That's a good point that good international negotiators understand the US process. This is why European trade partners have been disturbed by the lack of democratic ratification and by US statements about the non-binding nature of the agreement. They didn't start the process on the understanding that the US would treat the final document as a voluntary standard instead of a commitment. Europeans plan to treat it as a binding international treaty if signed and aren't best pleased with the idea of an asymmetric partnership through ACTA. And this supports the points I made (again, we agree) about the international position. The executive agreement undermines both the purpose of ACTA as a new standard and the efforts to oppose it.

It occurs to me that ACTA changed a lot over the years and the final text excluded a lot of the language the US wanted in (and the same is true for other parties as well). So to engage in rampant speculation, another possibility is that the USTR (who I put in the drivers seat on this) is trying to give itself room to expand the new standard later. Doing that through ACTA would be difficult, because the document is designed to be hard to change. Therefore, the US may want to leave itself a way out.

Even as this story falls off the front page, I want to quickly come back at you, because I like your perspective. I haven't been following the public statements from the White House about ACTA. I should look for that.

Let's set aside the constitutionality of an ACTA signed and executed on the sole authority of the president, because I think we agree on that. In real political terms, I don't think that the current illegitimate or half-way legitimate status of the agreement/treaty as it stands is good for the interests of either opponents or those in favour of ACTA.

One important purpose of ACTA seems to be to promote a new set of international standards for the enforcement of intellectual property law. That purpose is undermined if the US seems to be uncommitted to it. Similarly, if ACTA is supposed to provide a more favourable, more exclusive venue for development of international IP law than WIPO and the WTO, another apparent goal of the process, the US doesn't advance that objective by undermining the treaty's domestic legitimacy. ACTA as some sort of variation of a sole executive agreement isn't good for ACTA partisans. When you're looking for international agreement, you don't want to be splitting legal hairs.

The current status of ACTA in the US isn't good for ACTA opponents either. For one thing, ACTA is at least superficially in effect, or will be, so the main goal of opponents seems to have failed. Even if the ACTA signing were to be declared unconstitutional in America, however, there remains the question of international legitimacy. The fact of the USA having signed ACTA puts the state under an international obligation to abide by it. That obligation has unpredictable effects and cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant imposition on a sovereign country. It can affect other US interests. It complicates opposition to the treaty through rhetoric and legal argument inside the US. That's not quite as strongly put as I'd like, but I can't spend a lot of time on it.

I suppose it's possible that the administration is playing some very deep political game. It could be trying to undermine the international IP regime, but I don't believe it is, at least not without instituting a modified replacement, which is what I think ACTA is supposed to be. It could be trying to leave the status of ACTA uncertain so that the TPP can eventually supersede it as the standard for international IP enforcement. That strikes me as superficially more likely, but still a bit paranoid.

I agree that the administration is overstepping its constitutional authority. The questions that come up after that are interesting. Why is it doing that? What does that choice reveal about the interests of the ACTA partisans in the US? Who is that choice good for? I think it's basically bad for everybody. I think it's a political and legal bad call. The best would have been if ACTA had gotten its day in the sun and been rejected. However even if it had been accepted by the legislature, that would have been a better situation than the one we find ourselves in.

I'm being trolled, aren't I? What you've latched on to is the minor point of my comment. You can leave it out if you prefer. The upshot of what I was saying is that added steps in the ratification/signing process are good for opponents of ACTA.

Obviously, it's only possible to guess at other people's motivations, which ultimately remain a black box. However, I don't think that the specific self-interested motive you assign to Ron Wyden explains his behaviour convincingly. These points are in no particular order.

First off, Senator Wyden has a record of opposing and complicating the ACTA process. If he were hoping to receive money from lobbyists who want ACTA to come into effect, I think that either he would already be in their pay by now, or he would have realised that the lobbyists have decided to focus their campaign money influence buying on other senators who more broadly share their outlook.

I think lobbyists focus their campaign money influence buying on senators and candidates who more broadly share their outlook. Ron Wyden is one of fifty and is not carrying the day with his demands that ACTA be subject to senate approval. He's just not going to get paid for opposing the interests of the people he hopes will pay him off.

Then again, the way you worded your comment falls into a simple logical fallacy of confusing the part with the whole. Wyden's letter doesn't represent a broad consensus among senators that ACTA should be subject to senate approval. Its just him. There's not much evidence, therefore, of the senate as a whole being 'mad' over this issue.

Also, some of Senator Wyden's previous letters to the USTR about ACTA come during an election year, last year, when Wyden's seat was in question. That would have been the time to pander to the lobby that supports ACTA, if at any time, but Wyden didn't.

That's a selection of a few of the reasons why I think the idea that "he just wants his reward" from entertainment industry lobbyists and others doesn't stand up to even cursory scrutiny.

I think my explanation's better for a few reasons, but I'm not committed to it, and I don't think it's the only explanation. As far is it goes (a single sentence, proposing that Senator Wyden cares about the content of ACTA) I think it's correct. As I say, Wyden has a bit of a track record on this and has gone on record before about being concerned about ACTA provisions.

Of course, Senator Wyden comes from a state with an important computer industry, which has generally opposed ACTA. This has to be left in general terms because I don't know the details of the Oregon computer industry's stance on ACTA, but I would guess that if he's in the pay of anyone, it's the side that opposes ACTA. Furthermore, I imagine that position will play better in his district.

Finally, and not least, I think that the Senator from Oregon is using a point of order as a means of expressing concerns about the content of the proposed agreement because that's a senate pattern. That's how congress in general uses rules of procedure, as a way of slowing, or stopping legislation, for example, that congresspeople oppose. It's safer politically to bring up a point of order because then a lawmaker doesn't have to give away his or her rhetorical hand and the congressperson can possibly prevent the passage of something without having to oppose it. That's common, and I think that's what's going on here.

I'll continue agreeing, then. The European Union, for one (or for 25) has called ACTA a treaty, so if the US treats it as non-binding (as it legally should be, at the moment, under US law) and doesn't follow the agreement, or a state undertakes a policy that diverges from the text of ACTA, everyone may end up in an arbitration process, and domestic law has no standing there. So there's a risk to the US in taking this route.

I have a little bit of a problem with people attributing blame for this to the president under any administration. I think the initiative comes from other places, perhaps from the USTR, but probably directly from industry lobbyists. I'm sorry I'm not plugged in enough to know exactly who got ACTA on the table in the first place, (the Japanese premier announced it, but he certainly didn't come up with the idea) but I think it's probably presented to the US president without dissenting opinions. Obviously it's his responsibility, but attributing it to his policy priorities is probably misguided.