If Assange Were In China, US Politicians Would Be Cheering Him On

from the transparency-means-different-things-when-it's-about-you dept

We've pointed out the general hypocrisy of US politicians calling for an end to internet censorship, while threatening Wikileaks at the same time. If you want to see some real irony, check out the fact that Senator Joe Lieberman, who has been the loudest voice in pushing for censorship of Wikileaks and of others in the press, just so happens to be a member of the "Global Internet Freedom Caucus." Yeah, except here in the US.

Along those lines, Martin Varsavsky points out the obvious: if Julian Assange were a Chinese citizen, publishing Chinese government documents, the US would likely be cheering him on:

Lately I have a strong feeling that the Chinese must be rejoicing at all the "retroactive law invention" that is going on in the West to put one man in jail. Because if Assange had been a Chinese citizen promoting transparency in China we would be lining up to give him the Nobel Prize. We can't demand transparency from others and censorship for ourselves.

In fact, as Evgeny Morozov notes, Russia's Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin is already using the US's reaction to Wikileaks to say what a joke "freedom of the press" is in America. That tweet is in Russian, but the Google translation is:

In my opinion, the fate of Assange says the lack of media freedom in the West, the presence of political persecution and human rights violations.

What's really stunning, beyond just the sheer uselessness and impotence of the US government's response to Wikileaks, is the fact that it's inevitably destroying any moral high ground on claims of freedom and support of free speech we might have once had. In the end, I would expect that to have a much bigger impact than anything that's in the actual leaked cables.

Filed Under: china, free speech, governments, julian assange, russia, transparency, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Michael Robertson Facing Resistance To New Gov't Transparency Project

from the sunlight-is-tough dept

Over the last few years, there have been a number of important efforts to increase transparency, openness and accountability from the government -- often by concerned citizens. For example, there have been things like the Sunlight Foundation, as well as efforts by people like Carl Malamud to digitize and make available all sorts of government information. There have also been some specifically targeted projects, such as the effort by some grad students at Princeton to put together the RECAP project to make court documents more easily accessible for free. And, of course, there have been high profile projects such as Wikileaks, which is often looking for leaked, rather than officially obtained, government information.

It looks like serial entrepreneur Michael Robertson is about to get into the game as well. He's planning to launch the "Naked Government," project in the near future. The idea is to catalog public documents, demand more access to information that should be public... and also to highlight who else has been requesting public information. To kick it off, Robertson and others at Naked Government have been making requests for public information, such as names, titles and salary information of various school districts in Southern California.

While many have complied, some have tried to push back. Robertson told me that organizations have even claimed "we don't have a list of people who work for us and their salaries." Others have argued they don't have the information digitally, and thus don't have to provide it. Some asked for outrageously high compensation to produce the data. In one case -- involving Robertson's home school district, the Del Mar Union School District, which his children attend -- the school has argued that privacy rights prevented them from revealing the data.

This resulted in some back and forth between the school district and Naked Government employees, with the school district at first claiming that anyone who made less than $100,000 did not have to have their salaries disclosed. The district's lawyers were relying on a lawsuit where someone had requested the salaries of any Oakland employees making more than $100,000, which the court said should be revealed. The $100,000 number came from the request -- it was never a condition set by the court. The court gave no indication that there was any different rule for those making less than $100,000. At another point, after promising to provide the information to Robertson, the district sent him a list of titles and salaries... but with the names blacked out. This went on for a few weeks, with Robertson threatening legal action before the district finally complied and handed over all the info.

It should be interesting to see where this project goes, as it's always good to see more public accountability efforts out there on public information and records. Robertson, of course, is somewhat famous for ending up in court. I'm having trouble thinking of any of his startups where he didn't end up in court one way or the other -- though, he often used those legal fights to drum up more attention for what his companies were doing, which can be a decent strategy if (a) you're in the legal right and (b) you can withstand the hellish process of being involved in a lawsuit. We'll be watching this project closely and hoping that it adds to government transparency.

