Two US senators demand publication of secret copyright treaty

Two US Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), have written to the US Trade Representative demanding that the text of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement be made public. This is the treaty that allows for criminal sanctions against noncommercial file-sharers, demands border-searches of laptop hard-drives and personal media players and phones for pirated material, requires ISPs to spy on their users, and gives movie and record companies the right to take whole households off the Internet with unsubstantiated allegations of piracy.

We are surprised and unpersuaded by assertions that disclosures of basic information about the negotiation would present a risk to the national security of the United States, particularly as regards documents that are shared with all countries in the negotiations, and with dozens of representatives of large corporations. We are concerned that the secrecy of such information reflects a desire to avoid potential criticism of substantive provisions in ACTA by the public, the group who will be most affected by the agreement. Such secrecy has already undermined public confidence in the ACTA process, a point made recently by Dan Glickman, the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) - a group highly supportive of the ACTA negotiation, as well as by the members of the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue -- a group more critical of the negotiations.
We firmly believe that the public has a right to know the contents of the proposals being considered under ACTA, just as they have the right to read the text of bills pending before Congress.

Go, Sanders and Brown! Americans, call your senators and get them on this bandwagon. Citizens of other countries, find out why your elected reps aren't asking their governments to publish ACTA!

Senators Sanders and Brown ask White House to make ACTA text public (via /.)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Action

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

johnnyaction

How do they reconcile artists that happily give their work away? I make music and while I sell it I also happily give away almost all my tracks on my my dj site for the exposure.

Does that make me un-american?
- phenomenon
  
  Yes, you’re one of Satan’s little monkeys.
  
  Trying to understand how they think this is reasonable is a waste of time, because they haven’t even considered it. This is about saving/enriching big corporations that have been panicing at these politicians for years (in the form of “donations” – you know those legal bribes – and tearful pleading).
  
  The public and the consumer is not being considered.
Xenu

How can a secret law be enforced? This isn’t communist China.
- Anonymous
  
  Democracy is a political government either carried out by the people (direct democracy), or the power to govern is granted to elected representatives (republicanism) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic
  
  Based on that definition, the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China are both “democratic” and “republican”.
  
  Perhaps ACTA is just a way to reconcile the “minor” differences in practice.
- djn
  
  @Xenu:
  Oh, the US process is much more open. You’ll make it available to the public after it’s too late to change it.
- phenomenon
  
  Its not a secret law. Its an agreement that these countries sign that oblige them to make it law.
  
  You see, this way, by the time it becomes law (and people get to see it and bitch about it) its much too late.
  
  You didn’t really think democratic governments like the ones in the US and Britain (or rather the politicians that control them) were that much different from China’s did you? Both will do what they please. Politicians are quite adapt at manipulating their demographics in democratic society once they are in position to do so. When that fails there are always these fallbacks. Politicians, as a whole, are not interested in letting go of power. Just because two (remarkably similar) groups of the “ruling class” take turns to be the boss based on a democratic process, doesn’t mean that much at the end of the day.
Anonymous

Umm, Sanders is (I-VT). The Virgin Islands don’t have a senator.
Julie Ellis

Senator Sanders is an independent (I) from Vermont (VT).
There is no state with the designation VI.
Virginia is VA.
- Cheqyr
  
  Damn … I was hoping that we’d recently acquired the Virgin Islands …
lesbianjesus

#2

You’re a dirty socialist Canadian/European traitor to your race, I mean country.
lesbianjesus

Xenu, Google

“WTO sovereignty” to see the legal mechanisms our governments have signed which allow international bodies to dictate domestic laws.

Thats why all us people were being teargassed in Quebec/Seattle/Miami back in the day :)
johnlancia

This is what happens when politicians who care more about holding power than they do about leading their countries. Gone are the days of good men and women who laid down the groundwork of public healthcare and social safety nets. Now we live in the era of craven me firsters, who blatantly sell out to corporate interests. They’d easily step on their own mothers heads in order to get at a lobbyist handing out loads of cash and promises of lucrative private sector jobs.
Take the recent letter the US senate sent to the European Union regarding the Sun/Oracle merger that is being held up there. The US senate can’t agree on anything, ever. But some corporate dick swingers want to get their anti-competitive merger mojo going and suddenly the whole senate can come to the ultimate bi-partisan consensus about what a foreign government should decide about what is essentially their own business. Meanwhile, futile wars are being fought, public healthcare is on the verge of failing, the economy is in the crapper. Yada yada yada.
Hanging is too good for the sell outs.
Anonymous

Interesting fact about the US Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico — they are US Commonwealths, which means their residents are US citizens who don’t have the right to vote. But the American government, no actually military contractors start wars just because everyone should have the right to vote!
sworm

Cry Dctrw. Th by wh crd wlf.
- Xopher
  
  sworm, the boy who can’t spell Cory Doctorow, even though his name is right at the top of the article.
  - sworm
    
    An ad hominem is nothing more than a veiled concession.
    
    Thanks.
    - Xopher
      
      sworm, the boy who doesn’t know what ‘ad hominem’ means.
querent

Civil disobedience, yes.

And also, artists circumventing the no-longer-relevant monolith of the distribution industry. (Technology changed and you’re business became irrelevant? Oh no! Outlaw the technology!)

Or artists retaining the right to distribute via p2p etc as Cory has done with his books.

The idea that this is in defense of artists is so absurd. Spoken as a belligerent border guard cuffs a 22 year old for pirated songs: “Wow, the american government’s (et all) concern for artists is amazing….”
querent

Next gen: GNUnet.

decentralized, encrypted p2p.
Anonymous

Please note that Bernie is from VERMONT (VT) not the Virgin Islands (VI). You might want to fix your “article.”
Anonymous

Thank you Cory for shining the light on this nonsense!
anansi133

I can’t easily imagine a greater threat to national security than this kind of a treaty.

It’s the government saying to the people, “y’know that whole democracy idea? That was a good idea back when we needed there to be citizens, but since you’re all consumers now, you are no longer entitled to a say in the matter.”

Civil Disobedience is a duty.
jfrancis

I did a doodle once, so as a rights holder I’m looking forward to these new super powers I’m going to have.
Bill Albertson

Submitted to Digg, like I did with previous ACTA articles. Please digg it up to make other Americans aware of this issue.
Anonymous

Perhaps we should just just fire the people who are keeping this a secret.

After all any company we worked for would terminate us immediately if they even thought we were keeping secrets from them.

Those people in Washington are our EMPLOYEES! Its high time we start treating them as such and they start acting as such!

If not, well them maybe its time to remove them as is our duty as citizens of this country!
Anonymous

Here in the UK most internet providers quantify the speed of their service by the number of albums or movies you can download within a given time, surely this is encouragement, so any defence could be ‘I’m complying to the ISP’s wishes, otherwise I do not have a valid gauge to their advertised claims’
atdt1991

Jerkstore, you’ll have to excuse Cory – he has not, nor has he ever been, an American. Canadian, yes. British, maybe. Frankly, it’s not like I remember every Province name, and there are what, 12?

As for the topic, I’m concerned enough about it that I wrote my senators and representative… for the first time ever. I’ve been following the issue for awhile, and I think it has the potential to completely change our future, for the worse.
Anonymous

Time and time again it is Sen Sanders who steps up to the plate to say the things other congresspeople won’t. I wish he was my senator.