Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spoke eloquently last week about freedom of information and what some countries needed to do about it. This cyber-sabre rattling was, however, in  contrast to Vice-President Joe Biden’s “piracy” summit at the White House last year. Biden’s view (as instructed by the “copyright industries” – and I can feel totally happy about using that term now, as even their key lobbyist refers to his clients that way) appears to be that information doesn’t want so much to be free as bought and sold.

There’s another interesting contrast: President Obama’s transparency memo – his first presidential act –  seems to have no impact on the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, who still insists that the ACTA negotiations are a matter of “national security”. It’s an interesting sidenote that almost all the other nations involved in ACTA swear they’ve all urged greater transparency in the negotiations, so one is left wondering which country is actually keeping it secret. Lookin’ at you, Barack! (more…)