I really, really hope the culture of leaking information becomes so strong that governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret. That would give me some hope for the future.
Anyone that leaks information is a fucking hero.
Edit: Stop attacking me personally. I'm talking about the government's privacy here, not mine (nor anyone else's). I actually think my privacy will improve if this becomes a reality.
I really . . . hope . . . that governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret.
Does that include personal information about you, for example your personal medical information that is part of the treatment records of a government-administered medical insurance plan? Some countries (not many) make personal income tax filings public information. Do you live in such a country?
It's not quite so simple as considering all leaks of government information heroic. For instance, would it have been heroic to leak news that U.S. code breakers had cracked enemy codes in WW2?
That is a very naive and idealistic position. Governments often and rightly have genuine reasons for keeping things secret - as do other institutions, businesses and indeed individual people.
The good thing here is that containment is the hard part and honor and integrity seems to be more on everyone's mind in today's world of egregious corruption within our 'democratic' governments.
I share your hope and support the leaks. It is an awkward position to be in for the next US administration, I'll be curious to see how it plays out during the all annoying campaign season.
Secrets have existed since the dawn of man, your hopes of eradicating them are naive.
How would you propose that "culture" be contained within the sphere of government? It clearly could not, it would spread to corporate and private spheres of life (if it didn't start here). It sounds dangerously close to a 100% surveillance society. How lovely.
>"governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret."
The fundamental problem with this is that a government isn't a single entity. It's comprised of thousands of people all working on their own specific piece. So by it's very nature, only a very few people will know the bigger picture. If "governments" start leaking information left, right and centre, what that means in reality is hundreds of workers start exposing all of their work without understanding the larger picture.
What if a worker reveals details of a program to track "innocent people". Only to find out after the leak they were actually all in witness protection and they're now in great danger.
When you're part of a huge machine like a government (particularly in Policing or security), most workers will not know the full extent of their work, and therefore cannot understand (or be answerable for) the wider impacts of their actions.
>> so strong that governments will become incapable...
Sounds like you expect governments to be ashamed of what they do once the plans become public.
It's not about shame. It's about the power to persist until the goal is reached.
The plebes have neither the goals nor the persistence - this is what makes them plebes, and they will stay this way with or without Wikileaks.
As long as there is quasifood in the supermarkets and quasientertainment on the TV, the masses will not give a damn about what or how the government is doing. Human nature has not changed for thousands of years.
Here's a simple manual for running a country that has been working like a charm ever since the emperor Septimius Severus: "Enrich the soldiers and damn the rest".
it will only work in governments where fear of terminal retribution is minimal. Put another way, some governments have no qualms about keeping secrets through fear. There are numerous examples where they round up whole families and disappear them
This revelation proves Wikileaks is stil alive and relevant. I hope they see a renewed jolt of donations and interest. This is the organization of heroes that helped get Snowden to safety.
Also, I'm getting sick and tired of our "leaders" attempting to legislate free speech and intellectual property in secret through anti-democratic means. It's disgusting.
The problem with these kinds of things is that the document might be watermarked to obviate who leaked it. It follows the same vein as "spying on allies" which -- until recently -- was tin-foil-hat conspiracy territory.
The political fallout will not be minimal, and it will not be kept secret.
The content isn't interesting[1] because bilateral free trade agreements are public[0], and having the USA force partners into accepting patent enforcement, copyright laws like the DMCA etc. are well known
What is a little interesting is the negotiations and diplomacy at work. You can see how each country is trying to further its own position and interest. Looking at this version of the document, it is impossible to see how a compromise will be reached since there are so many areas that are at complete opposite viewpoints - but you know that in a few weeks time an agreement will be announced as one side or another gives way (guess which!), and the public are nonethewiser.
Some are really good at watering things down, eg.
> The Parties shall endeavour to [US/SG propose: cooperate] [US oppose: establish a framework for cooperation] among their respective patent offices to facilitate
You can see already that they don't intend to cooperate. Establishing a framework? what the hell does that even mean ..
You can now see that Australia, Singapore and Mexico are on Team USA when it comes to copyright terms (Australia opposed it during the FTA negotiations), everybody else opposes, but they will eventually have to come around on this:
> [NZ/BN/MY/VN/CA/JP propose; US/AU/SG/MX oppose: The term of protection of a work, performance or phonogram shall be determined according to each Party's domestic law and the international agreements to which each Party is a party.]
