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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law. See, for example, Medellen v. Texas:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Mede...

"We conclude that neither Avena nor the President’s Memorandum constitutes directly enforceable federal law that pre-empts state limitations on the filing of successive habeas petitions."

If they want this to become law in the US, they will have to follow the usual process. If they want criminal sanctions without trials, as the treaty proposes, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. (The fact that enforcing these laws will be technically impossible is another annoying issue.)

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It doesn't matter what they negotiate, treaties do not become US law.

Your link does not support that claim. What the link says is that some treaties are self-executing. Those are automatically US law. Others are not self-executing, and require legislation to be passed. The ruling is that the Vienna convention is not self-executing, and therefore needs legislation to come into effect.

Whether this particular copyright treaty would be self-executing depends on a court ruling on the details of the treaty. Given that lawyers are involved in drawing it up, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them design it to be self-executing in the USA. As for the Constitution, I'm so used to seeing attempted and actual end runs around it that I wouldn't be confident that it will stop them from enacting the copyright rules they want.

You're wrong- treaties are not only law, but they trump the constitution. Your link involves a technicality in a particular treaty, not treaties in general.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land" is the usual money quote.

They don't "trump" the constitution so much as they are co-equal with it.

"Trump" usually has the meaning of supersede. I think the GP quote makes it clear ratified treaties supersede other provisions of the constitution - "shall be the supreme Law of the Land" seems pretty clear.

No, that's my point--ratified treaties don't supersede the Constitution, and a careful reading of the Constitution doesn't allow for them to.

Most countries require ratification of treaties by the representatives of the people. Is this not so in the US?

Yes I think it is 2/3rds of the senate.

Really, the only way I know how to make a living is online. This would definitely change things.

But the more I think of it, I believe we'll be alright. Those in the web space have a certain scrappiness to them. I've always disliked rules and bureaucracy. That's why I'm here, and not in a Fortune 500 or jerking off politicians.

I find a way to scoot around bullshit rules now, and I'll scoot around them if this is passed.

Most people I know and work with have one thing in common: their job is to make disruptive technology that people love. Rules or no rules, nothing can stop them, as long as they have the best interest of the user in mind.

Nothing can change that.

According to a Freedom House report (http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=463), only about 50-60 countries can be classified as "democratic" or "free", so I think saying "many" countries instead of "most" would be more appropriate.

No, we require it of the Senate. (sighs)

No, our treaties are ratified by representatives of corporations. Corporations buy reps and those reps vote for laws proposed by the corporations.

Anyone with a 6th grade reading level can see this is true. However, the courts apparently don't have this degree of understanding.

See, for example, the SCOTUS decision in US v Emerson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Emerson ). This case involved the so-called "Lautenberg Amendment", which forever denies access to firearms to anyone who has been the target of a restraining order in a domestic dispute. You'll note that such a restraining order does not involve any sort of due process. Nonetheless, the Court ruled that Dr. Emerson was not deprived of his 2nd Amendment rights.

Yes, but it's a lot easier to pass the "WTO 2009 Compliance Act" than the "Copyright Act of 2009". For starters, they'd bundle the copyright stuff with a pile of other trade stuff, and it'd be cast as "fulfilling our trade obligations", not "giving crazy rights to Disney and friends".

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