You may recall, at the beginning of the year, Senator Ron Wyden complained about the secrecy surrounding ACTA and sent a series of questions to the USTR about the negotiations behind ACTA. While the USTR apparently replied in late January, both sides have only just revealed the contents of the response (pdf). It’s about what you would expect. The answers leave plenty of wiggle room, and a few seem to be blatant falsehoods. For example, Wyden is concerned (accurately) not just over whether or not ACTA will change US copyright law, but if it will limit Congress’s ability to change copyright law to fix some of its problems. The USTR claims that it is making sure there is “flexibility” in the agreement to allow for that — but the leaked documents show no such flexibility.
Furthermore, the response confirms what became clear in the most recent leak, that the US sees ACTA as covering not just copyrights and trademarks — but patents as well (though, some of the other participants are against including patents).
Finally, the USTR repeats the bogus claims that it is being transparent about ACTA, noting that it put up a dedicated web page. Well, doesn’t that just solve everything?
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