The Trans-Pacific Partnership

Anonus

This worries me...

If it worries you too, you can sign this petition. I don't ordinarily hawk petitions, but we've got to try to stave this off too!

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Thanks, Obama!

Salix Babylonika

I'm really not willing to believe much Assange says or publishes. Are there any other sources on this?

Aliroz

Why does it worry you, Anonus?  -link not working for me-

Obā-san

even more absurd patent and copyright laws being shoved down our throats

because nobody can seem to recall what patents and copyrights were intended to be for in the first place

Aliroz

Patents and copyrights were always like this. 

See:  RCA vs. Philo T. Farnsworth.

Anonus

Aliroz said:

Why does it worry you, Anonus?  -link not working for me-

It worries me because this has been conducted in secret and it is pretty much like a worse version of SOPA. It wasn't even two years ago that SOPA had the Internet in a frenzy, and there's an implication that - if we even hear about stuff like this again - we're gonna have to fight it every year or two...

I haven't yet found any other sources...

Bee

It's most likely real -- pieces of the agreement got leaked and published by the EFF before the whole thing did, and they jive with this one.

Here's an email I got back from my own congressman.

EDIT: hang on.  Stupid formatting on Heapers is injecting spaces EVERYWHERE.

Bee

Dear Mr. LOLNOPE:

Thanks for your message in opposition to granting President Obama "fast track" trade negotiating authority. We are in complete agreement.

You will be pleased to know that I signed the Rep. DeLauro letter opposing fast track authority. In fact, throughout my time in Congress I have always voted against fast track trade authority and opposed every single free trade agreement. I led the opposition to fast track in 1998. Republicans were happy to deny fast track authority to President Clinton and we were successful in defeating it. Unfortunately, the Republican majority was more than happy to give President Bush fast track authority in 2001.

My opposition to fast track is to protect the constitutional prerogatives of Congress under Article I Section 8, which states that Congress has the sole authority to regulate trade with foreign nations. Additionally, I believe that U.S. workers and the U.S. economy have not been well-served by U.S. trade policies, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), or granting most-favored nation status to China.

While supporters of these agreements promised they would benefit workers, farmers, businesses, and the U.S. economy, the reality has been very different. These "free" trade agreements have decimated the U.S. manufacturing capacity. The U.S. has lost over 5 million family wage manufacturing jobs including 52,000 here in Oregon, and closed over 54,000 factories in the past ten years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. trade policy has made it easier for multinational corporations to chase the cheapest wages and lax environmental, labor, and safety standards around the world at the expense of U.S. workers.

Bee

As you know, the President has requested fast track authority from Congress in order to bring up several free trade agreements like the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) under expedited legislative procedures. Fast track authority blocks amendments and binds Congress to an up or down vote only.

If Congress grants President Obama fast track authority, they will lose yet another opportunity to pursue reforms in our trade policy.

This could not come at a more critical time since final negotiations on the TPP which is the largest FTA to ever be negotiated, are set to conclude by the end of this year.

I have been one of the few vocal critics of the current TPP Free Trade Agreement which has been shrouded in secrecy. President Obama and his staff have had little to no consultation with Members of Congress on the contents of the agreement and their impacts on American workers, businesses, and consumers. I can only view the draft text of the agreement in a secure room, and I'm barred from taking notes or speaking publically about what I read. That is absurd. I don't trust this President or any other President when it comes to negotiating free trade agreements. Fast track will further cede authority to the executive branch and continue to leave Congress in the dark regarding U.S. trade policy.

We need a new trade policy that creates jobs in the U.S., decreases our trade deficit, and levels the playing field with foreign countries by enforcing international trade law. Over the next few months I will be working with like minded colleagues to develop an alternative to fast track that incorporates these values.  

Thanks again for your message.  Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE PETER DeFAZIO
Fourth Congressional District, Oregon

Bee

The key takeaway here is that Congress is legally barred from raising awareness about the actual contents of the agreement, speaking of them at all, or even taking notes.  It is literally all up to us to spread the word and put pressure on our congresscritters.

Here's where I first heard about it.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/another-reason-hate-tpp-it-gives-big-content-new-tools-undermine-sane-digital

Salix Babylonika

I am still not entirely convinced because a lot of this sounds a lot like a Libertarian scare fantasy, but I have signed and shared the petition regardless just in case. At worst, I make myself look foolish.