Filed Under: government, michael robertson, transparency
Companies: naked government

$1,595 To Talk With The FCC About Telco Policy? Lobbyists Welcome; Average Citizens... Not So Much

from the how-policy-is-made dept

Michael Marcus is noting that the Practicing Law Institute is holding a Telco and Policy Regulation "Institute," that will include a Q&A with "FCC commissioners and other senior officials." It looks like three commissioners will be there, along with four other senior officials including the heads of "wireline competition," "wireless telecommunications," and "engineering and technology." The issue, Marcus points out, is that this Q&A with key regulators costs $1,595 to attend. Affordable for lobbyists, but not so much for anyone else.

But Marcus' bigger concern is that the public won't find out what was said at the event without ponying up for the recording -- where previous recordings cost $797 for audio and $1,595 for video. As he notes:

Now I do not disagree that it is useful for public officials to meet in fine hotels with industry moguls, brief them on upcoming policy issues and answer questions. The key question is whether the rest of us will find out in a reasonably timely what was said. (Some of us might like to ask questions also, but that is getting off subject.) I have previously proposed to the the FCC's reboot.fcc.gov site that asks about "What are ways in which the FCC can better engage the public in open proceedings?" that videos of such presentations be made available to the public at the normal FCC terms - free online, nominal charge for copying - within a few days of such an event. As with the other many suggestions received from the public via this site, this has not been resolved.

Again, it's understandable that it costs money to attend such events. It's costly to put them on, and events are a big business. But it gets a little troubling when public policy may be influenced at such events and the details of what was said are not revealed.

Filed Under: openness, politics, transparency
Companies: fcc

Group Of Prominent Law Professors Urge President Obama To Halt ACTA Endorsement

from the probably-too-late dept

A group of rather prominent law professors have sent an open letter to their former law professor colleague, now President, Barack Obama, asking him to "halt [his administration's] public endorsement of ACTA and subject the text to a meaningful participation process that can influence the shape of the agreement going forward." There's lots of good stuff in the letter, though I doubt it will make much of a difference. It highlights how the whole process left the public out of the discussions, contrary to Obama's promises. Furthermore, it explains why the agreement should be subjected to Congressional scrutiny, rather than just being signed as an "executive agreement," noting that, beyond the parts of ACTA that appear to conflict with US law, the President is not supposed to have authority over intellectual property issues:

The use of a sole executive agreement for ACTA appears unconstitutional. The President may only make sole executive agreements that are within his independent constitutional authority. The President has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, the core subjects of ACTA. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which is charged with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property. ACTA should not be pursued further without congressional oversight and a meaningful opportunity for public debate.

The letter also points out that, beyond just the secrecy, the entire concept of ACTA is being "deliberately misrepresented to the American people."

The treaty is named the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement". But it has little to do with counterfeiting or controlling the international trade in counterfeit goods. Rather, this agreement would enact much more encompassing changes in the international rules governing trade in a wide variety of knowledge goods -- whether they are counterfeit or not -- and would establish new intellectual property rules and norms without systematic inquiry into effects of such development on process of economic and technical innovation in the U.S. or abroad. These norms will affect virtually every American and should be the subject of wide public debate.

Chances of this letter having much of an effect are slim, but it certainly does highlight the growing concerns that ACTA has serious problems among folks who actually understand this stuff .

Filed Under: acta, constitution, law professors, president obama, transparency

Danish Discussion On 3 Strikes Plan Done In Secret, Leaving Consumers Out Of The Mix Again

from the nobody-cares-about-the-consumer dept

Now that most of the ACTA negotiations are complete, you would think that governments would recognize the problems of trying to negotiate big deals that impact internet users in secret without involving the users themselves. No such luck. Apparently, over in Denmark, the government, the entertainment industry and ISPs have been secretly negotiating a 3-strikes plan for Danes, with an agreed upon press blackout, where none of the participants will speak to the press. They're pretty upfront as to why not:

After experiencing difficulty, Comon was told by Committee members that they had "promised to keep working secretly in order not to create too much fuss" and "could never agree on some recommendations if there was too much public debate about its work."

