A Secret Treaty Only a Mother Could Love
Here we go again with big corporate interests having exclusive and direct input to a legal structure which the public is not allowed to see and which will remain secret.
This has a familiar ring.
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I couldn't get the link to boot. Maybe you could tell us what it is? Or I can try later.
October 16, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is odd. The link works perfectly for me. I copied the exact address from address bar of the web page same as always. I don't have an answer Wendy.
October 16, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wendy just go to the web site. It's on the front page.
The story is about the ACTA treaty. 42 lawyers are the only persons who supposedly will ever see it. Need I say more.
http://arstechnica.com/
October 16, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okey dokey! Here i was poking fun at Cafe-ites who don't read the front page! I just scanned it because I wanted to read Miguel's piece again. (She blushes...)
October 16, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, no public disclosure on this is a crappy deal. Michael Geist dug out some details about some of the early drafts a few months back.
It doesn't make me feel much better that the whole thing is classified as a national secret ... only lobbyists allowed to see it. Great.
October 16, 2009 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This kind of thing should make alarm bells go off no matter where or when it happens. There is just no way for this to happen in secret in this manner. It leaves the door wide open for an abuse of power with the general public having no recourse.
Structural arrangements like this should simply be illegal. This is the reason why the Cheney energy policy was so widely criticized. The formulation of a public policy that widely influences the entire country cannot be decided behind closed doors by a unique constituency which has a vested interest in how that policy looks. The structure itself is flawed when it violates the principles of representative government.
The practical relationship between Treasury and Wall Street suffers from this same structural flaw with the same potential for adopting abusive policies that are harmful to the nation.
October 17, 2009 3:33 AM | Reply | Permalink