[Random-bits] Obama Administration rules texts of new IPR agreement are state secrets

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/obama-administration-rule_b_174450.html

Obama Administration rules texts of new IPR agreement are state secrets
James Love

We have been seeking access to documents relating to negotiations on an
important new intellectual property enforcement treaty. The agreement,
misleadingly named the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, is
thought to cover a wide range of intellectual property enforcement
issues -- including standards for granting injunctions for alleged
infringement of patents or copyrights, damages, seizures of goods in
transit, surveillance of Internet digital file transfers, searches of
personal property, and a dozen other topics.

There are number of outstanding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
requests for key documents, by groups like EFF, Public Knowledge, and
KEI. In one of our FOIA requests, we asked for 7 specific documents,
referenced by the exact title and date of the documents. These documents
are the proposals for the text of the agreement.

The texts are available to the Japanese government. They are available
to the 27 member states of the European Union. They are available to the
governments of Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia. They are
available to Morocco, and many other countries. They are available to
"cleared" advisers (mostly well connected lobbyists) for the
pharmaceutical, software, entertainment and publishing industries. But
they are a secret from you, the public.

Today we received this letter from the White House, Office of the United
States Trade Representative. Our FOIA request was denied on the grounds
that the documents are "information that is properly classified in the
interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958."

Here is a link to a PDF of the denial of the FOIA request.

http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/3/ustr_foia_denial.pdf


The original FOIA request is here:
----------------

    January 31, 2009

    Dear Stan McCoy

    As U.S. co-chair of the TACD working group on intellectual property,
and the Director of Knowledge Ecology International, I request, under
FOIA, electronic copies of the following documents. I believe these
documents are being widely circulated to corporate lobbyists in Europe,
Japan and the U.S. There is no reason for them to be secret from the
American public.

    James Love, Director, KEI


    1. JAPAN - U.S. JOINT PROPOSAL
    Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
    Discussion Draft: October 16, 2008

    2. JAPAN - U.S. JOINT PROPOSAL
    Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
    May 20, 2008, and the EU proposals for modifications of the Japan
U.S. proposal, dated 7 July 2008

    3. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, EU proposal: September 23,
2008

    4. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
    Non-Paper on institutional issues under the Agreement. June 9, 2008

    5. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), summary of comments
on Border Measures

    6. JAPAN - U.S. JOINT PROPOSAL
    Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
    Discussion Draft July 23, 2008
    Comments added September 26, 2008

    7. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
    [Definitions]
    Discussion Draft: May 8, 2008


-- 
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International
http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org
Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584