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Is Public Debate of Trade Agreements Against the Public Interest?
onproton writes The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), currently being negotiated in secret, has been subject to numerous draft leaks that indicate these talks are potentially harmful to everything from public health to internet freedom. So why isn't the public involved, and why are the terms of the agreement being debated behind closed doors? According to New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, full disclosure of what is being discussed would likely lead to "public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done." Leaving one to question how revealing the full context and scope of the agreement talks would lead to an increase in misinformation rather than clarity.
... the law is so corrupted, they are going to strengthen IP laws (aka screw the public). The public domain has already been stolen.
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2014/pre-1976
There is some place for secrecy in negotiation. If our negotiators are trying to get the best deal for us, they don't want to reveal what concessions they are willing to make until they have a sense of the concessions other parties are willing to make.
The problem is that, at least in the US, the trade negotiating agency has its priorities set by a limited number of industry advisory groups, and these groups are not representative of US interests. The composition of the groups is about 20 years behind the times, so as a result you have a trade agency pushing for copyright restrictions without thinking about how they will affect the technology industry.
The trade agency also expends a disproportionate amount of bargaining capital on intellectual property, thus reducing what it is able to accomplish in other areas, such as labor and environmental standards.
Finally, the trade agency writes its own interpretation of US law into free trade agreements. It's usually pretty close to what US law actually says, but sometimes it misinterprets it, or US law changes and the FTA text ends up saying something completely different.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This is why it’s “secret”.
The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement. [...] More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing. We hear that the process by which TPP is being negotiated has been a model of transparency. I disagree with that statement.[94]
Corporations don’t want the hassle of people complaining and/or some members of congress doing something about it.
That tells you right there it’s a bad thing.
Here’s something else.
they are concerned that the TPP focuses on protecting intellectual property to the detriment of efforts to provide access to affordable medicine in the developing world, particularly Vietnam, going against the foreign policy goals of the Obama administration and previous administrations.[79]
Read the entire wiki, then read this article to see exactly what might happen to who gets to set foreign policy.
Then. read this.
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Actually, they are. The most popular TV programs in NZ are about cooking and house renovation. (I am a NZer)
For the people of NZ, your representative basically just said you are too fucking stupid to be trusted with governing yourselves. He has insulted you to your faces. Do something about him.
Some of us recently tried and failed. 1/3 of us didn't even bother to vote, and the rest voted for Tim Groser and his ilk.
As a NZer myself I'm afraid I have to agree.. most of us are too stupid, or too apathetic to govern ourselves. As the poster below pointed out - the most popular programmes here are so the called reality shows, that have no basis in reality and designed to keep the masses dumbed down to the level of a 7yr old
ACK NAK RST