Yes, you see, we couldn't actually come to agreement if the people this will actually impact the most are allowed to chime in and point out why they don't like their rights being taken away. It's probably worth reminding folks at this point that Denmark was one of the players in the ACTA negotiations who was vehemently against transparency. Apparently, that's carried over into domestic discussions as well.

Filed Under: 3 strikes, denmark, transparency

Latest ACTA Negotiation Kicks Off By Making It Difficult For Consumer Rights Groups To Attend

from the how-nice dept

While it's not clear that it's done much, at least at the last few ACTA negotiation meetings, time has been set aside for various "civil society groups" to meet with the negotiators and ask some questions. Apparently, the ACTA negotiators would rather not do that anymore. Sean Flynn has detailed just how difficult the negotiators made it for such groups to attend the latest meeting in Tokyo. Everyone knew that the meeting was happening in Tokyo, but the rumors were that it started next week. Nope. At the last minute, it came out that they actually start on Thursday of this week -- and that info wasn't released publicly until it was effectively too late for most to get a ticket to get to Japan:

You can't book a plane trip if you don't when to book it for. It takes 15- 20 hours to fly to Japan from the east coast of the U.S. and you land a day after you take off. So U.S. groups that want to attend the meeting at the start of it -- you needed to buy your ticket when the announcement hit after 3pm yesterday and be on a plane now. If you want to go to the one hour civil society meeting, you need to leave by tomorrow. Those that have bought a ticket likely have one for next week -- when everyone thought the negotiation would be. So they will miss the civil society meeting.

Figuring out that the announcement of the date of the meeting was made yesterday was no easy feat. Two individuals (myself and Malini Aisola from KEI) inquiring with USTR yesterday about the meeting were first told that they had to contact the Japanese Embassy for information on the meeting. We were given the name of Mr. Kazuyuki Takimi, First Secretary, Economic Section, Embassy of Japan, Kazuyuki.Takimi@mofa.go.jp, 202-238-6729.

Mr. Takimi said he did not know when the meeting was going to be held because he had not spoken to "Tokyo" lately. He said he recalled it might be meeting on September 23, but could not confirm. He said he had no agenda and no knowledge of any civil society meeting opportunity.

Nice of them, huh? Flynn also notes that while an agenda has been posted on the USTR website, it's almost impossible to find:

If you want to laugh -- go to that site and try to find the agenda. It is not in any of the press releases on the top or bottom of the site. It is not the prominent link on the left for the agenda to the 5th Round -- that was in 1999. It is not in the upper right hand or left hand boxes where the recent announcements are. Still looking? It starts with the 372nd word in the background essay in the middle page.

Of course, if you do find the agenda (pdf), you discover it's nothing substantial at all. It basically just says they'll be meeting pretty much every day.

Considering that almost everyone agrees the Tokyo meetings are intended to "finalize" the (still secret) agreement, it looks like ACTA maybe going out the same way it came into life: in near total secrecy, without involving rather important stakeholders representing the people ACTA will impact the most. What a disgraceful process.

Filed Under: acta, negotiations, tokyo, transparency

Transparency Pea Soup: The USTR Planned From The Beginning How Not To Be Transparent On ACTA

from the clear-as-mud dept

We've been discussing for a while just how anti-transparent the USTR has been on ACTA negotiations, making totally bogus arguments, such as the idea that negotiators would walk away from the table if they didn't keep the document secret. Of course, it later turned out that it's been the US who has mainly been behind the secrecy. KEI has been pushing for more transparency on ACTA from the beginning, and famously had an FOIA request on ACTA denied due to ridiculously laughable claims of state secrets. However, a more recent request on any USTR discussions about transparency turned up an internal email from Stan McCoy, assistant USTR for intellectual property, entitled "Transparency soup," where he basically acknowledged the new (at the time) administration's request for more transparency, and laid out a "plan" for how to have the USTR pretend to be transparent, without actually being transparent. For the most part, the USTR has followed those plans, showing that it had already dug its heels in to be as opaque as possible, while paying lip service to transparency.

