Selected Provisions: TPP, CETA, and TiSA Trade Agreements

While proponents suggest that international trade agreements increase economic prosperity, writes reader Dangerous_Minds, it's often hard to find much detail about their details. Here's an exception: Freezenet is offering an update to known provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Trades in Services Agreement (TiSA). Among the findings are provisions permitting a three-strikes law and site blocking, multiple anti-circumvention laws, ISP liability, the search and seizure of personal devices to enforce copyright at the border, and an open door for ISP-level surveillance. Freezenet also offers a brief summary of what was found while admitting that provisions found in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as it relates to digital rights remains elusive for the time being.

Comments

tppcetatisattip

[turkeydance]

even thought the sound of it is something quite atrocious.

Re:tppcetatisattip

[turkeydance]

though not thought

Re:tppcetatisattip

[Gibgezr]

You win the internets for today.

Meanwhile, due to a totally unrelated incident, I need to shake coffee out of my keyboard.

More bad

[MrL0G1C]

And millions more jobs lost, workers rights assaulted, product and food standards attacked, environmental protection capability removed. These treaties are written by corporations for corporations, if we don't reject them then it's game over for democracy and justice.

TTIP: donâ(TM)t mention the job losses / Employment / Blogs - The Broker
What is the problem? - Stop TTIP Stop TTIP

TTIP, TISA, TPP CESA etc are all so bad it'd take a large book to cover all the reasons why they're bad. If you've never written to your representative then now is the time.

Re:More bad

[CanadianMacFan]

TPP will gut the Canadian dairy industry and flood the market with cheap American milk that has (more?) antibiotics and hormones. While the current system in Canada isn't perfect it's better than opening our market up. While we are currently paying more than the world price a couple of years ago we were insulated from the high prices when the demand was a lot higher.

Re:More bad

[hjf]

Yes. I am from Argentina, which, as many of you know, is a really shitty country right now. But, a few years ago, we rejected (along with most of South America) the ALCA/FTAA. The problem with this agreement is that it's full of technicalities that benefit no one but the US. Americans learned a lot from NAFTA (with Mexico taking a hit in US manufacturing), so they added quite a few provisions to make the FTA one-sided.

You see, as it is, the US pushes for elimination of trade barriers, or, basically, customs regulations (since they are the simplest and most effective ways of protecting a country's own manufacturing). But the agreements say nothing about INTERNAL REGULATIONS: for example, food standards. One of Argentina's main exports used to be beef. But for many years we've been banned from selling in the US market due to "concerns" about foot-and-mouth disease: It takes only 1 confirmed case of this disease for the USDA to impose a 3-year ban on beef. Or, in other words, it takes only 1 CIA operative to infect a cow in Argentina to ban all beef, at once (Argentina's surface is "only" about 1/3 of the size of the US, so you understand that a country-wide ban for a single case is just plain stupid).

Another problem is that the US HEAVILY subsidizes certain products, enabling two things: on one hand, unfair "competition" since Argentina is completely unable to sell, for example, corn due to the extremely high subsidies. On the other hand, it enables dumping: the US can flood Argentina's market with extremely cheap corn, destroying the corn "industry" here.

This is the problem with "free trade" agreements proposed by the US. They follow the same doctrine as US foreign policy, and only benefit the US and their blood brothers (UK, Australia, Canada and NZ).

Unfortunately, the US has never seen Latin America as an ally (the explanation being really simple: pure racism, still deep in US roots - see who their "partners" are and what color their skin is), and they have historically manipulated Latin America's economies and governments, generating hate and division between neighbors. They decided to make deals with a single country and allow them to become an enemy superpower and creditor, instead of dealing with many smaller states and yet retain cheap labor but with the added benefits of: easier language, smaller distance, not so different culture, and basically the same timezone.

Unfortunately the US will never accept these conditions.

Re:More bad

[drinkypoo]

Unfortunately, the US has never seen Latin America as an ally (the explanation being really simple: pure racism,

No. We're racist against our allies, too. The truth is that Latin America is easy to take advantage of, so we do.

Re:More bad

[hjf]

Funny thing is that you learned racism from the british. And they think you're inferior too.

Re:More bad

[Applehu Akbar]

"TPP will gut the Canadian dairy industry and flood the market with cheap American milk"

This news will have Canadians rioting in the streets for more expensive dairy products.

