This is a real thing. https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-to-know-about-the-trans-pacific-partnership/ http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/02/05/study-media-leave-viewers-in-the-dark-about-tra/197932 http://keionline.org/tpp From the Washington Post's wonkblog: http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/jstiglitzTPP.pdf (Nobel-prize-winning economist @ Columbia business school):
It's actually pretty fucking horrendous. USA using it's big stick bully pulpit again, to coerce 3rd world countries into docile submission. But that's just my take.
Here's the previous thread about this: https://whyweprotest.net/threads/tr...p-the-most-corrupt-trade-deal-to-date.114657/ Hollywood is Lobbying Government to Put You in Prison for Common Online Activity | The Free Thought Project The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) poses massive threats to users in a dizzying number of ways. It will force other TPP signatories to accept the United States’ excessive copyright terms of a minimum of life of the author plus 70 years, while locking the US to the same lengths so it will be harder to shorten them in the future. It contains extreme DRM anti-circumvention provisions that will make it a crime to tinker with, hack, re-sell, preserve, and otherwise control any number of digital files and devices that you own. The TPP will encourage ISPs to monitor and police their users, likely leading to more censorship measures such as the blockage and filtering of content online in the name of copyright enforcement. And in the most recent leak of the TPP’s Intellectual Property chapter, we found an even more alarming provision on trade secrets that could be used to crackdown on journalists and whistleblowers who report on corporate wrongdoing. Here, we’d like to explore yet another set of rules in TPP that will chill users’ rights. Those are the criminal enforcement provisions, which based upon the latest leak from May 2014 is still a contested and unresolved issue. It’s about whether users could be jailed or hit with debilitating fines over allegations of copyright infringement. Continued here: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/hollywood-lobbying-government-put-prison-common-online-activity/
Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Treaty: State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Issues for Ministerial Guidance Today, 29 July 2015, WikiLeaks releases a secret letter from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP or TPPA) Ministerial Meeting in December 2013, along with a comprehensive expert analysis of the document. https://www.wikileaks.org/tpp-soe-minister/ WikiLeaks is raising €100,000 reward for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership 'TTIP' Published by TheWikiLeaksChannel on August 11, 2015 €100,000 reward for Europe's most wanted secret. The TTIP is a multi-trillion dollar international treaty that is being negotiated in secret between the United States and the European Union. It remains secret almost in its entirety, closely guarded by the negotiators, and only big corporations are given special access to its terms. The TTIP covers half of global GDP and is one of the largest agreements of its kind in history. The TTIP aims to create a global economic bloc outside of the WTO framework, as part of a geopolitical economic strategy against the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has dubbed the TTIP an "economic NATO," comparing it to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance. Over the last two years WikiLeaks has published chapters from two other secret global trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), despite unprecedented efforts by negotiating governments to keep them under wraps. Together with the TTIP, these treaties represent the "Three Big T's", affecting 53 countries, 1.6 billion people and covering two thirds of the global economy. They aim to create a new international legal regime allowing transnational corporations to bypass domestic courts, evade environmental protections, police the internet on behalf of the content industry, limit the availability of affordable generic medicines, and drastically curtail each country's legislative sovereignty. Of the "Three Big T's", the TTIP remains the least exposed to public scrutiny, and the most significant to the interests of the European public. https://wikileaks.org/pledge/ WikiLeaks goes after hyper-secret Euro-American trade pact https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-goes-after-hyper-secret.html
WikiLeaks @wikileaks 30 minutes ago #TPP trade deal agreement announcement is imminent. Press Conference in Atlanta scheduled for 4 PM EST. WikiLeaks @wikileaks 20 minutes ago WikiLeaks Retweeted Richard Madan #TPP deal reached according to reporter at meeting Richard Madan @RichardMadan 22 minutes ago A burst of energy filled hotel after word #TPP deal reached. I'm up live on @ctvnewschannel in moments to bring latest. #elxn42 Richard Madan @RichardMadan 7 minutes ago Canada says #TPP agreement "close"; won't go as far as Japan & Mexico that says imminent. So not a done deal yet. #canpoli #elxn42 After five years of negotiations, Pacific trade talks near deal | Reuters A dozen Pacific nations closed in on a sweeping free trade pact on Sunday in Atlanta after a breakthrough over how long monopoly pharmaceutical companies should be given on new biotech drugs. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/04/trade-tpp-idUSL1N1240DD20151004
Richard Madan @RichardMadan 8 minutes ago Hearing the 12 Minister #TPP news conference will be delayed past 16:00 eastern time. But room is set up. #elxn42 #cdnpoli Richard Madan @RichardMadan 1 minute ago Yup, confirmed. #TPP Ministerial news conference delayed to 18:00 eastern time. #elxn42 #cdnpoli
Richard Madan @RichardMadan 2 minutes ago From US Trade Rep: #TPP Ministerial News Conference "Delayed Until Further Notice". So is agreement still on? Or fizzling? #canpoli
"They're trashing our rights, man. They're-they're trashing the flow of data. Trashing. Trashing! Trashing!! Hack the planet! HACK THE PLANET!" Sorry, couldn't resist.
