I don't exactly agree with this analysis of the failure of ACTA, the "anti-counterfeiting trade agreement", but I'm quite interested in the article because it analyzes its failure on moral and ethical grounds. Some aspects of the agreement are clearly problematic: its attack on free expression, its erosion of privacy. But according to the author, the process carries no ethical implications. So it's OK that it was negotiated in secret, without public consultation, outside existing international bodies. Here's the moral principle at work here: "agreements should be evaluated, ethically, for what they are, rather than for the alleged reasons why they are being proposed." Really? Is this true? I don't think this is a position that can be sustained - I think that the context of a policy and the intent behind it are as important, ewthiclly, as the content of the proposal itself. After all, "walk forward in a straight line" is ethically harmless, but when it's being used to march people off a cliff, it is ethically challenged. Via Michael Geist.
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