If you love in the touristy parts of Vancouver or Toronto, I'm sure you've seen the hordes of skinny, starving Americans who have been drinking US milk their entire lives.

Re:More bad

[sfcat]

Funny thing is that you learned racism from the british. And they think you're inferior too.

Its OK, the feeling is mutual.

Re:More bad

[Beardo the Bearded]

You think the dairy industry is the big problem here? Or having to gut the CBC? Terrible problems to be sure, but they're the tip of the iceberg.

Have fun when the American health insurance companies notice that having the Canadian government pay for health insurance violates TPP.

Oh, the federal government subsidizes post-secondary education? Can't have that.

Re:More bad

[theCoder]

This news will have Canadians rioting in the streets for more expensive dairy products

Sounds like a joke, but a coworker of my ex had a miscarriage because she drank milk that had too much antibiotics in it.

That doesn't sound like a joke, but it does sound a lot like the people here in the U.S. that think vaccines cause autism becuase they heard about a case where a child developed autism after getting a vaccine.

Correlation != Causation.

Re:More bad

[MrL0G1C]

Indeed they aren't trying to harmonise standards they're just trying to ignore standards in order to sell poor quality products.

Re:More bad

[hjf]

No, you're just an idiot.

Re:More bad

[wyHunter]

And we in the USA get screwed by these agreements too because ALL of our jobs are going, going gone.

vote trump he plans to have fair trade plans

[Joe_Dragon]

vote trump he plans to have fair trade plans.

nafta killed lots of jobs and last thing that we need is more trade plans where they can ship jobs to places where they pay people $5 hr and that is good pay for them.

When trade argreements are written by industries..

[QuietLagoon]

... do you really expect them not to be highly tilted in favor of the very industries that wrote them?

Massively Unpopular

[InterGuru]

During the TPP fast track debate I looked at comments about it in the New York Times. The comments were massively, almost unanimously, against the treaty. I asked myself "Well liberals are against it, who is for it?" Off I went to the National Review Online to see the conservatives' opinion. Well the comments there were unanimously against the treaty too.

I wonder who is for it. Why did Congress pass the fast track? I leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Massively Unpopular

[0123456]

I wonder who is for it. Why did Congress pass the fast track? I leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.

The support for this treaty is clear and obvious: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The Coporate-Government Complex is fully in favour. No-one else wants anything to do with it. Which is exactly why they want to keep it secret, until they can push it through without debate.

And a big 'screw you' to Slashdot's 'junk character' filter.

What does this *actually mean*?

[Maury Markowitz]

So it has lots of provisions. Are countries free to pick the ones they want to enforce? There's a seize-at-border clause, does everyone have to invoke it? Or are these all options?

All this talk of trade federations

[thinkwaitfast]

Maybe George Lucas knows more about nerds than they think he does.

Re:takeover property propaganda CAPTCHA: spotter

[davester666]

So, success, then. Where does the ogre eye go next?

Re:ISP liability

[spire3661]

Search engines operate on the First Amendment. You couldnt hang this on them even if you tried. ISPs and search engines are not really comparable at all. This is like trying to sue the phone company because bank robbers looked up the bank's address in the yellow pages.

Re:ISP liability

[HiThere]

Not sure about that. The constitution itself says that treaties with foreign governments are the highest law of the land. Of course, the US also has a long history of breaking treaties whenever it found it convenient. (Ask any Amerindian. Mexico and Canada might also have something to say, though they are relatively a bit more powerful, and thus more difficult to stiff.)

Re:NRA

[HiThere]

I wish that was funny. But it wouldn't be the NRA that could sue, it would be whatever they call the association of weapons manufacturers.

Re:takeover property propaganda CAPTCHA: spotter

[beastofburdon]

Directly into your home with IoT of course. Have you noticed how nearly all IoT devices require a connection to the company server where three letter agencies can merely politely request direct access without warrant or any accountability?

Re:ISP liability

[JesseMcDonald]

The constitution itself says that treaties with foreign governments are the highest law of the land.

The Constitution says that at the Constitution, U.S. law, and treaties are (together) the highest law of the land—in that order. It also says that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech". That doesn't change regardless of what any treaty might say; a treaty is not a Constitutional amendment. If a treaty says that we have to pass an unconstitutional law, well, we'll just have to break that treaty, because Congress cannot grant itself powers specifically forbidden them in the Constitution through a mere treaty, any more than Congress could pass a law to the same effect.