Richard Madan @RichardMadan 2 minutes ago Wow - #TPP Ministerial news conference cancelled until "sometime tomorrow morning". Negotiations are continuing. #cdnpoli
Richard Madan @RichardMadan 1 minute ago #TPP News Conference pushed back, but several Japanese TV crews scrambling to hit noon 'casts in Tokyo. #media
Anonymous' political adviser weighs in: Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 4 minutes ago The incompetence of our current administration is beyond comprehension. TPP is a terrible deal.
TPP deal reached: 12 countries strike Pacific Rim trade accord What Washington Isn’t Saying About the TPP ‘Victory’ TPP Trade Agreement Passed
12 Nations Agree to Deal on Controversial TPP in Atlanta By Derrick Broze, The Anti-Media “Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam are pleased to announce that we have successfully concluded the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations,” stated U.S Trade Representative Michael Froman early Monday morning. The ministerial meeting in Atlanta was expected to conclude on Friday but dragged into Monday morning because of disagreements on dairy products and pharmaceutical regulation. The controversial trade agreement must now be approved by the twelve individual nation-states before it can officially become law. In the United States, President Obama must wait a minimum of 90 days before signing the agreement, and the full text of the agreement must be made publicly available for at least 60 days. This means that a congressional vote on the TPP will not likely happen before January. President Obama promised that “Congress and the American people will have months to read every word” and stated that passing the agreement “can help our businesses sell more Made in America goods and services around the world, and we can help more American workers compete and win.” In late June, President Obama signed into law the so-called “fast-track” bill that set the stage for approval of the TPP. The fast-track bill, officially known as the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), was one of two bills signed by Obama. The president also signed the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act (TAA), aimed at extending aid to workers who might lose their jobs as a consequence of the TPP or other so-called free trade deals. At Monday’s press conference in Atlanta, USTR Michael Froman discussed the expected benefits of approving the massive trade agreement that will affect 40% of the global economy. We expect this agreement to promote economic growth, support higher paying jobs, enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness, raise living standards, reduce poverty in our countries, and promote transparency in governance and strong labor and environmental protections,” Froman stated. Critics say the agreement’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement, or ISDS, will give corporations loopholes to escape accountability and empower international bodies, overriding national sovereignty of the signing nations. Under ISDS, foreign corporations would be allowed to appeal legal decisions to international tribunals rather than face domestic courts. Critics fear this could lead to a loss of sovereignty and the enrichment of transnational corporations. In a recent statement, President Obama did not address critics of the trade deal who believe it will erode the sovereignty of individual nation-states. Instead, he took the opportunity to criticize the Republican Party. “Within the Republican Party, some of the same impulses that are anti-immigration reform, some of the same impulses that see the entire world as a threat, and we’ve got to wall ourselves off, some of those same impulses start creeping into the trade debate, and a party that was traditionally pro-free trade now has a substantial element that may feel differently,” Obama stated. Before the conclusion of the trade deal, fifteen different organizations signed an open letter asking TPP negotiators to provide public safeguards for copyrighted works. These groups include Australian Digital Alliance, Consumer NZ (New Zealand), Copia Institute (United States), Creative Commons (International), Electronic Frontier Foundation (United States, Australia), Hiperderecho (Peru), Futuristech Info (International), Global Exchange (International), iFixit (International), New Media Rights (United States), ONG Derecho Digitales (Chile), Open Media (Canada), Public Citizen (United States), and Public Knowledge (United States). The authors of the letter state that copyright restricts important, everyday use of creative works. The groups call on the negotiators to be open to new changes that require participating nations to develop balanced and flexible rules on copyrights. The letter also highlights four key concerns from the organizations: retroactive copyright term extension, a ban on circumvention of technology protection measures, “heavy-handed criminal penalties and civil damages,” and trade secret rules that could criminalize investigative journalism and whistleblowers reporting on corporate wrongdoing. As the EFF writes, “Despite its earlier promises that the TPP would bring ‘greater balance’ to copyright more than any other recent trade agreement, the most recent leak of the Intellectual Property chapter belies their claims. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has still failed to live up to its word that it would enshrine meaningful public rights to use copyrighted content in this agreement.” The TPP is not only facing resistance from electronic privacy groups, but from grassroots activists and concerned professionals around the world. Both the Anglican and Catholic churches of New Zealand have demanded the government be more transparent about the negotiations. Radio NZ reports that bishops from the churches are concerned with the lack of openness and that corporate interests are influencing the agreement while the people are being excluded. The churches also called on the New Zealand government to make the draft text of the agreement public. Doctors Without Borders released a statement following the conclusion of negotiations: “Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) expresses its dismay that TPP countries have agreed to United States government and multinational drug company demands that will raise the price of medicines for millions by unnecessarily extending monopolies and further delaying price-lowering generic competition. The big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries. Although the text has improved over the initial demands, the TPP will still go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries, which will be forced to change their laws to incorporate abusive intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical