Google Announces Support of the Controversial TPP (recode.net)

An anonymous reader writes: Google has announced in a blog post Friday their support for the controversial Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP). Recode reports: "The trade agreement includes key provisions about the global passage of digital data, intellectual property and copyright -- measures that have drawn criticism from both the political right and left, including several outspoken tech groups. Google's endorsement isn't exactly full-throated, but its stake clearly demonstrates another key area of support with the Obama administration, to which Google is close." Google's SVP and general counsel Kent Walker wrote: "The TPP is not perfect, and the trade negotiation process would certainly benefit from greater transparency. We will continue to advocate for process reforms, including the opportunity for all stakeholders to have a meaningful opportunity for input into trade negotiations." The company has already shown support of the TPP behind the Internet Association, which endorsed the trade agreement in March. Google joins a list of other tech titans, like Apple and Microsoft, who have shown their support as well. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the TPP a "secretive, multinational trade agreement" that will restrict IP laws and enforce digital policies that "benefit big corporations at the expense of the public." The TPP is still awaiting congressional approval after being signed in February.

Comments

No suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The TPP was written by corporations, for corporations. No surprise that Google supports it. We need a revolution in this country.

Re:No suprise

[MrKaos]

We need a revolution in this country.

Here's your problem. Most of the millennials, who are being screwed the hardest by this unholy alliance of corporations and government, have never even handled a gun. Basically, we're screwed.

Stop being so damn defeatist. You don't need a gun and you don't need violence, you need a pen. All you need to do, en masse, is get off your lazy ass and start lobbying politicians directly. Stop watching hours of moronic TV, get on your computer, fire up a word processor and start writing letters and tell them exactly what you want.

All of these paid lobby groups are minorities gambling that you will continue to sit there and have that exact attitude. There is no need to troll the politicians, be respectful and they will listen as 1 letter means about 100 people think that way, to them. That means 100 votes, and votes are currency just as much as money is to a politician as 100 votes is enough to make a difference in an election. I have had unexpected success on issues with politicians just by telling the *how* to address my concerns.

There is a reason why the adage goes The pen is mightier than the sword. Exercise your democratic right, stop whining and participate in your own future.

Re:No suprise

[Hairy1]

Revolution does not mean violent revolution; we are talking about a political revolution. Of course, now that Sanders appears to have lost the nomination the only real chance is for the electorate to demand he run as an independent or for the Greens. I know he doesn't want to, but maybe the case can be made that he owes his country a real option.

There will of course be people who whine about him 'splitting the vote', by which they mean giving people an actual choice to support a candidate that isn't a member of the One Party; the one bought and paid for by corporations. We thought Obama was that candidate. He wasn't. He lied.

Re:No suprise

[thegarbz]

We need a revolution in this country.

Which country? The TPP has more than just the USA signature on it.

Re:No suprise

[mjm1231]

You're very right about how the current system is screwed, but it's also exactly the reason the guns and bullets solution is likely to fail. The same money that buys politicians will also buy a lot more guns and ammo than the opposition can muster. And replacing "money makes right" with "might makes right" doesn't seem like a step forward to me.

Even as undereducated as we are, we need to find a better way.

Re:No suprise

[starblazer]

The better way is to make the politicians fear the public again. Start voting out the idiots in office. Show them that if you screw up and start favoring the corps, you're history.

However, with American complacency at its highest ever (probably), they don't have anything to fear. Keep giving them their XBone, Netflix, Food Stamps, and Social Security and all your little servants will be content. Feed them useless entertainment news about Bieber and the latest outrage about some LGBT bathroom scandal, and by the time they drop the news that they are bending you regarding your rights, you're too tired to fight it because you've been arguing about if a naturally born male should be allowed in a female bathroom.

To back up mjm, guns brings out bigger guns. If you haven't noticed, Police departments have ex-military vehicles now. They can withstand a revolution better than you or I can. They have the armor to defend themselves.

Start getting pissed off and vote your congresscritters out. Then you may watch them start listening again.

Re: No suprise

[MrKaos]

What an insufferable twat. You really think you have it all figured out don't you?

Nobody likes having their illusions shattered, but yours (and the GP's) are fucking stupid, and you need it.

What I achieve and what you *think* I achieve are not the same thing. People getting involved and writing letters also means *they* get educated and the politicians know they are under observation because they know they won't get away with something unnoticed. Maybe, just maybe, they will do something or not do something.

I have no illusions to shatter, I know this system is corrupt and that what I am doing will probably fail. Reading and writing about these laws helps you see exactly what is going on behind the scenes and to understand what is going on because there are as much lessons in failure as there are in success. Frankly, it's more interesting than anything on the TV. You know the system as corrupt the difference is I have some ideas as to the depth of that corruption where it is and hasn't reached.

