

Petition Asks White House To Submit ACTA To The Senate For Ratification - ttt_
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/14071517529/new-petition-asks-white-house-to-submit-acta-to-senate-ratification.shtml

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TheCapn
I speak as an ignorant outsider (Canadian) but have a legitamate concern when
3rd party onlookers are providing a more sensable explanation and rational
summary regarding US law than the lawmakers themselves. Aside from the typical
bouts of people shouting "corruption" and "incompitence" is there an honest
reason for so many of these seemingly simple rules to be overlooked/ignored?

I ask only because looking from the outside in, it seems more and more that
the system currently employed is so ass backwards it bends logic. I want to
keep a positive outlook and receive justification from all sides before
creating a viewpoint that could be portrayed as prejudice.

~~~
newbusox
In addition to the comments before me, it's also because the rules are not as
simple as they may seem, and the rules change with practice over time. Unless
you believe that the U.S. Constitution and laws are absolutely inflexible
(which not even the most strict textualists/orgininalist would, I think,
contend), law changes via practice and via interpretation. In the US, it's
almost always been the case that the lines between treaties, executive
agreements, and something called congressional-executive agreements (consent
of Congress, but less than the super-majority requirement of a treaty) are
blurry and ambiguous. Given that, you could either presume that whatever the
Constitution doesn't explicitly forbid, it permits (in terms of executive
power), or the opposite. Most presidents have presumed the former in the realm
of executive agreements and treaties, meaning that, because the Constitution
doesn't say that can't make these executive agreements, they've felt empowered
to do so. This has been affirmed as permissible by the courts, and has
happened very frequently, although that's not to say that future scenarios
might arise that test the boundary between executive agreements and treaties
in a way that hasn't been pushed before.

In summary: U.S. Constitutional law and the common law are very complex. It's
not entirely clear that any rules are being broken, even if Obama does not ask
for Senate approval. A court of law would be the proper place to resolve this,
presuming the case was justiciable, which is another issue. Lawmakers
themselves are no more informed than this comment or other commentators,
meaning that they themselves can't provide any definitive answers.

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B0Z
How much proof do we need that while the likely defeat of SOPA/PIPA was due to
the Internet waking up (along with many of it's most popular companies
initiating a "black out" that confronted the general public for the first
time) the big media companies are not stalled by losing a single battle. They
plan for war. ACTA is another "front" to this war that many of us were
blindsided to because we were fighting SOPA.

Now, I don't know how one coalesces a decentralized, leaderless, and disparate
group of citizens who go by the term "the Internet". But, I do know, that
unless we start bringing guns to gunfights (obviously I'm implying the
expression here), we will lose the war, in spite of winning the SOPA / PIPA
battle.

In order to do that we need to educate the non-geek general public about
issues like ACTA and make them understand why they need to care. To do that,
we must get out from behind our firewalls and our web farms and begin to
communicate using the same mechanisms that old media is using, if for no other
reason, the general public doesn't live in the same spaces that we do. If you
can change public opinion, you can impact elections and legislation.

Until someone else comes along and steps into the void between the digital
world and the power players who pass laws we (US) citizens are bound to, I'm
busting my ass to stand up a nonprofit 527 Super PAC as fast as I can. I wish
I could move the paperwork faster (IRS, FEC) but it's gonna be a couple of
weeks before we can start accepting donations.

The news was all abuzz about how the SOPA / PIPA bills were killed in, what
appeared to them anyway, lightning speed and with little notice. Ron Wyden
understands how fast Internet mobilization moves, but the rest of Washington
still doesn't get it. Yes, Chris Dodd, the SOPA / PIPA death was a "watershed"
moment in politics, but not for reasons you might think. It was a watershed
moment because we have the capacity to do more than just black out our sites
and send emails to Washington and we are taking it to the next level. Like
Yamamoto, you have awoken a sleeping giant and we intend on correcting the
deficiencies in our armor and arsenal.

God. Sorry to go on a rant, but this shit raises the hair on the back of my
neck like few other issues and I'm tired of _both_ political parties in
Washington taking for granted that I, the Internet, am not paying attention to
what you are doing.

Plug: Consider joining me. theinternetvoice.org. On G+ "The Internet Voice".

