Obama Petitioned to Reveal Secret Anti-Piracy Agreement

ACTA is a mysterious thing that no-one is really certain about. That lack of certainty is because of the lack of transparency around the negotiations. KEI wants that changed, and with an open letter-cum-petition, is calling on President Obama to stand up to his election promises, and make ACTA public.

There has been a lot of controversy over the ACTA treaty. Mostly over the the scope of the treaty (which could see iPod searches at borders for illegally downloaded music) but there has also been a fuss over the way the negotiations have been conducted. Negotiations have been conducted in secret over the past two years, and the Executive Office of the President (Office of t he US Trade Representative) has denied Freedom of Information (FOI) requests earlier this year from FEI, citing Executive Order 12958 – referring to Classified National Security Information. In January, just before the Bush Administration left office, they made similar claims to EFF FOI requests.

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) has decided then to go to the top ,and has today sent a letter to President Obama, and other key members of the US government. In it, they point out the problems with a board multi-national treaty being conducted behind closed doors, and without the input from the general public. It points out that the only input it has had is a group of relevant industry representatives, with a small handful of consumer advocacy groups, and even then only under a strict NDA, preventing public discussion of any parts of the treaty.

In fact, KEI suggest that “The only rationale for keeping the proposed ACTA text from the public is to suppress criticism and critical thinking about the norms that are being proposed. It is Orwellian and an insult to our intelligence to claim that the secrecy of the ACTA text has anything to do with national security concerns, as the term is commonly understood.”

Former US and International Pirate Party head Andrew Norton went further, suggesting that the secrecy is about the fear of public backlash, saying “It’s not a National Security Issue, but a Job Security issue.”… “It’s fear that once the scope of the corruption these public officials, including President Obama, is known, they will be unelectable for life, and have to actually work for a living, losing all the power and prestige they have.”

While the letter was physically sent today, with almost 180 US co-signers and around twenty international ones, including the EFF, Students for Free Culture, Cory Doctorow, Michael Geist, Lawrence Lessig, and Health Action International; there is still time to sign the online portion of the petition.

Meanwhile, talks restart on ACTA with the 6th round of negotiations beginning November 4th, in Seoul, South Korea.