SOPA: Dead In Congress, Alive In Trans-Pacific Partnership Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. thenewamerican.com March 17, 2014
Lobbyists who once unsuccessfully pushed for federal control over the Internet are now finding new hope in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). President Obama recently named Robert Holleyman deputy U.S. trade representative. Although he has worked until recently as a “chief executive of BSA/the Software Alliance, a trade organization for software companies that counts Apple, IBM, Microsoft and other top computer firms among its members,” a couple of years ago, Holleyman worked as a professional promoter of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill introduced in 2011 by Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The official purpose of SOPA was to “expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods.” In reality, though, the measure would have surrendered control of the Internet to federal agencies. Much to Holleyman’s chagrin, the reaction to SOPA was so widespread that it led to the “largest online protest in history.” The bill was practically stillborn in Congress, but the multinational industries promoting it were not to be denied. The consortium turned to the TPP and rejoiced that their agenda could still be enforced on the Internet and could be worked out in secret, safe from the protests, the protesters, and the prying eyes of civil libertarians. As the Washington Post noted, “The United States appears to be using the non-transparent TransPacific Partnership negotiations as a deliberate end run around Congress on intellectual property, to achieve a presumably unpopular set of policy goals.” When it comes to SOPA, the name of the bill, like so many other inappropriately named federal follies
(Affordable Care Act?), has nothing to do with the real intent: granting government control over the content and traffic on the Internet. If the agreement is being worked out in secret, how do we know such SOPA-like provisions are included? On November 13, 2013, WikiLeaks released to the Internet what appears to be a portion of the secretly negotiated draft version of the TPP. Although the entire agreement reportedly runs over 1,000 pages and covers nearly every conceivable facet of commerce, the chapter leaked by the online whistleblower focuses on intellectual property rights (IPR). In a press release announcing its publication of this key section of the TPP agreement, WikiLeaks described the Intellectual Property provisions as “the most controversial chapter of the TPP.” This chapter deserves that designation because of its substantial effect on so many aspects of American trade and industry, including, as WikiLeaks points out, what would be irreparable harm to “medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents.” In an article reporting on the leak of the IPR chapter, Internet freedom and fair copyright advocate TorrentFreak points out the SOPA similarities in the TPP intellectual property chapter: Burcu Kilic, an intellectual property lawyer with Public Citizen, says that some of the proposals in the text evoke memories of the controversial SOPA legislation in the United States. “The WikiLeaks text also features Hollywood and recording industry inspired proposals — think about the SOPA debacle — to limit Internet freedom and access to educational materials, to force Internet providers to act as copyright enforcers and to cut off people’s Internet access,” Kilic says. Popular online tech magazine The Verge recognized the potential harm, as well: Critics have wasted no time in attacking the treaty, with IP reform group Knowledge Ecology International calling it "bad for access to knowledge, bad for access to medicine, and profoundly bad for innovation." Many of the criticisms focus on the treaty's "enforcement" section, which includes language that critics say mirrors similar provisions from America's controversial SOPA and ACTA bills. That includes provisions that would extend copyright to temporary copies of media, and others that place the burden of enforcement specifically on local ISPs, which critics say would further establish ISPs as a de facto copyright police. Other provisions would increase the software controls on consumer hardware. "The anti-circumvention provisions seem to cement the worst parts of the anti-phoneunlocking law that we saw this summer," says Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press. "We can't
change the US law if we're locked into these international agreements.” The piece by The Verge references another failed legislative effort to seize control of the Internet, a bill that would abolish Internet freedom and intellectual property rights: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). ACTA-like provisions appear in the leaked TPP chapter. This section of the draft agreement launches another attack on U.S. sovereignty through the mandate that member nations enact regulations requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to privately enforce copyright protection laws. These private companies — many of which are very small — would be forced to take upon themselves the responsibility of patrolling for and punishing any violation of the copyright laws by their subscribers. Apart from the issues of sovereignty, putting such pressure on service providers is a threat not only to the owners of these small business, but also to Internet freedom, as well. It is the good work of these ISPs that has created the Internet we know today. Were it not for the typically low-cost access these companies provide, the pool of readily accessible viewpoints, opinions, and news resources would be significantly shallower. In a post-TPP world, ISPs would be forced to raise prices dramatically in order to cover the increase in their own overhead brought on by the requirement that they monitor and manage the websites they host. Alternatively, there would undoubtedly be a large number of ISPs who would not only want to avoid the administrative burden of being forced into the role of Internet cop, but who would also rightly regard the risks of providing Internet access as outweighing the benefits. A story published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation accurately describes the potential problems and predicts the future of the Internet should the United States agree to enter the TPP: Private ISP enforcement of copyright poses a serious threat to free speech on the Internet, because it makes offering open platforms for user-generated content economically untenable. For example, on an ad-supported site, the costs of reviewing each post will generally exceed the pennies of revenue one might get from ads. Even obvious fair uses could become too risky to host, leading to an Internet with only cautious and conservative content. As any news organization that maintains a Web presence knows, in the posting of news items time is of the essence. If the regulations of the TPP become the law, then ISPs would be forced to remove immediately any subscriber content posted online that is challenged by someone claiming a copyright infringement. This broad expansion of copyright protection could be devastating to a news organization (or blogger, for that matter) depending for their economic survival on the timeliness of their online stories and on the availability of those stories to the millions of Internet users. Such procedures bypass the U.S. court system and the Constitution by abolishing the due process owed to those accused of crimes. Rather than require a person to present evidence of an alleged violation of a copyright to an impartial judge, the TPP would allow someone to demand that the outlet’s ISP immediately remove the content in question. Any legal proceedings on the merits of the charges would occur after the damage has been done. Critics understand that this redrawing of the boundaries of copyright law by the globalists secretly deliberating and drafting the TPP is an attack on our laws, our courts, our freedom of expression, our Constitution, and our sovereignty.
