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WikiLeaks Publishes Secret International Trade Agreement
schwit1 (797399) writes "The text of a 19-page, international trade agreement being drafted in secret was published by WikiLeaks as the transparency group's editor commemorated his two-year anniversary confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Fifty countries around the globe have already signed on to the Trade in Service Agreement, or TISA, including the United States, Australia and the European Union. Despite vast international ties, however, details about the deal have been negotiated behind closed-doors and largely ignored by the press. In a statement published by the group alongside the leaked draft this week, WikiLeaks said "proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets," and have participated in "a significant anti-transparency maneuver" by working secretly on a deal that covers more than 68 percent of world trade in services, according to the Swiss National Center for Competence in Research.
we can fix this.
Anybody with me???
Hello?
Is this thing on?
|(T)he US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data.|
Perhaps the traffic between nodes will give the NSA some useful information about people's transactions to "Keep us safe." Or the US IRS about offshore deposits?
The events of the last five or six years have proven that financial markets and institutions have been over regulated.
This thing is bad. It completely bypasses all the traditional controls of democracy. The people will have no say in it even tho its their money and lives. We need to keep the heat on this kind of thing just like SOPA only much, much more.... some good analysis and commentary over at Naked Capitalism these guys tell it like it is. Basically its looking like a global corporatocracy.
C|N>K
That's what I'm wondering. Who thought people working on the followup to the massively-deregulating GATS treaty were working to *increase* regulation on financial services?
Next up: a breaking, top secret release about how people in secret meetings at the NRA are discussing strategy about how to keep the US from passing stricter gun laws!
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
So, this agreement is about "Financial Services". In the section called "Transparency", it says:
"The Parties recognize that transparent regulations and policies governing the activities of financial service suppliers are important in facilitating their ability to gain access to and operate in each other’s market. Each Party commits to promote regulatory transparency in trade in financial services."
But then the whole agreement is secret. Great transparency there! It's kind of difficult to take this crap seriously.
One day the US may elect a government that isn’t Republican-controlled, but today is not that day.
All treaties are negotiated in secret. Furthermore, at least in the US, no treaty is in effect until it is ratified by the Senate, at which point all the elements of the treaty will be public and heavily debated down to the last comma.
It's great that Wikileaks is giving the world a heads-up view into what is being negotiated, but I don't understand why every Slashdot story about international treaties harps on "negotiated in secret" like that's unusual, or that a treaty can somehow take effect silently and invisibly.
"95% of all Slashdot
This is yet another salacious post to garner attention. Here are a few things wrong with the post.
1. It is impossible to sign on to an agreement that is still in negotiation.
2. It is not a secret agreement as it's existence is posted in many places and some governments are asking for public consultation. The final text will be made available a debated when, and if, the countries involved vote on it.
3. No international treaty is ever made public till the the final draft. Negotiators need to be free to negotiate.
4. Many of these agreements never get to final draft as agreement sometimes is never reached,
4. The agreement will not come into effect unless ratified by the duly elected governments of the countries involved. Until then no one has "signed on".
Perhaps the reason behind this post is that WikiLeaks is not trending enough.
Fifty countries around the globe have already signed [...] including [...] the European Union.
Who cares about a secret trade agreement? Of course there are secret agreements... But that the EU finally shows its true colours - this is the news!
I love this quote from the article;
Additionally, the current draft also includes language inferring that, upon the finishing of negotiations, the document will be kept classified for five full years.
It makes it sound like the annex will not be seen for 5 years after it is in effect.
Here is the reason from the actual document;
This document must be protected from unauthorized disclosure, but may be mailed or transmitted over unclassified e-mail or fax, discussed over unsecured phone lines, and stored on unclassified computer systems. It must be stored in a locked or secured building, room, or container.
It refers to the current document as it is a draft. The final document will not have this clause as it will need to be debated before it can be passed by each country. WikiLeaks is again playing on the general lack of understanding of how complex treaties are and need to be negotiated.
I am giving up my modeator opportunity on this just to call you a troll.
Who's talking about surprise!?
This is information coming into the open, that's what it is.
The NRA isn't a government-run organization. Certainly if their membership is opposed to secret meetings they can and should take it up within the NRA organization.
But the Government is all of ours.
Things can be agreed upon before the official formal agreement happens. This is not unusual. Business meetings do this all the time before the lawyers get into the details of writing up the formal agreement which can literally take months to get a final deal.
This this means is that officials and governments have signed on to the basics the financial industry bribed them to do. It is more likely they will follow thru officially later one because of the power of the banksters over the world.
