, despite having little notice, the attempt caused a flurry of attention and the Lords were forced to back off the plan. It seemed like another good "win" for supporters of privacy and democracy.

Many people still expected the UK government to try again, but few expected it would happen so soon. Yes, less than a week after having the last attempt rejected vocally, the same group of Lords are trying yet again:

On Saturday, ahead of a “report stage” debate on Monday (the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill is almost fully baked), Lords West, Blair, Carlile and King introduced a new amendment that appears to be almost identical to the last, and to the Communications Data Bill before it.

Again, this new amendment would force “telecommunications operators” – which these days includes the likes of Facebook and Skype, as well as traditional telcos – to store communications metadata for up to a year and hand it over to U.K. authorities when requested. This data retention regime may require the providers to install “specified equipment or systems.”

As David Meyer at GigaOm notes, just as with the last time, this bill lets any "relevant public authority" get access to the data, meaning that such data will be widely accessed and almost certainly widely abused as well. It appears that there are only very minor cosmetic changes between what was proposed and rejected last week and what has been proposed this week. Of course, it won't surprise you to learn the backgrounds of those pushing for this information:

The four peers in question all come from the security establishment — a former Metropolitan Police commissioner (Blair), a former secretary of defense (King), a former minister for security and counter-terrorism (West), and a former government anti-terror adviser (Carlile).

Meyer also quotes Lord King saying that he doesn't know about or understand the various new social media services like WhatsApp and SnapChat, "but what is absolutely clear is that the terrorists and jihadists do" -- which is why he thinks the Snooper's Charter is needed. In other words, he admits his own ignorance, but doesn't seem to care, because he is ruled by irrational fear. That does not seem like a particularly intelligent way to govern or to legislate.

Filed Under: democracy, lords, snooper's charter, terrorism, uk

Finnish Parliament Refuses To Consider Crowdsourced Copyright Law -- Or Any Other Bill Drafted By The Public

from the democracy,-who-needs-it? dept

Techdirt has been following the fascinating experiment of allowing the public to crowdsource proposals for new laws in Finland. As we reported, the Citizen's Initiative Act requires the Finnish Parliament to process any bill that collects 50,000 signatures from citizens of voting age. Last year, a bill to make copyright more balanced and better suited to the digital age managed to gather the requisite number of signatures, offering hope that it would be presented to the Finnish Parliament for a vote. But as TorrentFreak explained more recently, the Finnish Parliament's Education and Culture Committee recommended that the "Common Sense For Copyright" bill should be rejected. TorrentFreak quotes the digital rights group EDRi's explanation of what happened:

"In its report, the Committee notes that the initiative suggests several ambitious amendments, but that it considers it impossible to propose, based on the initiative, even partial changes to the existing copyright law," EDRi notes.

"The report states that the initiative includes internal contradictions and that many of the amendments it suggests are too significantly incompatible with the current legislation."

That's rather telling, because the measures in "Common Sense For Copyright" are hardly radical:

The draft, the brainchild of the Open Ministry nonprofit, calls for reduced penalties for copyright infringement and current penalties to be applied only in cases of a commercial scale. Fair Use provisions would also be expanded, alongside exemptions for those wishing to backup purchased media and time-shift commercial content.

The fact that the Parliamentary committee thought that even these mild measures were "too significantly incompatible with the current legislation" underlines just how great the gulf is between actual copyright law and what many people feel would be fair. Sadly, a report on the Finnish public broadcasting company YLE's website confirms that not only did the Finnish Parliament refuse to consider the bill, it has dismissed out of hand every crowdsourced bill that reached the 50,000 threshold:

Each of the six citizen's initiatives that have proceeded through the proper channels to reach the parliamentary floor for discussion has failed. The Finnish Parliament says it doesn't have the time to hear them and they can’t be moved to another date. Activists say technical shortcomings are poor justification for the slowness of the process.

That's a truly disappointing end to a story that began on a hopeful note. When politicians won't even allow the public these tiny expressions of democracy -- just as the European Commission refused to allow a purely symbolic online petition against TAFTA/TTIP to go ahead -- is it any wonder that people feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with politics these days, or that they are starting to take to the streets as a result?

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Filed Under: constitution, copyright, crowdsourcing, democracy, finland, politics

Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

from the sharing-is-caring dept

As anyone who reads my posts can probably tell, I really love politics. I like talking about issues, I like playing polemicist with politicians, and I really, really like voting. There's a sense of pride in voting, where even if I ultimately know my contribution to the running of our society is a small one, I'm still engaged in it. I'm not alone, either. Lots of people like to share the fact that they voted and what they voted for. That kind of pride is a good thing, I think.

The UK disagrees, apparently, since the actions of many voters recently could amount to big fines and jail time.

While the fear over voting-booth selfies during Thursday's Local and European Elections was mostly exaggerated, there is a real danger lurking inside polling stations for British voters: Sharing photos of completed ballots—something many appear keen to do—is against U.K. law. The Register reports that under various parts of Section 66 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, it is an offence to make public someone's vote after a mark has been made on the paper. Many citizens don't appear to have realised this and have proudly been indicating who they have voted for on Twitter.

Now, my understanding for the reasons of this law is that the government is attempting to minimize any chance of voter intimidation or influencing the votes of others through this ballot sharing. The general idea is that if everyone keeps their voting ballot a secret, the larger public's vote will be more impartial. Here is my nuanced and well-reasoned response to the theory and the accompanying law: "Hahahahahahahahaha!"