Obama: ‘I Don’t Care About The Public’s Welfare’ Washington’s Blog March 17, 2014
Preface by Washington’s Blog: We agree with most what Eric Zuesse writes. For example, we believe that Obama is serving big money interests, and not the American people. But we also believe that the “left-versus-right” dichotomy is no longer relevant. The two mainstream parties are virtually identical in terms of issues of war, liberty, crony capitalism, bailouts, big oil and nuclear energy, genetically modified foods, and other core issues which affect our basic health, freedom and prosperity. And see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this. Indeed, we believe that – as strange as it might sound at first – true liberals are more similar to true conservatives than (1) liberals are to neoliberals like Obama or (2) conservatives are toneoconservatives. -By Eric Zuesse: Obama: ‘I Don’t Care About the Public’s Welfare’ No, he didn’t say it; no politician does; instead, he proves it, by both what he does and what he says (as will be shown here). Of course, there’s pretense in at least some of what all successful politicians say, because success in politics requires at least some degree of pretense. No matter how good a person is, pretense is necessary for success in politics; that’s just reality. We live with it; we deal with it, if we are at all realistic. A politician shows his values, and makes clear his priorities, not by what he says, but instead by what he actually does. For example, President Obama’s 24 January 2012 State of the Union Address said: “Tonight, I’m
asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. (Applause.) This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans. Now, a return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help protect our people and our economy.” But, two years later, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice issued on 13 March 2014 its “Audit of the Department of Justice’s Efforts to Address Mortgage Fraud,” and reported that it turned out to be just a lie. DOJ didn’t even try; and they lied even about their efforts. The IG found: “DOJ did not uniformly ensure that mortgage fraud was prioritized at a level commensurate with its public statements. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Criminal Investigative Division ranked mortgage fraud as the lowest criminal threat in its lowest crime category. Additionally, we found mortgage fraud to be a low priority, or not [even] listed as a priority, for the FBI Field Offices we visited.” Not just that, but, “Many Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSA) informed us about underreporting and misclassification of mortgage fraud cases.” This was important because, “Capturing such information would allow DOJ to … better evaluate its performance in targeting high-profile offenders.” On 27 March 2009, Obama had assembled the top executives of the bailed-out financial firms in a secret meeting at the White Hose and he assured them that he would cover their backs; he told them “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks” (but of course it’s not on the White House website; it had to be leaked out, which is one of the reasons Obama hates leakers). What the DOJ’s IG indicated was, in effect, that Obama had kept his secret promise to them. He had lied to the public, all along. According to the DOJ, their Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF) was “established by President Barack Obama in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.” But, according to the Department’s IG, it was all a fraud: a fraud that according to the DOJ itself had been going on since at least November 2009. The IG’s report continued by pointing out the Attorney General’s lies, pointing out that on 9 October 2012, “the FFETF held a press conference to publicize the results of the initiative,” and: “The Attorney General announced that the initiative resulted in 530 criminal defendants being charged, including 172 executives, in 285 criminal indictments or informations filed in federal courts throughout the United States during the previous 12 months. The Attorney General also announced that 110 federal civil cases were filed against over 150 defendants for losses totaling at least $37 million, and involving more than 15,000 victims. According to statements made at the press conference, these cases involved more than 73,000 homeowner victims and total losses estimated at more than $1 billion. “Shortly after this press conference, we requested documentation that supported the statistics presented. … Over the following months, we repeatedly asked the Department about its efforts to correct the statistics. … Specifically, the number of criminal defendants charged as part of the initiative was 107, not 530 as originally reported; and the total estimated losses associated with true Distressed Homeowners cases were $95 million, 91 percent less than the $1 billion reported at the October 2012 press conference. … “Despite being aware of the serious flaws in these statistics since at least November 2012, we found that the Department continued to cite them in mortgage fraud press releases. … According to DOJ officials, the data collected and publicly announced for an earlier FFETF mortgage fraud initiative – Operation Stolen Dreams – also may have contained similar errors.”