Aliroz

Serious Response: If this is true, that's really awful that the law prohibits Congress from actually helping people become informed about an issue that has such an effect on people's lives. Such would be a terrible precedent to set, and making that decision without the users of the internet knowing or having any say is a rather disturbing idea.

Silly Response: But us Internet people won last time (SOPA/PIPA). It's the Copyright Guys's turn to win now. That's what taking turns is all about. After a given number of years, we can have the current internet back, when it's our turn again. We lived without internet before and we can do it again!

Tachyon

Pangur Bán said:

because nobody can seem to recall what patents and copyrights were intended to be for in the first place

not only that, but if they could, they wouldn't care, that's the saddest part

this is just yet another cynical move to allow corporations to do whatever the fuck they want without regard for the interests or well-being of regular citizens

Mojave Music said:

I am still not entirely convinced because a lot of this sounds a lot like a Libertarian scare fantasy, but I have signed and shared the petition regardless just in case. At worst, I make myself look foolish.

well, the Guardian reported on it and they're (mostly) respectable, so evidently they think there's some truth to it

given SOPA and the continual surveillance of late, this really doesn't sound absurd to me

Salix Babylonika

It doesn't sound absurd to me either, the internet just has a tendency to push the Panic Button over everything, so I'm always initially skeptical about this sort of thing.

Bee

Well, the last several were stopped or defanged via amendments in large part because it pushed the panic button.

Salix Babylonika

Yeah but there were also like twelve (random guess number) since then that didn't actually do anything bad (in some cases they didn't do anything relevant to the internet at all).

In any case I was just explaining why I was initially skeptical.

Anonus

I think the panic button is something that these things need to press. The Internet is a truly precious thing, and losing it would be a huge blow to us, the people, who effectively control it (there are ISPs, but their grip is thankfully loose compared to the grips held on other media, despite tightenings here and there).

glennmagusharvey

I wonder how many congresscritters are going to be brave enough to leak info about this.

Bee

They wouldn't be the ones leaking anything useful even if they were willing to risk whatever comically over-trumped criminal charges would be brought against them.  They're only allowed to view the agreement in a secure room and not allowed to take notes of any kind.  They don't have access to the text in a digital form of any sort.

Mr. Darcy

It's almost comical how little power Congress has. "All right, the President is graciously allowing you to view the treaty you'll be voting ito law. No cameras and no note paper, or the armed guards will get angry."

Anonus

A mainstream news outlet has something about this; the U.S. seems to be having trouble getting the other countries to agree with them

Anonus

Also I'm going to modify the title because this is way more than "SOPA again"

glennmagusharvey

you could call it "more than just SOPA again"

sunn wolf

this happens every so often, about once a year, the us gets pressured by corporate lobbyists into drawing up steadily more draconian seeming internet control thingies, then it never gets passed because the implementation and getting every country, body etc involved to agree is tortuously complicated and basically borderline impossible, and if anything does get passed the govt has taken so long over it that it cant keep up with the pace of technological change and people can just download shit in some new way.

a dictatorship, or a more rigid, powerful state, would be well capable of Taking Away Our Internets (see: china) but democracy is so goddamn slow and there is so much negotiation that they will never get anywhere in time. especially not with so many countries involved. at least not thru law. the only time they had anyone running scared was when they just flat out fucking shut megaupload down, and even then Kim Fatass or whatever hes called is back playing CoD all day and being a grotesque individual. im not worried. besides i live in the uk so all this is technically irrelevant, lol

thank heavens for democratic inefficiency

sunn wolf

at least that is my impression of it. maybe sopa protests did make a difference. i think it was actually that it wouldve been literally impossible technologically to put it into practice that did for it

Anonus

That's...kind of a ray of hope, honestly.

Anonus

One of my big problems with this is that it would give a steroid injection to the "patent everything" mentality...

Anonus

I started a thread about this over at IJBM with this link in the OP, I figured I ought to post it here as well

Obā-san

Anonus said:

this link

needs more alarmist language

Obā-san

a dangerous and unprecedented veil of secrecy

a binding system of global corporate governance as bold as anything the world’s wealthiest elite has attempted before

wild bastardization of the concept of justice

the massive outsourcing of middle class jobs from the US to countries like Vietnam and Brunei.

it’s a wish list of the 1%—a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions.

a pushback of people power that even a fully militarized Miami police force

bigger, bolder and badder

vicious blackguards tossing doe-eyed puppies down a well

Anonus

The talks have been delayed into January

Perhaps sunn wolf is right, in that democratic inefficiency is hurting the TPP

Anything that renders it DOA in the US is good too

Anonus

Well, I've found this article.

