TechMiso

One of the significant promises Barack Obama made during his run up to the presidency was overturning the Bush era culture of White House and governmental secrecy. Americans, knowing full well there will never be a complete removal of political backroom drug-deals, were eager to see a more open, transparent government – a pledge Obama was intent on keeping. Unfortunately it appears the President has been unable to keep that promise, instead opting to allow his administration to play the national security card to keep details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) out of the eyes of the general public.

On day one, President Obama clearly outlined a path for his administration, opting for disclosure rather than secrecy.

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

In fact, President Obama himself pledged the following in a Memo to all heads of Executive Departments and Agencies:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

What happened between then and now? Have the special interest groups finally found traction within Obama’s administration? Or have they always been there, just Obama was well versed in sleight-of-hand, misleading the entire nation throughout his run up to the presidency?

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement treaty has been in secret negotiations for months with a number of countries involved. Those countries are said to be the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Canada.

So what is the big deal with ACTA? First the basics – the fundamental goal of the treaty is to strengthen international copyright and intellectual property law, mainly as a response to an increase in counterfeit goods trading and pirating of copyright protected works. ACTA not only proposes to cover physical goods, but internet distribution and information technology as well.

What is problematic is that the various governments involved in the negotiations are not merely sitting alone at a table and discussing the ins-and-outs of IP protection. The entertainment industry, led by the IFPI, MPAA and RIAA, are essentially writing the very legislation that may soon become international law. This is a clear violation and conflict of interest.

There are no average citizens, representing you, me and all Miso lovers, involved in the discussions – and now that will never happen because the Obama Administration has declared an IP protection treaty a national security secret, if you can believe it!

The White House this week declared (.pdf) the text of the proposed treaty a “properly classified” national security secret, in rejecting a Freedom of Information Act request by Knowledge Ecology International.

“Please be advised the documents you seek are being withheld in full,” wrote Carmen Suro-Bredie, chief FOIA officer in the White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

There is no fathomable reason to classify this specific piece of legislation as a national security secret. It is simple unreasonable to label a simple intellectual property protection treaty as such – after all, how could this treaty possibly have anything remotely close to do with national security?

Why did Obama see fit to break his transparency promise with this specific treaty? What is our government telling us – is intellectual property protection suddenly so important to Obama that it’s worth sacrificing his word in favor of special interest?