Filed Under: acta, transparency, ustr

USTR Behind ACTA Secrecy; This Is Not The Transparency We Were Promised

from the transparency dept

This is hardly a surprise given previous reports and previous actions of the USTR, but it does highlight the blatantly false claims from the USTR that it is being as transparent as possible when it comes to ACTA negotiations. The Obama administration has repeatedly told different groups in the administration to be as transparent as possible, but apparently the USTR simply doesn't care. It puts out content free statements claiming that it's "committed to improving transparency," but when it comes time to release the latest draft of the document, it's not released officially at all... and reports are now coming out to say that this is due to US demands to keep it secret. Transparency? Not around the USTR, apparently. They've been using transparency as a negotiating ploy, and when they don't get what they want, they refuse to let the document be released. Of course, in being so childish, all the US has really done is draw more scrutiny, and pretty much guarantee that a draft (including the markup that the one and only official release left out) get leaked.

Filed Under: acta, eu, secrecy, transparency, us

So Much For Transparency: Latest ACTA Draft Won't Be Released

from the wait-'til-it's-done dept

Last week, the reports from the ACTA negotiations in Washington DC suggested that many of the negotiators favored releasing the latest text, knowing that even if it wasn't released, it would almost certainly get leaked anyway. However, the negotiations have ended and guess what? It appears that the text will not be officially released (expect the "unofficial" release shortly...). Once again, it looks as though it was the US negotiators -- who keep insisting they're all for transparency -- that have blocked the release, perhaps once again using transparency as a bargaining chip to try to get other things they want. They don't get what they want, the document doesn't get released.

The latest reports are that this meeting closed some of the substantial gaps, and negotiators are hopeful that they'll wrap up the details next month in Japan. The reports also claim that the next version of the text that will be released will be the final "take it or leave it" version of the agreement. That's downright ridiculous. With every released or leaked draft so far, many people have pointed out serious problems with it, and how it will contradict various local laws. It's simply preposterous to hide such an agreement (especially since there will be no Congressional review of it in the US -- since it's been called an "executive agreement" in order to get around Congressional oversight) when it could have serious implications for many people around the globe. For an administration that has promised us transparency from the beginning, the ACTA negotiations have been the exact opposite. What's really disappointing is that the negotiators don't seem to care. Perhaps that's because they know that by keeping their mouths shut and giving trade groups everything they want, there are lucrative jobs waiting for them whenever they want.

Filed Under: acta, transparency

USTR's Funny Definition Of Transparency: Next ACTA Negotiations Still Shrouded In Secrecy

from the transparent-as-mud dept

The USTR keeps claiming that it's being as transparent as possible when it comes to ACTA negotiations, but there's simply no evidence to support that at all. It worked hard to keep ACTA secret for as long as possible, and used transparency as a bargaining chip at the last ACTA negotiations (which is why no draft was released -- though it was leaked). For a while now, there have been reports that there was to be a meeting in Washington DC next week between US and EU ACTA negotiators to try to hash out their differences -- which are apparently a key hurdle at this point.

However, the whole thing has been shrouded in secrecy. The USTR hasn't even said where the meetings will be held, who's attending or what the agenda is -- things that most other countries hosting these negotiations have released at least a week in advance. The latest report is that, contrary to earlier claims, this meeting will include more than just EU and US negotiators, so it's sounding more like a full negotiation. And yet... no one's really sure, because the supposedly "transparent" USTR isn't saying a word. Of course, as with all things ACTA, the more the USTR stays quiet, the more things leak: so a proposed agenda has leaked, and it certainly looks like a pretty thorough negotiation, rather than just the proposed "hash out EU/US differences" sort of thing. But, it's worth noting that the very last item on the list of things to be discussed (well, before "press release") is "transparency." I guess that's the USTR's version of transparency: don't tell anyone anything, but talk about transparency at the meeting.

Filed Under: acta, negotiations, transparency
Companies: ustr