[1] It might not be interesting because we have seen a lot of this in completed deals previously, but it is very important. The USA enforces its business interest laws such as patent and copyright terms onto recipients of "free trade" agreements, in exchange for getting access to the non-protected part of their domestic market. This is why US laws are so important to the rest of the world, because we end up having to adopt them (this is what modern imperialism looks like).
> The content isn't interesting[1] because bilateral free trade agreements are public[0]
That's like saying that weather forecasts aren't interestings because the weather is public. The point is that we want to have a public discussion on these agreements before they are signed.
> [NZ/BN/MY/VN/CA/JP propose; US/AU/SG/MX oppose: The term of protection of a work, performance or phonogram shall be determined according to each Party's domestic law and the international agreements to which each Party is a party.]
On a sidenote, wouldn't it be great if we could at least get unified copyright law? From the draft it seems like the US is pushing more towards that
I think it's absurd that these negotiations were shrouded in such secrecy in the first place. These rules, if implemented, will have a massive impact on how the global economy will work. Yet, the public, who will end up living under the yoke of these rules, not only has very little direct input into the process but didn't (until today) even have a clear view of what rules were being considered.
I don't see how one can have a modern democracy if rules are made in what was (before the leak) a black box.
Hopefully this will lead to more transparency for these types of negotiations in the future. Leaking/spreading this leaked information should help show those with political power that this type of closed door process is not going to be palatable to a connected and informed public.
These types of international agreements tend to stick around for a long time once they are implemented. So, expending energy on the front end to get a more balanced agreement that works for everyone impacted, not just those with an invitation to sit at the table, will save a lot of trouble later on.
>[US propose; AU/NZ/VN/BN/CL/PE/MY/SG/CA/MX oppose: shall make patents available for inventions for the following] [NZ/CL/PE/MY/AU/VN/BN/SG/CA/MX propose: may also exclude from patentability]:
Note how some propose more proper approach of not applying anticircumvention restrictions on non infringing usage, while others oppose it. It's good that Wikileaks now published this with demonstrating opinions of the participants as well.
> [CA oppose: noninfringing uses [SG oppose: of a work, performance, or
phonogram] in a particular class of works, [SG oppose: performances, or
phonograms] when an actual or likely adverse impact on those
noninfringing uses [CL propose: or exceptions or limitations to copyright
or related rights with respect to users] is [PE oppose: credibly
demonstrated] [PE propose: found] [CL propose: demonstrated or
recognized] in a legislative or administrative review or proceeding [SG
oppose: by substantial evidence]; provided that [AU/PE oppose: any
limitation or exception adopted in reliance upon this clause shall have
effect for a renewable period of not more than three [SG propose: four]
years] [AU/PE propose: any such review or proceeding is conducted at
least once every four years] from the date of conclusion of such review
or proceeding.]
The bottom line, they want to create some kind of DMCA 1201 clone as was expected. Now hopefully there will be more chances to stop this beast.
The title is slightly misleading. They've only released the IP chapter - presumably because they figure the content will annoy hacktivists. I personally want to know about the whole thing, since agricultural tariffs, labor conditions, visa rules and the like seem to me at least as important as IP matters.
The AU government has previously stayed neutral/supportive of our high court ruling that ISPs are included under 'safe harbour' clauses and that they carry common-carrier status, in that they provide a service but do not have to police what that service is used for. In specific, they are not the police when it comes to online piracy and do not have to block websites, disconnect users, etc. iiNet won a hard-fought legal battle to get that ruling and it was used as precedence to basically stop the US IP lobby groups exerting pressure on AU businesses to conform to something our laws didn't even support.
Now it's become apparent from this that the government wants to throw all of that under the bus and is supporting transcontinental IP laws that are almost entirely in US interests and serve to screw over our citizens and go against high court rulings. All to be a lap dog to the US and appease their taskmasters.
I have nothing but hatred for our government for conducting themselves in such a miserable, self-serving sense.
I'm sure it used to be, back in the pre-Collateral Murder days. I remember being able to search through the pages and see people comment on the authenticity or not of publicly uploaded documents.
> Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". "Wiki" (pronounced [ˈwiti] or [ˈviti]) is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast" or "quick".