Also, I do not claim to understand how all governments function; some of the governments may be capable of officially "signing on" to open ended deals before they are formalized. A dictator for example could do something like this (and just as easily break their word later on;) a verbal general agreement would be possible.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I'm just going to re-quote this for emphasis:
"
C|N>K
The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014 is now in Congress to revive the expired "Fast Track Authority," and should be opposed by anyone against TPP, TISA, etc. I was originally supportive of Fast Track, but I think it has been badly abused and is dangerous to the constitutional separation of powers. It has expired; like Frankenstein's monster, it would be best if were not resurrected.
1. Negotiate secret deals to deregulate
2. Watch the collapse
3. Create one-world-currency-system
4. Profit! (for them) Enslavement! (for the rest of us)
Meanwhile, the people they hire to use guns and other enforcement measures are "just doing their jobs."
Regulation is always put in to prevent "stupid things" from happening. Remove the regulation and stupid things will resume.
It is not particularly surprising, but it is, however, news. That unfortunately we have come to expect sleazy results from these "Trade Agreements" (which are not really about trade, and should properly be Treaties) does not mean that we can ignore yet another example of sleaze.
Canada was openly ridiculed by the US for not deregulating its financial industry right up until the financial disaster. By an large, Canada escaped disaster that plagued the other G8 countries in the banking meltdown.
So, we have recent proof that strict financial regulation works and yet they want to keep doubling down on deregulation?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Really? It's the realm of "fat internet neckbeard conspiracy theorists" that the successor to a massively deregulating treaty would be a massively deregulating treaty?
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
No, but it is now ran by the same set of idiots that are running our gov. into the ground.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Any treaty binding the businesses of two or more countries would have to be known to all concerned, surely.
Considering that the US and Europe were slammed to the dirt by lack of business regulation and enforcement it seems reasonable to me that we insist on far tight regulation and enforcement and more severe penalties for breaches as well. In essence the government encourages crime by issuing penalties that are far less than the money gained by criminal, business, behaviors. GM is a huge example of that right now with the ignition switch murders. That is serious enough to seize the assets and sell of everything GM owns and put executives under the prison.
On a hunch, I pulled up this story and did a search for the letters r, e, and i. And what do you know! Everyone's favorite singe-rape activist had indeed shown up!
By that, there are lots of people who would consider rape their #1 political or societal issue. However, there is only one person that cares about only one rape case. And that person is you.
Hope the paychecks are of a decent size. Trolling any stories on Assange or Wikileaks with the same collection of lies and debunked talking points for years and years has to take a fair amount of effort, even if you keep your propaganda ready to copy-and-paste.
Oh, please, get over yourself. I was writing about rape's prevalence here on Slashdot earlier this week, in a thread on women in computing. Is that not often enough for you? Because I can write more about it if you'd like.
By all means, name a couple of things you think are "lies and debunked talking points"! I'm all ears!
But of course! You should see the porche I just bought with my dirty, dirty money. It's covered in solid gold! I mean, of course a person couldn't actually give a rat's arse about a famous person getting cheered on for running away from trial for rape and stirring up millions of agitators against the victims. No, you're too clever for me, nobody could give a rat's arse about that! It's all about the benjamins, baby!
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
This could bring about the collapse of capitalism before the end of the decade!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Indeed. When Jefferson said "The prce of freedom is eternal vigilance" he wasn't talking about guarding against terrorists and other foreign invaders. Our government was founded with the understanding that *all* governments will come to abuse their people if given the chance, and they did everything they could think of to at least give us a chance to keep it on a leash. If we've let the government forget that it's the servant rather than the master, well shame on us. It's not too late to try to reclaim our rightful place.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
How are they not considered a terrorist organization.......
That, of course, would not happen. "Gold standards" have been destroyed by the central banks of the world. Global fraud as to the location and quantity of gold available is still a quiet and under-reported scandal. It is not in the interests of the banks to rely on something which they cannot easily manipulate. We have seen that a great deal in the past even to the point that they over-sold gold and silver certificates by a wide margin. They always seek to do this and will always seek to do this. These kinda of things are the reasons banking regulations have been put into place. And now they wish to deregulate. What could possibly go wrong?
Free trade is good. Getting government out of the business of telling businesses how to do business -- is good.
Doing this in secret....not so good.
This kind of secrecy does to trust in government what tariffs and regulation do to the economy, undermine it.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The NRA used to represent all gun owners. It long ago quit that clear back in the 60's. Back then it got taken over by radical far right wingers, such as the birch society, along with today's GOP. As one who supports gun ownership, I have nothing but disdain for the NRA and nearly all of its supporters. I have rarely met any NRA memnber that was not some radical right-wing idiot.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.