Already on 15 November 2011, Syracuse University’s TRAC Reports had headlined “Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Institution Fraud Continue to Fall,” and provided a chart showing that whereas such prosecutions had been running at a fairly steady rate until George W. Bush came into office in 2001, they immediately plunged during his term and were continuing that decline under Obama, even after the biggest boom in alleged financial fraud cases since right before the Great Depression. And, then, on 24 September 2013, TRAC Reports bannered “Slump in FBI White Collar Crime Prosecutions,” and said that “prosecutions of white collar criminals recommended by the FBI are substantially down during the first ten months of Fiscal Year 2013.” This was especially so in the Wall Street area: “In the last year, the judicial District Court recording the largest projected drop in the rate of white collar crime prosecutions — 27.8 percent — was the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).” Anyone who doubts that Obama is a liar (except when addressing banksters in private), whose actual values are often the exact opposite of his sanctimonious public statements, should read not only the IG’s report, but, regarding other issues, things such as, from Wayne Madsen, “UKRAINIAN PHONE WRECKS: The Secret Agenda of Ashton and Nuland Revealed”; and, from Marcy Wheeler, “The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency’s Role in Torture for Years”; and, from Lee Fang, “Obama Admin’s TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks”; and, from Kate Sheppard, “Michael Froman, Top U.S. Trade Official, Sides With Tar Sands Advocates In EU Negotiations.” and then, add in, for good measure, an article by a courageous Ukrainian, about how profoundly fascist are the people that the Obama Administration has installed in Ukraine, “The Nazis Even Hitler Was Afraid Of.” And the State Department was at least as bad under Hillary Clinton. If Barack Obama were competing with George W. Bush to become the new worst U.S. President of all time, then one could say that he is doing a brilliant job. But one thing’s for sure: he’s a terrific liar, whenever he’s speaking in public. Why aren’t Democrats in Congress pressing for him to be impeached? There are so many sound reasons why he ought to be forced out of office. But none of them are reasons that Republicans hate him. Republicans hate him because, no matter how far to the right a Democrat is, Republicans demand someone who is even farther to the right, and Obama isn’t leaving them much territory to the right of himself; so, he’s driving them into territory that makes everyone except perhaps the Koch brothers and their friends feel a bit sour.
Obama Transparency Getting Worse Ted Bridis & Jack Gillum Associated Press March 17, 2014
The Obama administration has a way to go to fulfill its promises from Day 1 to become the most transparent administration in history. More often than ever, the administration censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press. Most agencies also took longer to answer records requests. The government's own figures from 99 federal agencies covering six years show that halfway through its second term, the administration has made few meaningful improvements in the way it releases records. In category after category - except for reducing numbers of old requests and a slight increase in how often it waived copying fees - the government's efforts to be more open about its activities last year were their worst since President Barack Obama took office. In a year of intense public interest over the National Security Agency's surveillance programs, the government cited national security to withhold information a record 8,496 times - a 57 percent increase over a year earlier and more than double Obama's first year, when it cited that reason 3,658 times. The Defense Department, including the NSA, and the CIA accounted for nearly all those. The Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency cited national security six times, the Environmental Protection Agency did twice and the National Park Service once. And five years after Obama directed agencies to less frequently invoke a "deliberative process" exception to withhold materials describing decision-making behind the scenes, the government did it anyway, a record 81,752 times. "I'm concerned the growing trend toward relying upon FOIA exemptions to withhold large swaths of
government information is hindering the public's right to know," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It becomes too much of a temptation. If you screw up in government, just mark it `top secret.'" Citizens, journalists, businesses and others last year made a record 704,394 requests for information, an 8 percent increase over the previous year. The government responded to 678,391 requests, an increase of 2 percent over the previous year. The AP analysis showed that the government more than ever censored materials it turned over or fully denied access to them, in 244,675 cases or 36 percent of all requests. On 196,034 other occasions, the government said it couldn't find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the government determined the request to be unreasonable or improper. Sometimes, the government censored only a few words or an employee's phone number, but other times it completely marked out nearly every paragraph on pages. The White House said the government's figures demonstrate "that agencies are responding to the president's call for greater transparency." White House spokesman Eric Schultz noted that the government responded to more requests than previously and said it released more information. "Over the past five years, federal agencies have worked aggressively to improve their responsiveness to FOIA requests, applying a presumption of openness and making it a priority to respond quickly," Schultz said. Sunday was the start of Sunshine Week, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information. The chief of the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, which oversees the open records law, told the Senate last week that some of the 99 agencies in the past five years have released documents in full or in part in more