Robert Oak — The Trade Agreement You Never Heard About - TPP

Did you know, beyond closed doors, there is a massive trade agreement being crafted? It's called TPP or Trans Pacific Partnership and this one makes NAFTA look like the stepping stone that it is. This is one bad mother.

This is a trade agreement between Chile, Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam and the United States. Japan as well as China may also join. The countries involved isn't the problem. What's being negotiated is.

For those who think they won the SOPA/PIPA battle, think again. The below video clip does a good job explaining how SOPA/PIPA are being reintroduced via TPP negotiations.

Read it at The Economic Populist
The Trade Agreement You Never Heard About - TPP
by Robert Oak

Glenn Greenwald — Two lessons from the Megaupload seizure

Read it at Salon
Two lessons from the Megaupload seizure
by Glenn Greenwald
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

(1) It’s wildly under-appreciated how unrestrained is the Government’s power to do what it wants, and how little effect these debates over various proposed laws have on that power.

(2) The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process: once the defining feature of American freedom that is now scorned as some sort of fringe, radical, academic doctrine. That is not hyperbole.

Here's the crux of it:

...what distinguishes a tyrannical society from a free one is whether the government is first required to prove guilt in a fair, adversarial proceeding. This is a precept Americans were once taught about why their country was superior, was reflexively understood, and was enshrined as the core political principle: “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” It’s simply not a principle that is believed in any longer, and therefore is not remotely observed.

It is simply not possible to have free enterprise in a tyrannical society. The US is kneecapping itself. Eventually this leads to powerful interests taking down competition politically, thereby stifling innovation.

Joseph Schumpeter saw the risk to capitalism as late-stage capitalism stifling innovation.

Washington's Blog — Megaupload Takedown: The Real Meaning

...Numerous top entertainment celebrities endorsed Megaupload (major stars like Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas sung Megaupload’s praises)… so it’s not like the entire business was criminal. On the other hand, some people accuse Megaupload’s founder as being a serial criminal.

But the take down of Megaupload was wrong. It should have gone through the normal court process, and a judge should have ruled on the site before anything was done to kill the business. This is especially true because the. countries involved are signatories to international copyright and extradition treaties, not “rogue” nations.

It should be the courts which examine the evidence and determine whether the business used a criminal business model, or was mainly a legitimate business. Whatever happened to due process of law?

Read it at Washington's Blog

Megaupload Takedown: The Real Meaning

Disturbingly authoritarian. Given that the up and coming generations are strongly libertarian, either left or right, this is fool's errand in trying to perpetuate a status quo that is moribund.

As Ernesto at TorrentFreak writes:

Do the feds realize that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections and much more?

What will happen to these personal non-infringing files?People are outraged on Twitter and are demanding access to their files immediately.

Followed by many Twitter posts complaining of loss of private files, including work files.

Bad scene.

Yippie! — A blast from the past

The whole whoopee cushion of words over the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act got me thinking about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.

Those two were the most pop-culture-savvy leaders of the group of agitprop rebels who promoted ‘free’ as a lifestyle a generation ago—the Yippies. But, even for them, it was not easy to say exactly what free meant.

Read it at stealth of nations

The Yippie Way of Ownership
by Robert Neuwirth

 (BTW: can anyone tell me how the government has the standing to bring a case of copyright infringement? And how the government can shutter megaupload without having proved that the company’s done something wrong?)


Fun read if you were around then, or are into the history of the countercultural revolution. But definitely has application today, too.

AnonyOps on SOPA and PIPA

Read it at AnonyOps — We Are Legion
Bright, and Clear: The Future of Free Speech

Rachel Maddow summed it up pretty well on her show last evening, saying that it's no longer OK for politicians NOT to understand how the Internet works.

SOPA and PIPA are like trying to kill flies in the house by swinging a sledge hammer. There is no reason to break the Internet and undermine freedom of expression in the name of controlling piracy and protecting intellectual and artistic property rights. It's overkill based on lack of understanding of the technology.

This is coming from the content producers, the same people that did their best to hobble hardware and software technological advances to prevent illegal duplication. It was stupid and self-serving then, and it is stupid and self-serving now.

