Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
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Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#2Does this count as a breach of some sort of constitutional duty on behalf of the President? Or would it just be a valid argument that the "treaty" is null and void?
Sorry - not intimatey familiar with the US government.
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#3Congress is angry because usually their approval is needed to ratify a treaty - see the letter below -
http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=12a5b1cb-...
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#4I don't get it. The text has been public for a while now, e.g. on the website of the European Commission:
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/tackling-unfair-trade/acta/index_e...
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#5Congress is angry because usually their approval is needed to ratify a treaty - see the letter below - http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=12a5b1cb-...
Treaties are ratified by the Senate. Not the House. Congress refers to both houses, or sometimes just the House of Representatives, but never to the Senate alone. Anyway Issa is a Congressman, not a Senator.
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#6I don't want to ding a politician for doing the right thing, but Issa is also a sponsor of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Works_Act, (co-sponsored with a Democrat, btw) so this looks more like an act of political grand-standing than political idealism.
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#7Congress is angry because usually their approval is needed to ratify a treaty - see the letter below - http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=12a5b1cb-...
Treaties are ratified by the Senate. Not the House. Congress refers to both houses, or sometimes just the House of Representatives, but never to the Senate alone. Anyway Issa is a Congressman, not a Senator.
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Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#8Congress is angry because usually their approval is needed to ratify a treaty - see the letter below - http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=12a5b1cb-...
Treaties are ratified by the Senate. Not the House. Congress refers to both houses, or sometimes just the House of Representatives, but never to the Senate alone. Anyway Issa is a Congressman, not a Senator.
Important difference to point out. You phrasing tripped me up though, and I want to point out that Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) (who's linked above) is also upset about ACTA not being considered a treaty.
So members of both houses are angry (thus Congress in general), but only the Senate's approval is needed for a treaty. It is unconstitutional for a president to enter into a treaty w/o Senate approval.
Article II, Section 2, Paragraph II of the Constitution states that the President: "shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur"
(Sorry, I've recently gotten into constitutional law and wanted to post this FYI)
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#9I don't get it. The text has been public for a while now, e.g. on the website of the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/tackling-unfair-trade/acta/index_e...
And the US Trade Representative: http://www.ustr.gov/acta (see "ACTA Text" link on the right)
Re: Congressman demands details of secretive ACTA treaty be made public
#10...refuses to even classify ACTA as a treaty, which would then require ratification by the U.S. Senate...
If we're modifying huge sections of IP law administratively without legislative oversight, that opens up a whole new area for fun and games. Now you have to petition your Congressman to petition the president to use a certain process just so your elected representative can actually have a say in how the laws are changing.
There's nothing new here -- Congress has been ceding it's authority away for decades and this is just a bit of political posturing on Issa's part -- but still, it's really quite breathtaking when you stand back and think about it. The bureaucracy saw what it thought was a problem, then used existing international treaties as a framework to "fix" the problem without having that pesky review or oversight process.
Next time they want more restrictions on the net instead of trying to get a bill through the Senate and the House they'll just use this avenue.
I gotta admit it, the folks waving their arms and saying ACTA was much worse than SOPA were right. This not only does the same and more, it sets up a process to make future restrictions easier to get by.
Wish I had something positive and upbeat to add, but if there's a silver lining here I don't see it. Perhaps the community can use Issa as a prop to get this thing opened up and eviscerated. Using the government oversight committee is probably the only road open at this point.