Great, now I'm bothered by the fact that everybody pronounces "wiki" wrong :D
What the hell is going on? Secret negotiations about trading policies? What is the legitimation for doing this in secrecy? When did the people lose their right to know what their government is doing?
Seems to me this may have just been given to Wikileaks directly from the government. The language seems a bit simpler than most trade agreements I have read (though to be fair I have only read 3 or 4).
The negotiation of this has been known for some time. I submitted an objection to the Wikimedia ethics board when I found out that at the same time this agreement was under negotiation, Wikimedia Indonesia was hosting an event in the US embassy sponsored 'American Cultural Center' (or similar) in Jakarta.
As a long term Wikimedia contributor, I expected at least a response. I received nothing.
[+] [-] AlexanderDhoore|12 years ago|reply
Anyone that leaks information is a fucking hero.
Edit: Stop attacking me personally. I'm talking about the government's privacy here, not mine (nor anyone else's). I actually think my privacy will improve if this becomes a reality.
[+] [-] nikcub|12 years ago|reply
That isn't the goal, not for privacy advocates nor for Wikileaks or Julian Assange, who said:
"The goal is justice, the method is transparency. It's important not to confuse the goal and the method."
Advocates of individual privacy rely on the government, as a service provider, to keep secrets in order to protect the rights of individuals.
[+] [-] tokenadult|12 years ago|reply
Does that include personal information about you, for example your personal medical information that is part of the treatment records of a government-administered medical insurance plan? Some countries (not many) make personal income tax filings public information. Do you live in such a country?
[+] [-] mcphilip|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retube|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] windexh8er|12 years ago|reply
I share your hope and support the leaks. It is an awkward position to be in for the next US administration, I'll be curious to see how it plays out during the all annoying campaign season.
Information wants to be free...
[+] [-] lttlrck|12 years ago|reply
How would you propose that "culture" be contained within the sphere of government? It clearly could not, it would spread to corporate and private spheres of life (if it didn't start here). It sounds dangerously close to a 100% surveillance society. How lovely.
[+] [-] mikevm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _mulder_|12 years ago|reply
The fundamental problem with this is that a government isn't a single entity. It's comprised of thousands of people all working on their own specific piece. So by it's very nature, only a very few people will know the bigger picture. If "governments" start leaking information left, right and centre, what that means in reality is hundreds of workers start exposing all of their work without understanding the larger picture.
What if a worker reveals details of a program to track "innocent people". Only to find out after the leak they were actually all in witness protection and they're now in great danger.
When you're part of a huge machine like a government (particularly in Policing or security), most workers will not know the full extent of their work, and therefore cannot understand (or be answerable for) the wider impacts of their actions.
[+] [-] BetterLateThan|12 years ago|reply
Sounds like you expect governments to be ashamed of what they do once the plans become public.
It's not about shame. It's about the power to persist until the goal is reached.
The plebes have neither the goals nor the persistence - this is what makes them plebes, and they will stay this way with or without Wikileaks.
As long as there is quasifood in the supermarkets and quasientertainment on the TV, the masses will not give a damn about what or how the government is doing. Human nature has not changed for thousands of years.
Here's a simple manual for running a country that has been working like a charm ever since the emperor Septimius Severus: "Enrich the soldiers and damn the rest".
[+] [-] Shivetya|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevando|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvnick|12 years ago|reply
Also, I'm getting sick and tired of our "leaders" attempting to legislate free speech and intellectual property in secret through anti-democratic means. It's disgusting.
Edit: second paragraph
[+] [-] ihsw|12 years ago|reply
The political fallout will not be minimal, and it will not be kept secret.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikcub|12 years ago|reply
What is a little interesting is the negotiations and diplomacy at work. You can see how each country is trying to further its own position and interest. Looking at this version of the document, it is impossible to see how a compromise will be reached since there are so many areas that are at complete opposite viewpoints - but you know that in a few weeks time an agreement will be announced as one side or another gives way (guess which!), and the public are nonethewiser.
Some are really good at watering things down, eg.
> The Parties shall endeavour to [US/SG propose: cooperate] [US oppose: establish a framework for cooperation] among their respective patent offices to facilitate
You can see already that they don't intend to cooperate. Establishing a framework? what the hell does that even mean ..