Looks like the blackout got some results. Quite a few politicians are now walking back their support of SOPA and PIPA. But it is not over until it is over. They aren't going away in this attempt.

Protest SOPA. Stop censorship!!

Wikipedia Will Go Dark On Wednesday In Protest Of SOPA And PIPA

Read it at Business Insider
Wikipedia Will Go Dark On Wednesday In Protest Of SOPA And PIPA
by Dylan Love
(h/t Kevn Fathi via email)

Yves Smith on SOPA 2.0

End result: SOPA 2.0 contains a crazy scary clause that’s going to make it crazy easy to cut off websites with no recourse whatsoever. And this part isn’t just limited to payment providers/ad networks — but to service providers, search engines and domain registrars/registries as well. Yes. Search engines. So you can send a notice to a search engine, and if they want to keep their immunity, they have to take the actions in either Section 102(c)(2) or 103(c)(2), which are basically all of the “cut ‘em off, block ‘em” remedies. That’s crazy. This basically encourages search engines to disappear sites upon a single notice. It encourages domain registries to kill domains based on notices. With no recourse at all, because the providers have broad immunity.

Oh no, this isn’t crazy at all, it’s authoritarian. Imagine how long Goldman666 or Matt Taibbi or Karl Denninger or yours truly would be around with this rule. Wikileaks demonstrates that even Swedish domiciled sites are not safe.

Read it at Naked Capitalism

Why Banks Back SOPA, the “Bring the Chinese Internet to America” Bill

by Yves Smith

Creative enforcement

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House and Senate are readying a draft proposal that would provide an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act.

Instead of using the courts to force search engines and ISPs to block websites accused of copyright infringement, as SOPA and Protect IP would, the alternative suggests simply cutting them off from all sources of funding, just like the banks did to WikiLeaks.

The lawmakers would accomplish this by regulating illegal downloads as a matter of international commerce. Doing so, the group of lawmakers hope to see the International Trade Commission (ITC) take charge of combating piracy, instead of judges. The ITC would be tasked with reviewing claims of online infringement against foreign website owners, ordering them cut off from funding if the claims prove true.

It would also set up a rapid-response mechanism for temporary disconnections from funding if an imminent harm can be demonstrated by a copyright holder, such as broadcasters who air live events that are being illegally streamed online.

“We think this is the correct way to approach policy,” Jennifer Hoelzer, deputy chief of staff to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), told Raw Story. “This really is an international trade issue. If someone downloads a movie off a foreign website, it’s similar to importing a DVD from a foreign company.”

Read the rest at Raw Story

Lawmakers propose SOPA alternative: Fight online pirates ‘like WikiLeaks’

by Stephen C. Webster

Government discovers another lever of power.

Thought police to control the Internet if Congress has its way

This country is in dire straights, and both sides of the aisle in Congress seem hell bent on destroying the very fabric of the Republic by usurping the civil liberties of its citizens. The latest power grab comes in the form of the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA). Writing at theHill.com, Bill Wilson argues that this bill is basically a "kill switch" on First Amendment rights on the internet.

This legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, and while it is ostensibly designed to protect intellectual property rights on the internet, in practice it is just another unconstitutional power grab by the Federal Government. The scope of the bill is unprecedented in that it would impose government mandates on internet service providers, which essentially gives the Feds free rein over the web.

If SOPA becomes law, the government could shut down a website with the mere accusation that the site displayed copyright-protected content. Furthermore, the Justice Department could bar advertisers and payment providers from doing business with the site and charge them as co-conspirators in the alleged "piracy" of content.

Read the rest at Benzinga
When Will It Stop? Congress Seeking Authority to Become Internet "Thought Police"
by Scott Rubin

Tribe — SOPA unconstitutional

Harvard Law School constitutional expert Laurence Tribe believes the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is unconstitutional.

The legal figure sent a letter to members of Congress this past week, saying that SOPA violates the First Amendment and leads to illegal “prior restraint.”

Read it at Raw Story

Harvard lawyer: SOPA is unconstitutional

by Andrew Jones