It is not easy to make good policies on health care reform when you don't have good information. So it is surprising that the Administration is opposing a measure to have more openness about pharma industry economics.

In recent years, there has been a push for greater transparency of the...

I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is seeking to block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities.

The most favorable explanation for what is going on this week in Geneva is that Hillary Clinton and Obama are not following what key Bush hold-overs are about to do. The less favorable explanation is that Secretaries Clinton (State) and Sebelius (HHS) and the Obama White House are closely working...

What do President Obama, Vice President Biden, Toni Morrison, the Pope, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Isaac Asimov, Tom Brokaw, P.D. James, Robert B. Reich, George Will and Ann Coulter have in common? In the last few days, they have all disabled books available on the Kindle 2, so...

One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society is the free software movement. The most famous and influential leader of this movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the value of a new model for software development and the various risks to that model. He...

As has been written about extensively in the press and the blogsphere, the Authors Guild has pressured Amazon to disable the text to speech feature in Kindle 2. This has set of a storm of opposition among groups that see the Guild's actions as harmful to access for persons who...

We have been seeking access to documents relating to negotiations on an important new intellectual property enforcement treaty. The agreement, misleadingly named the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, is thought to cover a wide range of intellectual property enforcement issues -- including standards for granting injunctions for alleged infringement of...

Around the 30th of April, the United States Trade Representative will issue something called the "Special 301 Report." The USTR 301 report, while practically unknown within the United States, will make front page news in many developing countries. USTR describes the report as follows:

The "Special 301" Report is an...

Sometimes you just have to say no. The Obama administration is now faced with a merger so obviously harmful, that if it doesn't say no, it will send the signal that it could care less about consumers, artists, and small businesses.

This week the U.S. Senate and the...

On Facebook, I have seen two campaigns to make Carl Malamud the new head of the Government Printing Office (GPO). Carl is the subject of this affection because he has spent considerable time and ingenuity to open up government records, so they are accessible to everyone. ( See here...

Today IP-Watch has an amazing story of an Obama administration trip to Geneva to discuss intellectual property issues. Apparently the USPTO organized the trip, which included several Obama officials, plus these congressional staff:

Christal Sheppard, counsel for House of Reprentatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan (Democrat); John...

On Tuesday, Maureen Dowd had a funny and somewhat insightful column in the New York Times, but it seems a bit like she is still sleepwalking through her column, and unsure how to use her considerable talents and opportunities. Dowd is a biting writer, has amazing access to people...

In the past several days there are some new details about about a secret treaty negotiation to create binding global norms for the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The negotiation involves something called the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA). It has very little to do with counterfeiting -- the scope...

I'm in Belém, a city in Northern Brazil, just having given a talk at the new World Forum on Science and Democracy -- an event affiliated with with World Social Forum. There are supposed to be more than 100,000 persons attending this event, but it seems as though...

On the whole, the Democrats in Congress are more willing to protect consumer interests, civil rights, and protect many other values, than are Republicans. But unfortunately, often not by much. One example where the Democrats have been a huge disappointment concerns a trade agreement being negotiated on the enforcement of...

Back when campaign spending was limited by law, there was an effective quota on taking money from special interests. After the cap was reached, it was more effective to do favours for voters than corporate interests. One way to do this was to support consumer protection initiatives.

Politicians once made...

Obama's transition team is very large, and some the key advisors are not listed on the change.gov web page. It's difficult to sort things out. Malini Aisola has looked at one small slice of the transition, the team leaders for the Economics and International Trade. This includes 14 persons from...

Caroline Kennedy is campaigning for the U.S. Senate. She does not have a record of public service. It may be useful to know something about her views. These are a few questions that I would pose.

Financial Markets. What specifically would you do to improve transparency, honesty and soundness...

Twenty years ago I worked for a very large privately owned pension fund consultant, advising Shell, GM, IBM and other blue chip companies, as well as the Royal Family of Kuwait and a handful of other wealthy clients. In many respects, this was a great job. We were paid (and...

In 2007, I wrote several blogs in the Huffpo on the topic of Nursultan Nazarbayev, "the brutal and corrupt dictator of Kazakhstan and friend of politicians in high places." One was "the well connected dictator," an article that linked to a timeline about Kazakhstan.

A lot has...