can shame work where lawsuits fail?
The case that Sobel refers to is EFF’s attempt to get more information on the in-process ACTA negotiations. The group filed a lawsuit last year after the government turned over little information. Obama’s new pick for the US Trade Representative has already announced his willingness to be more open on ACTA, but the recent release of ACTA information contained little new material. EFF and Public Knowledge are calling on the government to disclose nearly a thousand pages of additional material. The lawsuit to get that material remains in place, but both groups seem to think that a public shaming might work faster (it would certainly be cheaper). Both groups are especially concerned about the treaty’s Internet section. In the publicly released information, that section remains the least complete, saying only that discussions are underway and no draft text is even available yet. But the treaty could well use the section to deal with “graduated response” laws and ISP filtering, as various i