The entire notion that keeping pictures and social media out of the vote-sharing game will accomplish anything at all is inherently silly. The culture of politics today is so completely open for discussion that there is an entire industry built around it: the political theater on talk-radio and the twenty-four hour news channels. Any pretense about getting citizens to not talk about who and what they voted for is so naive that it's a wonder the entire notion hasn't been laughed off of the British Islands by now. And, as we've covered before, it isn't just that side of the ocean, either. Right here at home, in Wisconsin, citizens can also face fines and jail time for sharing their completed ballots on social media.

The point is that now that the culture of sharing has grown such that this many people are violating this law, the entire purpose of the law is logically obviated. After all, if huge numbers of people are sharing their ballots, the intimidation factor kind of goes away. It's just a matter of pride from involved citizens. Criminalizing that pride doesn't make any sense.

Filed Under: democracy, free speech, sharing, social media, uk, voting

How Corporate Sovereignty Threatens Democracy

from the at-most dept

As people have begun to learn about corporate sovereignty through plans to include it in TAFTA/TTIP, the European Commission has been trying to scotch the idea that it might allow corporations to dictate policies to nations. Here, for example, is a comment in the Commission's main TTIP FAQ, which tries to answer the question "Why is the EU including Investor to State Dispute Settlement in the TTIP?":

Including measures to protect investors does not prevent governments from passing laws, nor does it lead to laws being repealed. At most, it can lead to compensation being paid.

Those are all true statements in theory, but that's probably not much comfort to Romania, which has been discovering the harsh reality in the long-running discussions over whether to allow a Canadian company to create a huge open-cast gold and silver mine in the country. Here's what happened last year:

Gabriel Resources Ltd. (GBU), backed by billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson, threatened to seek as much as $4 billion of damages should Romanian lawmakers vote to oppose its gold mine project in the country.

"We have a very, very robust case, and we believe we have claims up to $4 billion that we can send to the Romanian state," Gabriel Resources Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Henry said today in a telephone interview. "We will go ahead and do that if the vote is against."

As the European Commission notes, the existence of a bilateral investment treaty with Canada that includes a dispute settlement mechanism did not, in itself, stop the Romanian politicians from blocking the gold mine project in the parliamentary vote, which took place in December 2013. So everything's fine, right? Democracy prevailed, and the people were heard. After all, "at most", as the FAQ helpfully reminds us, Romania will have to pay $4 billion damages at some point.

Except that, for a country with a GDP of less than $200 billion in 2013, this represents 2% of the country's entire economic production. That seems an incredibly high price to pay for the exercise of basic democracy. The danger is that faced with the threat of such enormous fines, other parliaments will lack the courage shown by Romanian's politicians, and choose to ignore the will of their people by meekly acquiescing to corporate demands.

Does GBU deserve some compensation if a project is cancelled by the local government because of widespread public concerns about its safety? Perhaps -- although business always involves some risk, and foreign investment is no different. If a company is really worried about that aspect, it can take out insurance -- from the World Bank, for example. Does GBU deserve to be awarded 2% of a country's GDP, paid for by the citizens of a land struggling to raise its living standards? That hardly seems fair. And yet it's precisely what ISDS could allow, because the arbitration panel that decides such corporate sovereignty cases is unconstrained in what it can award, and not at all concerned with what the knock-on effects might be.

But the politicians making up the European Commission should be, since they are supposed to represent the 500 million European citizens that pay their salaries. The fact that they are pushing as hard as they can for ISDS in TAFTA/TTIP shows which side they are really on, and that they are quite happy to put corporations before nations, and profits before people.

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Filed Under: canada, corporate sovereignty, democracy, romania, tafta, tpp, trade agreements, ttip
Companies: gabriel resources ltd., gbu

New We The People Petition Asks White House To Respond To Eligible Petitions Within 30 Days

from the yo-dawg-i-herd-you-like-petition-responses... dept

This is what happens when you ignore the public. Are you happy, We the People?

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Respond to all Whitehouse.gov petitions that get over 100k signatures within one month.

Whitehouse.gov petitions were intended to give the public a voice. The idea is that if more than 100,000 people all feel strongly enough about something to hand over their home address and personal email to the government and complete a nearly impossible CAPTCHA, then the President of the United States should have to respond to them. Because... democracy.

Here's the problem: there are dozens of Whitehouse.gov petitions that have received more than 100k signatures, but have gone months and even years without a response (1). That's not improving transparency, it's the same gov't spin we've always had. So what will it, Obama, hypocrisy or democracy? Sign!

It's a nice idea. There are petitions that appear to be permanently stuck to the administration's backburner while others that haven't even met the 100k signature threshold have been answered simply because the White House has a canned response on hand.

Others require more thoughtful answers or (would) force the administration to take a stance on controversial issues, something it clearly would rather not do. The average wait for a response has slipped to nearly 300 days. Among the petitions still being actively ignored by the White House are ones dealing with pardoning Edward Snowden and firing the attorney who handled Aaron Swartz's prosecution.

This new petition, created on April 1st, is clearly tongue-in-cheek. While there are some petitioners who mistake petitions for binding contracts, this probably isn't one of them. However, it does go meta on the issue, potentially putting the administration in the position of agreeing to address petitions in a timely fashion. This could prove uncomfortable for the White House since it appears it would rather ignore certain petitions until the White House changes hands in 2016.

Filed Under: democracy, petition, public participation, responses, we the people, white house