Free Republic

Julius Caesar is dead (again). Long live "Julius Caesar." Whether the famous dead Roman is a lookalike for President Donald Trump, with a blond comb-over and a long red tie; a cool black dude in a tailored suit suggesting former President Barack Obama; or a 1930s Orson Welles with a Sam Browne belt resembling Benito Mussolini, the character has captured the imagination of the public and the players since Shakespeare wrote the play more than four centuries ago. The spectacle changes with fresh costumes and new sets to emphasize contemporary issues for specific audiences, but the words continue to plumb...

*Nearly 10% of college graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court.*.... WASHINGTON, D.C., September 8, 2015 — The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) today released a survey that shows how little college graduates and the general public know about the Constitution. According to the study, nearly 10% of college graduates think Judith Sheindlin — commonly known as Judge Judy — is on the Supreme Court; one-third of college graduates can’t identify the Bill of Rights as a name given to a group of Constitutional amendments; and 32% believe that Representative John Boehner is the current president...

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni today released a report that finds the country’s most prestigious liberal arts colleges fail to live up to their reputations in several crucial areas of academic quality and campus management. Many have failed to restrain administrative bloat and high spending, few provide a solid foundation of core courses, and most severely restrict free speech on campus. And all the while, Great Recession notwithstanding, the sticker price of tuition has continued to climb sharply upward. The report, Education or Reputation?: A Look at America's Top-Ranked Liberal Arts Colleges, examined 29 institutions—nationally ranked as the...

Amnesty Intentional, Oxfam, Reporters without Borders as well as internet rights groups and the Council of Europe all spoke out against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at a European Parliament hearing on Wednesday (11 April). "The vision set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is at stake," warned Marianne Mollmann, senior policy advisor of the London-based organization human rights group Amnesty International. Mollmann said the trade agreement threatens the right to the freedom of expression, the right to health, the right to due process and fair trial, and the right of an author to benefit from the protection...

Fast forward to today and we suddenly find that an interesting situation has arisen in the Untied States in regards to ACTA. It seems that 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?

In another example of how little Barack Obama cares about the United States Constitution and the role of Congress -as bad as it can be- the current U.S. president ratified the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA. President Obama had signed the first binding draft of ACTA last October 1, 2011, also in secret. As we reported yesterday, ACTA is much more dangerous than SOPA, PIPA or OPEN, because it is the accord that legalizes internet censorship on a global basis. That is why presidents around the planet have received an signed the agreement without any review from their congresses or...

When sites like Wikipedia and Reddit banded together for a major blackout January 18th, the impact was felt all the way to Washington D.C. The blackout had lawmakers running from the controversial anti-piracy legislation, SOPA and PIPA, which critics said threatened freedom of speech online. Unfortunately for free-speech advocates, these pieces of legislation are not the only laws which threaten an open internet. Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement appear quite similar to – and more expansive than – anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually...

Linky Here

Following on from news of the third phase of ‘piracy’ and counterfeit related domain seizures in 7 months, US Senator Ron Wyden has asked the director of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to clarify some of the most pressing questions. If the domain seizures are to continue, the Obama administration has to be more open about the need for them and the process involved, he argues. Earlier this week we broke the news that US authorities had started a third round of domain seizures. This time, it turned out that the actions were aimed at sports streaming sites....

Leaked documents reveal draft text of secret global copyright deal ) OTTAWA — As negotiators from 37 countries prepare to meet in New Zealand on Monday to discuss a top-secret trade agreement, a draft text of the document has found its way onto the Internet. While bits and pieces of the agreement, called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), have been leaked in the past, this is the first time a full draft is available to the public. The agreement, negotiated privately for the better part of two years, aims to create a global organization to oversee worldwide copyright and intellectual...

the EU has proposed to add third-party CRIMINAL liability to the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA). This essentially outlaws the entire Internet.... Background: Third party civil liability for copyright infringement is an emerging, but still controversial, doctrine as applied to the Internet. A site may be liable if it has incited and/or facilitated the violation of copyright, see Grokster. The limits of this doctrine are still being tested: it is not clear what level of hosting or facilitating actually triggers liability. For an example of this endemic uncertainty, the § 512 of the DMCA creates a safe harbor for ISPs, provided...

