Sidney Jourard was one of the brightest shining lights of humanistic psychology. He was fond of saying, repeatedly, that all human behavior is based on either maintaining or enhancing the self-image. There is, of course, a corollary in US law. Call it the prime directive of American jurisprudence: All law is based on maintaining or enhancing corporate profit.
What, you don’t believe that? Here’s three very recent examples.
Victoria Espinel, the US intellectual property czar, has finally released her “Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement” (.pdf; 892KB). It’s an entertainment cartel wet dream, complete with secret treaties, pirate nation watchlists (entertainment cartel executives can nominate countries for inclusion), and evaluations of claims of piracy losses (the US Government Accountability Office has already dismissed these claims as total fabrications).
The document’s section on secret treaties—like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)—is especially disturbing. The section starts out by acknowledging the need for transparency and outlines the Obama administration’s plan for it. But the very same section ends with a complete reversal: “... including consideration of the need for confidentiality in international trade negotiations to facilitate the negotiation process.”
As Cory Doctorow notes, intellectual property treaties have traditionally been handled openly and transparently by the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization. The negotiations were made private by George W. Bush’s ACTA. Obama and his administration have eagerly embraced ACTA, going so far as to intervene in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the text of ACTA itself, claiming a threat to national security.