You can now see that Australia, Singapore and Mexico are on Team USA when it comes to copyright terms (Australia opposed it during the FTA negotiations), everybody else opposes, but they will eventually have to come around on this:
> [NZ/BN/MY/VN/CA/JP propose; US/AU/SG/MX oppose: The term of protection of a work, performance or phonogram shall be determined according to each Party's domestic law and the international agreements to which each Party is a party.]
[0] Here is USA - Australia: http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/a...
Here is NAFTA - https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Default.aspx?tabid=97&langua...
[1] It might not be interesting because we have seen a lot of this in completed deals previously, but it is very important. The USA enforces its business interest laws such as patent and copyright terms onto recipients of "free trade" agreements, in exchange for getting access to the non-protected part of their domestic market. This is why US laws are so important to the rest of the world, because we end up having to adopt them (this is what modern imperialism looks like).
[+] [-] Camillo|12 years ago|reply
That's like saying that weather forecasts aren't interestings because the weather is public. The point is that we want to have a public discussion on these agreements before they are signed.
[+] [-] wonderyak|12 years ago|reply
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/11/house-pushing-back-on...
[+] [-] rtpg|12 years ago|reply
On a sidenote, wouldn't it be great if we could at least get unified copyright law? From the draft it seems like the US is pushing more towards that
[+] [-] einehexe|12 years ago|reply
Well that is a pretty tepid imperialism. If a country isn't willing to put their money where their mouth is then maybe they should be quiet.
[+] [-] husein10|12 years ago|reply
I don't see how one can have a modern democracy if rules are made in what was (before the leak) a black box.
Hopefully this will lead to more transparency for these types of negotiations in the future. Leaking/spreading this leaked information should help show those with political power that this type of closed door process is not going to be palatable to a connected and informed public.
These types of international agreements tend to stick around for a long time once they are implemented. So, expending energy on the front end to get a more balanced agreement that works for everyone impacted, not just those with an invitation to sit at the table, will save a lot of trouble later on.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ksrm|12 years ago|reply
Made me laugh. You're on your own there, USA.
[+] [-] shmerl|12 years ago|reply
> [CA oppose: noninfringing uses [SG oppose: of a work, performance, or phonogram] in a particular class of works, [SG oppose: performances, or phonograms] when an actual or likely adverse impact on those noninfringing uses [CL propose: or exceptions or limitations to copyright or related rights with respect to users] is [PE oppose: credibly demonstrated] [PE propose: found] [CL propose: demonstrated or recognized] in a legislative or administrative review or proceeding [SG oppose: by substantial evidence]; provided that [AU/PE oppose: any limitation or exception adopted in reliance upon this clause shall have effect for a renewable period of not more than three [SG propose: four] years] [AU/PE propose: any such review or proceeding is conducted at least once every four years] from the date of conclusion of such review or proceeding.]
The bottom line, they want to create some kind of DMCA 1201 clone as was expected. Now hopefully there will be more chances to stop this beast.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NamTaf|12 years ago|reply
Now it's become apparent from this that the government wants to throw all of that under the bus and is supporting transcontinental IP laws that are almost entirely in US interests and serve to screw over our citizens and go against high court rulings. All to be a lap dog to the US and appease their taskmasters.
I have nothing but hatred for our government for conducting themselves in such a miserable, self-serving sense.
[+] [-] sdoering|12 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725046
[+] [-] mrspeaker|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackFr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] namdnay|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|12 years ago|reply
> Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". "Wiki" (pronounced [ˈwiti] or [ˈviti]) is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast" or "quick".
Great, now I'm bothered by the fact that everybody pronounces "wiki" wrong :D
[+] [-] _mulder_|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k3n|12 years ago|reply
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Confidential_plans_for_1.2_billion...
[+] [-] foobarqux|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warnick|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sker|12 years ago|reply
On a more serious note, wasn't there a reward if they got their hands on this leak?
Also, as a mexican, it sucks that we're part of this treaty. So far Mexico has been a lawless wild west with regards to copyright enforcement.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] danbruc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aferreira|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trendoid|12 years ago|reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1qj6xd/wikileaks_...
Aaron Swartz turned in his grave.
[+] [-] stevengg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|12 years ago|reply
http://keionline.org/node/1825
By the way, they intend to maintain unlocking phones or other devices illegal with TPP. It's just that now it will extend to a lot more countries.
[+] [-] lettergram|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] contingencies|12 years ago|reply
As a long term Wikimedia contributor, I expected at least a response. I received nothing.