Posted by
Gabrielle Cusumano on Friday, January 27, 2012 4:36:49 PM
"any treaty between the US and any other country requires Senate approval – which ACTA never got." "...was Obama even allowed to sign ACTA?"
It seems that [the] President signed the ACTA treaty a few months ago, with apparently little or no fanfare, but questions are now being asked by those who do keep a very close eye on this – was Obama even allowed to sign ACTA?
It has been pointed out that any treaty between the US and any other country, which is exactly what ACTA is, requires Senate approval – which ACTA never got. What it did get was a change in semantics where is was now being called an “executive agreement” so that President Obama didn’t need Senate approval.
However, and this is where the constitution comes into play, this “treaty” is about intellectual property (supposedly) and as Mike Masnick at Techdirt points out the president cannot legally sign any intellectual property agreements as an executive agreement and that it must be submitted to the Senate.
That said, even if Obama has declared ACTA an executive agreement (while those in Europe insist that it’s a
binding treaty), there is a very real
Constitutional question here: can it actually be an executive agreement? The law is clear that the only things that can be covered by executive agreements are things that involve items that are
solely under the President’s mandate. That is, you can’t sign an executive agreement that impacts the things Congress has control over. But here’s the thing: intellectual property, in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, is an issue given to
Congress, not the President. Thus, there’s a pretty strong argument that the president legally
cannot sign any intellectual property agreements as an executive agreement and, instead,
must submit them to the Senate.
This is why Senator Wyden has asked the President to explain why Congress has been cut out. Scholars have noted their concern that if allowed, this will open the door to allowing the president to regularly route around Congress on international agreements.
I have said before and I will say it again – the success against SOPA and PIPA is only the opening skirmish of a much bigger war being waged around intellectual property. ACTA has been in the background for sometime but now that SOPA and PIPA have been shelved (temporarily) the fight needs to be now directed against the much more insidious and global version called ACTA.
However the question is now before us .. did President Obama knowingly and intentionally sidestep the US Congress in order to placate the entertainment industry; and in doing this did he break United States Constitutional law? All credit goes to The Inquistr.com
White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, January 26, 2012 http://www.infowars.com/obama-signs-global-internet-treaty-worse-than-sopa/
Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.
[...]
Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.
A country known for its enforcement of harsh Internet censorship policies like China could demand under the treaty that an ISP in the United States remove content or terminate a website on its server altogether. As we have seen from the enforcement of similar copyright policies in the US, websites are sometimes targeted for no justifiable reason."
“That said, even if Obama has declared ACTA an executive agreement (while those in Europe insist that it’s a
binding treaty), there is a very real
Constitutional question here: can it actually be an executive agreement?” asks TechDirt. “The law is clear that the only things that can be covered by executive agreements are things that involve items that are solely under the President’s mandate. That is, you can’t sign an executive agreement that impacts the things Congress has control over. But here’s the thing: intellectual property, in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, is an issue given to Congress, not the President. Thus, there’s a pretty strong argument that the president legally cannot sign any intellectual property agreements as an executive agreement and, instead, must submit them to the Senate.”.
FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,
REFERRING TO THE KING OF ENGLAND
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.