Anonus

I got an email pointing me here

I haven't actually heard a lot about this in a while

As far as I know it's been in the works for the better part of a decade but really nothing has been accomplished

Miss Miko Mayonegg

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/tpp-creates-liabilities-isps-and-put-your-rights-risk

Buttwangs

NO USA! BAD USA! THAT'S THE WRONG TRANS!

Obā-san

Byakuren said:

NO USA! BAD USA! THAT'S THE WRONG TRANS!

pffffffffffffffffffffft

glennmagusharvey

This topic came up in the TVT forums U.S. politics thread.

Someone said that a similar bill with Europe was scuttled, though because of the Manning/Snowden/etc. stuff.  That person also said that both that bill and TPP are dead in the water for now.  Though I still don't know much about it...

also i should buy more humble bundles and donate more money to EFF because they are working to help defend the internet against further intrusions on creative expression

Anonus

The EFF are great...

glennmagusharvey

Not TPP, but net neutrality: http://i.imgur.com/vloM5E4.jpg
supposedly, the article is behind a paywall.
sauce: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13103447000A18674100&page=3105#77618 this post by Demon Shark Kisame on the TVT US Politics thread.

Anonus

Thorn 14 said:

Lately I'm starting to think this country is just not one I can support.

so am I

glennmagusharvey

I support this country; I just don't support these powerful moneyed interests that make life better for themselves at the expense of their competitors and/or the rest of us.

Frankly speaking, these interests aren't even country-specific.

Anonus

So there seems to be movement on this thing again

Sredni Vashtar

Notice that the "advances made" are vague in the extreme.

Let's be blunt here: The American people will not accept another NAFTA, let alone one that is being negotiated by a secret committee and actively infringes on national sovereignty, being pushed by an ostensibly liberal presidency. No-one wants Japanese businessmen having a say in American law enforcement. If it comes anywhere close to passing, the uproar will be deafening.

lee4hmz

I'm still not sure why all this has to be conducted in secret anyway, especially if it concerns trade. 

Then again, I suspect the DVD Forum is involved somehow, and they've never been friendly to outsiders. (Yes, I'm calling it: The IP parts of the bill are there solely because someone at Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba wanted them there.) 

Sredni Vashtar

lee4hmz said:

I'm still not sure why all this has to be conducted in secret anyway, especially if it concerns trade. 

The business wing of the DPP and the government of Brunei aren't exactly democratic entities.

lee4hmz

Hmm, Brunei is a sultanate, and I'm not sure what the DPP is, but that sounds iffy right from the start.

Anonus

Sony. They own Columbia, so they have extra incentive...

Sredni Vashtar

lee4hmz said:

I'm not sure what the DPP is, but that sounds iffy right from the start.

Self-correction: The LDP, or the Liberal Democratic Party. It is the current governing party of Japan, but is really more like a coalition of smaller parties led by three larger parties: The Heisei Kenkyukai and the Kouchi Kai, who came out of the Liberal Party and have populist and social liberal tendencies respectively; and the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyukai, formerly of the Japan Democratic Party, who represent big business and are very nationalistic and authoritarian. The latter are currently the most powerful, and the furthest to the right on basically every front.

lee4hmz

I see, so you essentially have Japan's version of the Tea Party running things.

This is pretty much the 2010s equivalent of the Business Plot, isn't it. :(

Sredni Vashtar

They're really not as extreme as the Tea Party, although their origins definitely have a whiff of the jackboot about them, to put it very politely. Several of their leaders through the years have had strong ties to historical revisionist organisations with fascist bents, and the spiritual precursor to the faction, former PM Ichiro Hatoyama, was a favourite of deranged ultranationalists who contemplated assassinating Shigeru Yoshida—the head of the Liberal faction and then PM himself—in order to instal him in something very similar to the Business Plot. Hatoyama probably never discovered this, and was far too stand-up a guy to go along with it, but he was very right-wing.