than 90 percent of cases. She noted the record number of requests for government records, which exceeded 700,000 for the first time last year, and said decisions are harder than ever. "The requests are more complex than they were before," director Melanie Pustay told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The government's responsiveness under the FOIA is widely viewed as a barometer of its transparency. Under the law, citizens and foreigners can compel the government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas. It cited such exceptions a record 546,574 times last year. "The public is frustrated and unhappy with the pace of responses and the amount of information provided," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said at the same congressional hearing. "There's a common reaction for anybody who has any experience with it that it doesn't function well." John Cook, the incoming new editor at the Intercept, the online magazine founded by investor Pierre Omidyar, said his experience under the open records law was "abysmal" but not especially worse last year than previously. "It's a bureaucracy," Cook said. "As often as it's about trying to keep data from falling into the hands of reporters, it's the contractor looking for ways to reduce the caseload. It's just
bureaucrats trying to get home earlier and have less to do." The AP could not determine whether the administration was abusing the national security exception or whether the public asked for more documents about sensitive subjects. The NSA said its 138 percent surge in records requests were from people asking whether it had collected their phone or email records, which it generally refuses to confirm or deny. To do otherwise, the NSA said, would pose an "an unacceptable risk" because terrorists could check to see whether the U.S. had detected their activities. It censored records or fully denied access to them in 4,246 out of 4,328 requests, or 98 percent of the time. Journalists and others who need information quickly to report breaking news fared worse than ever last year. Blocking news organizations from urgently obtaining records about a government scandal or crisis - such as the NSA's phone-records collection, Boston bombings, trouble with its health care website, the deadly shootings at the Washington Navy Yard or the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi - can delay uncovering significant developments until after decisions are made and the public's interest has waned. The government said the average time it took to answer a records request ranged from less than one day to nearly two years. AP's analysis showed that most agencies took longer to answer requests than the previous year, although the White House said the government responded more quickly and did not immediately explain how it determined that. The Pentagon reported at least two requests still pending after 10 years and the CIA was still working on at least four requests from more than eight years ago. The AP's request to the Health and Human Services Department for contracts with public-relations companies to promote Obama's health care law has been pending for more than one year. Requests for files about the Affordable Care Act and the IRS's treatment of tax-exempt political groups have languished in government offices for months. Similarly, the AP has waited for more than 10 months for emails between the IRS and outside Democratic super PACs about tea party groups. After Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was selected as the Republican vice presidential candidate, the AP asked scores of federal agencies for copies of letters he wrote to them. At least seven turned over the records after the election in November 2012. Some didn't even acknowledge AP's request for Ryan's letters until months after Obama was sworn in for a second term. Last year, the government denied 6,689 out of 7,818 requests for so-called expedited processing, which moves an urgent request for newsworthy records to the front of the line for a speedy answer, or about 86 percent. It denied only 53 percent of such requests in 2008. The EPA denied 458 out of 468 expediting requests. The State Department, where expedited processing can save 100 days of waiting time for example, denied 332 of 344 such requests. The Homeland Security Department denied 1,384 or 94 percent of expediting requests. The Justice Department, which denied AP's request for video its investigators obtained days after the Navy Yard shooting, denied 900 out of 1,017 such requests.
The U.S. spent a record $420 million answering requests plus just over $27 million in legal disputes, and charged people $4.3 million to search and copy documents. The government waived fees about 58 percent of the time that people asked, a 1 percent improvement over the previous year. Sometimes, the government said it searched and couldn't find what citizens wanted. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, whose top official has testified to Congress repeatedly about NSA surveillance programs disclosed by contractor Edward Snowden, told the AP it couldn't find any records or emails in its offices asking other federal agencies to be on the lookout for journalists to whom Snowden provided classified materials. British intelligence authorities had detained one reporter's partner for nine hours at Heathrow airport and questioned him under terrorism laws. DNI James Clapper has at least twice publicly described the reporters as "accomplices" to Snowden, who is charged under the U.S. Espionage Act and faces up to 30 years in prison. Likewise, Cook, departing as the editor at Gawker, was exasperated when the State Department told him it couldn't find any emails between journalists and Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton's personal spokesman when Clinton was secretary of state. BuzzFeed published a lengthy and profane email exchange about the 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi between Reines and its correspondent, Michael Hastings. "They said there were no records," Cook said of the State Department. Online: U.S. government FOIA performance data: http://www.foia.gov/data.html
INFOWARS.COM BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND