I think there is a lot more to it than we know.
The russians for instance are listening to everything we type even a lot of the encrypted stuff and I''ll bet certain things just don't go through because of this.

www.potty.name

I love the "three strikes" provision, where when one is ACCUSED three times of copyright theft one is punished. Reminds me of the story my nephew's Polish girlfriend who saved her father from more than the three year sentence he served for suspicion of having a working printing press by spiriting away an essential element in her book bag, as a schoolchild.

As far as the Trilateral Commission, I can recall that as public affairs director at the Yale radio station in the late '70s, I was solemnly assured that President Carter sat on it. So, with all that shadowy power behind him, I figured that he was a shoe-in for re-election and, when that didn't happen, he'd be paid off for sustaining the loss with cushy corporate or bank board positions so as to end his days in comfort and leisure. Hmmm?

Brooke Gladstone offhandedly tosses in the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group as evidence of crazy conspiracy theories.

Is Gladstone truly so ignorant of ordinary global business practice that she still believes that these groups didn't/don't exist?

Maybe she knows they exist, but she believes that the world's most influential business, political and cultural leaders meet (in the case of the Trilateral Comission, met) every year just to say Hi to each other.

Here's the truth:

David Rockefeller extols the Trilateral Commission in his own memoirs, whilst he admits that he is "conspiring" against the US's best interests, with the view to establishing a world government controlled by the banking industry.

The Bilderberg Group, which includes sitting American government office holders -- who violate the Logan Act every time they visit -- now puts out press releases.

And Gladstone still mocks the idea of their existence and their intent?

Thank God Gladstone doesn't pretend to be a real journalist.

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. - Benito Mussolini

The corporations will continue to make the laws of the world and the U.S. particularly. The ultimate power in the past has resided with kings, the church and now...corporations. (I hope they don't screw up the internet too badly.)

Thank you so much for covering this issue. I think the ACTA will have a huge effect on the public, and the skids are well greased for it to become law. But we don't know what's in it!

I suppose most reporters just don't know how to approach a story about a secret that hasn't been leaked yet.