companies.” In early February, doctors and health professionals representing seven countries released a letter warning the TPP will lead to higher medical costs for all nations. The letter, published in The Lancet Medical Journal, states, “Rising medicine costs would disproportionately affect already vulnerable populations.” The doctors called on the governments involved in the trade deal to publicly release the full text of the agreement. They also demanded an independent analysis of the effects on health and human rights for each nation involved in the deal. Also in February, an analysis by The Washington Post revealed the U.S. government’s numbers on expected job increases from TPP are not factually correct. The Fact Checker examined several quotes from government officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Both Kerry and Vilsack claimed the international trade agreement would create 650,000 new jobs. However, these numbers do not take into account income gains and changing wages. According to the government’s own sources, imports and exports would increase by the same amount — resulting in a net number of zero new jobs. What are the people of the twelve nations supposed to do now? The massive trade deal is expected to pass in the United States, and American politicians will do their part to pressure the other eleven nations into approving the agreement. This means one of President Obama’s last measures while in office will be the passage of a corporate trade deal opposed by the majority of Americans who are actually paying attention. The TPP is just the latest step in a dangerous march towards a global corporate oligarchy. We must not rely on corporate-state power to build a future worth living. It’s time for those of us who see what is happening to step out of line, start marching to our own beat, and create the path towards the future we want to see. This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Derrick Broze and theAntiMedia.org. Source: http://theantimedia.org/12-nations-agree-to-deal-on-controversial-tpp-in-atlanta/
Obama: 'The American People Will Have Months to Read Every Word' of the TPP | Motherboard The United States and 11 countries around the world tentatively agreed on the language for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the largest trade agreements in the history of the world. What does the agreement say? Well, no one knows yet. The secrecy surrounding the actual text of the partnership has been one of many issues digital civil rights groups have raised with the agreement: Parts of it have leaked throughout the nine-year negotiations, and it appears as though the agreement has language that would change how the internet works. Among the issues that have already come out: TPP could rewrite foreign copyright law to be more similar to those in the United States, its environmental section is flawed, it could make prescription drugs more expensive in developing nations, and it generally favors the interests of corporations over the interests of people. Continued here: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ob...ill-have-months-to-read-every-word-of-the-tpp
What We Know So Far About Digital Rights in the Still Secret Final TPP Text | Electronic Frontier Foundation Trade negotiators announced their agreement over the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Monday, and yet the exact terms of the deal remain as secret as ever. For more than five years, we have been given a series of dubious justifications for keeping the text under close wraps. Now that it's done, there is absolutely no reason they should not release it immediately. All we have are a series of official memos and statements that have begun to shed light on what's in the final draft of the trade agreement. From them, we've begun to be able to piece together just how terrible the TPP will be for the Internet and our digital rights internationally. Continued here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/...ut-digital-rights-still-secret-final-tpp-text
Edward Snowden @Snowden 4 hours ago New chapter of secret #TPP deal, limiting access to medicine and IP, unveiled by @Wikileaks. https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip3/
Wikileaks release of TPP deal text stokes 'freedom of expression' fears | The Guardian Intellectual property rights chapter appears to give Trans-Pacific Partnership countries’ countries greater power to stop information from going public. http://www.theguardian.com/business...ases-tpp-intellectual-property-rights-chapter Internet Providers Would Be Forced to Block Filesharing Sites Under TPP | Motherboard Digital rights advocates’ worst fears were confirmed on Friday morning after the finalized intellectual property chapter of the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was leaked by Wikileaks, just days after talks concluded in Atlanta. Under the agreement, it appears that internet service providers could be forced to block websites hosting content that infringes copyright. The leaked copyright chapter of the TPP is just a portion of the text that all 12 negotiating nations agreed upon. The rest of the agreement will remain a closely-guarded secret until the full text is released in the coming months. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/in...e-forced-to-block-filesharing-sites-under-tpp
Why the TPP Is Literally the Worst Trade Deal Ever http://theantimedia.org/why-the-tpp-is-literally-the-worst-trade-deal-ever/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-asks-people-to-read-tpp-deal-themselves/article/2575999 I'm sure there will be plenty of anons that will accept this challenge. Hopefully this will expose this horrible deal for what it is.
MSNBC Cuts Away From Bernie Sanders as He Condemns Trans-Pacific Partnership MSNBC cut away from a live Bernie Sanders press conference this afternoon as the Democratic presidential candidate was talking about his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Watch the cutaway: <snipped> “You’ve been listening to Bernie Sanders, less of a press conference, more of a speech. I want to turn back to the Republican side of things,” said Kate Snow, as she pivoted to news of Ted Cruz firing a press spokesperson. MSNBC owner Comcast has lobbied for the TPP. Last year, it fired host Ed Schultz, an outspoken opponent of the agreement. A Media Matters study found that outside of Schultz’s show, the TPP was mentioned only twice on MSNBC during an 18-month period. Last year, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough admitted to The Intercept that his network was “guilty” of ignoring the TPP. The full article is here: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/22...ers-as-he-condemns-trans-pacific-partnership/