And thus, our true colours reveal. Since Obama was the young newcomer, technically savvy, many of us were hoping that he might support patent and/or copyright reform. In case our story earlier on this subject didn't already tip you off, this certainly will: Obama has sided squarely with the RIAA/MPAA lobby, and backs ACTA. No copyright and/or patent reform for you, American citizens! Obama made the remarks in a speech at the Export-Import Bank's annual conference in Washington. "We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property," Obama said in his speech, "Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the...

EU ACTA Analysis Leaks: Confirms Plans For Global DMCA, Encourage 3 Strikes Model Monday November 30, 2009 The European Commission analysis of ACTA's Internet chapter has leaked, indicating that the U.S. is seeking to push laws that extend beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and beyond current European Union law (the EC posted the existence of the document last week but refused to make it publicly available). The document contains detailed comments on the U.S. proposal, confirming the U.S. desire to promote a three-strikes and you're out policy, a Global DMCA, harmonized contributory copyright infringement rules, and the establishment of an...

Core Curricula Deconstruct by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 24, 2009 The rush to relevance begun by college administrators in the 1960s never stopped. “The low marks received by many institutions show students are graduating without math, science and other fundamentals and underscore the urgent need for parents, students, and policymakers to focus on what colleges expect of their students,” the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) declares. ACTA has just published a study entitled, What will they learn? A report on General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation’s Leading Colleges and Universities. “Out of 100 institutions we...

RTNews (RussiaToday News) reported March 26 that the Obama Administration is seeking the power through legal channels to have the right to see just what is on your computer hard drive. Funny how the mainstream media has not given this story any coverage. The way in which the Obama Administration intends to carry out this flagrant violation of privacy will be under the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Below is a definition of the ACTA courtesy of Wikipedia. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement which is alleged by its proponents to be in response "to the...

That is exactly what could happen under Acta, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This agreement is currently being actively pursued among the G8 nations. The purpose of the Acta agreement is to prevent illegal downloading and ripped copyrighted movies. Big brother may soon be waiting when you get off the plane. Video is here.

The Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), part of President Barack Obama's office, has denied a company's request for information about a secretive anticounterfeiting trade agreement being negotiated, citing national security concerns. The USTR this week denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Knowledge Ecology International, an intellectual-property research and advocacy group, even though Obama, in one of his first presidential memos, directed that agencies be more forthcoming with information requested by the public. The USTR under Obama seems to be taking the same position about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as it did under former President George...

Despite President Barack Obama's vow to open government more than ever, the Justice Department is defending Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists. In half a dozen lawsuits, Justice lawyers have opposed formal motions or spurned out-of-court offers to delay court action until the new administration rewrites Freedom of Information Act guidelines and decides whether the new rules might allow the public to see more. In only one case has the Justice Department agreed to suspend a FOIA lawsuit until the disputed documents can...

Polls that show public confidence in college professors as well as in grade and high-school classroom teachers are not inconsistent with other survey findings that show bias on the part of pedagogues everywhere. “In addition to doctors and teachers, those rounding out the top five of generally trusted occupations and professions are scientists (77%), police officers (76%) and professors (75%),” the results of a Harris poll released on August 8th show. “Conversely, the five occupations that are least trusted to be truthful include actors (26%), lawyers (27%), stockbrokers (29%), trade union leaders (30%) and opinion pollsters (34%),” Harris interactive goes...

As readers of this space know, we frequently subject academics to what we view as constructive criticism. As travelers through the blogosphere may have noticed, they sometimes answer those critiques. “Someone named Candace de Russy (on the usually unbearably dreadful National Review blog on the university situation 'Phi Beta Cons') cites someone else named Laura Ventura at Accuracy in Academia to the effect that the fact that the journal Critical Inquiry has more citations of Derrida and Marx than of C. S. Lewis and Thomas Jefferson is an indication of the journal’s ‘anti-American, anti-war, and anti-Christian’ stance,” Bucknell sociologist Alexander...