Obama administration won't release secret ACTA docs either

[Beowulf]

Obama administration won't release secret ACTA docs either
Despite a change in administration, the US has once again refused to release any documents about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement it is currently negotiating.

By Nate Anderson | Last updated March 13, 2009 11:03 AM CTText Size Print this article Leave a comment As every horror filmmaker knows, fear gains power from darkness, silence, and isolation—especially when the darkness, silence, and isolation occur inside an abandoned mental institution where horrible secrets are buried beneath the floorboards.

Speaking of mental institutions, the office of the US Trade Representative has just decided (again) that no documents related to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will be released in the "interest of national security." ACTA might not turn out to be the bogeyman that some public interest groups fear, but governments around the world are certainly doing a bang-up job of making the whole thing seem both crazy and terrifying.

Reason for concern
The FOIA request in question here was made by Knowledge Ecology International just after President Obama took power in January, on the idea that an Obama administration would be more open to transparency. This week, USTR sent a letter to KEI (PDF) in which it totally denied the request for documents related to ACTA drafts, currently under negotiation by countries like Japan, Canada, the US, and the EU. Although former US Trade Representative Susan Schwab has already left the agency, it is currently headed by acting Trade Representative Peter Allgeier, a George W. Bush appointee.

The US government has said repeatedly that it needs the flexibility to negotiate draft texts privately, but it's been reported for some time that governments around the world have in fact offered access to "cleared" lobbyists. Critics fear that, although trade officials can't rewrite US law, they may draft an agreement that comes to Congress as a fait accompli without scope for any major tinkering.

Governments have repeatedly indicated that ACTA will focus on large-scale infringement and will not focus on creating iPod-scanning border guards. (The meme has become so pervasive that the EU has gone out of its way to specifically say that's not on the table. "EU customs, frequently confronted with traffics of drugs, weapons or people, do neither have the time nor the legal basis to look for a couple of pirated songs on an i-Pod music player or laptop computer, and there is no intention to change this," it says.)

But leaked drafts of the bill do suggest a push for stronger copyright laws, including the criminalization of noncommercial P2P sharing done on a "commercial scale." And helpful suggestions from Big Content have been far more terrifying. Without knowing what's going into the bill, and with lobbyists gaining access to the drafting process while the public is left outside in the cold, groups like KEI are worried.

So is the European Parliament, which this week specifically added a clause about ACTA to a new transparency resolution. Lawmakers there want the European Commission to release ACTA drafts and documents, something the Commission has so far resisted.

Though despised by some, global organizations like the WTO would have been far more open about the entire process. The fact that the leading governments here set up a separate process for something that could have been handled through existing channels only raises more doubts in critics' minds. With constant government stonewalling, though, there's little choice but to wait for leaks or hope that the negotiators toss out a few crumbs of information. The next likely opportunity to do that will be this month when ACTA negotiators convene in Morocco for another round of talks.

Obama: Change We Can Believe In.

What the hell does copyright have to do with national security?

[Kanastrous]

I think we're seeing an expansion of 'national security' to cover anything and everything that can be to the nation's advantage or disadvantage, commercial or otherwise.

Media products -> sales -> profits -> taxes -> money for, say, bombers.

Piracy -> lost sales (if you subscribe to that view) -> reduced profits -> less tax revenue -> money for fewer, say, bombers.

Fewer bombers means reduced military capacity and therefore compromised national security. So, pirated media products become a national security matter.

I don't know if that's their reasoning, but I'd guess that might be their reasoning. To whatever degree there's any reasoning going on.

[Solauren]

the US has once again refused to release any documents about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement it is currently negotiating.

Emphasis MINE.

I didn't know that realising details about an agreement that has not been reached, let alone finalized, is required.

You know, details that could change due to the next days negotating, or an agreement that could be scrapped in 20 minutes because all parties can't agree on anything.

The author if this arcticle, by not realising that, has shown themselves to be a blithering idiot.

Frankly, I'd be amazed if there were any finalized details to discuss yet!

I work for a government ministry. Compared to a private sector job/organization, the sheer number of times policies, decisions, and regulations can change on a given topic, in even a 2 week perior, is absolutely mind-boggling.

Hells, I've seen it take three years for the higher level employees (i.e 2 or 3 levels below the elected offical that runs the ministry) take agree on something as simple as say, 'we got this program in 2004. We need to train the users'.
2004, they purchase the program and it's installed on everyone's computer.
2007, they unveil the training initiative.
2009, they make it mandatory to be completed by 2011
2010, the software will be replaced, but they'll forget to de-mandatory the training.
2010, repeat cycle for replacement software.

[Beowulf]

There has been at least three separate rounds of negotiating on ACTA. You obviously can't expect finalized details, but you also can't hand the treaty to the Senate and say: "Here, you have 5 minutes to ratify this treaty." There are various drafts before the final text of the treaty is known, and those drafts will generally have some close relationship to the final treaty.

Secondly, this is a treaty about intellectual property. The reason the Obama administration is giving for not releasing any details whatsoever is that the treaty is classified. That is to say: Divulging the details would harm national security. This is normally done with military secrets. It does not take a brain surgeon to see through this excuse.