As you rightly pointed out, education. It starts with people educating themselves about what is going on, what is not reported in the news and, actually reading Bills that are drafted. Look at Burr-Feinstein and encryption, there was enough resistance to knock that over because it was stupid. However what you don't realize is that is the first round in this battle not to decrypt communications, but to record meta data through the definitions of data drafted in the bill - which will survive elsewhere because they went virtually unnoticed this time around. Has your cynicism produced enough insights to understand the state of play and look for where it will come up again?

The covert police state is revealing itself because the American Empire is on the verge of collapse and desperate to maintain control. Desperate sick animals are dangerous and often lash out. If you read the TPP you would see that it is a battering ram to legally pillage every country that is forced to interact with American corporations through ISDS. The TPP aims to spread the American Empire with desperate times and suffering ahead. We are in this together, are you prepared?

You say what I am doing is 'fucking stupid', but you have little idea why I do it. I don't accept anything you have said here. I have resisted the urge to patronise you in return because I read your posts when I see them and I respect your opinions but for all your vitriol I think you are criticizing me because you are afraid and I don't blame you, so am I.

What is your suggestion? What do you *do*? What have you done? Do you even have an answer?

Google is out of their fucking minds

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the 200+ comments on Hacker News, another news aggregation site with a very tech-savvy demo, you will have to look really hard to find anyone who supports the TPP.

The EFF has written extensively how digital rights are negatively affected by this.

The TPP is bad, bad, bad, and it's been fast tracked for passage with no debate/oversight. Hopefully there will be a SOPA-like outcry against it that shuts it down. All three Dem/GOP presidential candidates claim to be against it (but we'll see how long that lasts). Not sure about libertarian candidates.. somehow I suspect they'll take the more traditional "free trade" perspective, but maybe I'll be delightfully surprised.

Too bad Google's on the wrong side of history here.

Re:Google is out of their fucking minds

[ShanghaiBill]

it's been fast tracked for passage with no debate/oversight.

Fast track does not mean "no debate", it just means that the deal has to be either accepted or rejected by congress. It cannot be amended or changed. That is the only workable way to do it. It is an agreement between a dozen countries. If the legislature of each country is able to nitpick and send it back for renegotiation, then there is no way anything will every get done.

Even if congress could change the agreement, that wouldn't help, since the worst crap in the TPP was put there at the insistence of American corporations and interest groups. Most likely congressional amendments would make it even worse.

Not sure about libertarian candidates.

Gary Johnson is opposed to the TPP. He supports free trade in principle, but does not support the TPP.

Re:Google is out of their fucking minds

[Kjella]

Too bad Google's on the wrong side of history here.

Considering history is written by the winners and all the rich and powerful are in favor of TPP, I wouldn't bet on it. Google's on top now, they make lots of money and can deal with the overhead of the DMCA, the "right to be forgotten" and various rules and requirements. They know their startup competitors will struggle more than they do, it's securing their own business.

Re: Google is out of their fucking minds

[reboot246]

What Constitution? They shredded that a long time ago. Politicians know history. Perhaps it's time for the people to learn. Bread and circuses. EBT and American Idol. Works every time.

We're almost to the point of no return, but we can win if we don't let them divide us.

As a hard-core liberal I have to say...

[hyades1]

Google has been sucking President Obama's cock since the day he took office. Their people have visited the White House just about weekly since he started work.

President Obama, like President Clinton, is a hard-core right wing conservative masquerading as somebody who gives a fuck about anybody who doesn't pull down a $30 million per year salary. Hillary Clinton will be exactly the same.

Google is backing Obama, Clinton and the TPP because all of them are bought and paid for by people who want to put you in jail if your 10-year-old kid downloads a Disney song.

That's not hyperbole, by the way.

Now they deserve

[phantomfive]

Google now appropriately deserves to lose their Oracle case now.

Im pretty sure the party they mostly like...

[tlambert]

Im pretty sure the party they mostly like is the prohibition on countries demanding data for their citizens be stored in the respective country so that the local militarized police can go in and demand access to it at any time. A lot of the other things they are not so happy about, but are willing to swallow a lot of bad things in order to get that in as a binding provision. Most people don't want to have to be building data centers all over the planet which can then be seized the next time a local politician thinks it would be neat to own a supercomputer. They also want to be able to migrate and replicate data outside the country in question to avoid downtime.

Fuck Karma, Hillary was (is) backing this too!

[Whatsmynickname]

Fool me once, shame on Hillary
1980's-1992: Served on board of Walmart, union buster. Nobody there ever heard her support unions.
1990's-early 2000's Hillary: I support my husband's push for NAFTA
Democrat Party supporting Unions: This is (provably) not good for us
2007-2008 Election season Hillary: I think NAFTA was a bad idea and I oppose free trade with Columbia
2007-2008 Hillary supporters: Hillary is allowed to change her mind (sound familiar?)

Fool me twice, shame on me
2011: Emails show she LOBBIED Congress to push for free trade with Columbia, which passed!
2012-2014 Hillary: I'm fully behind the Trans Pacific Partnership (she said this publicly 45 times claiming this is the 'gold standard')
(NOTE AFTER SHE SAID NAFTA WAS BAD!)
Democrat Party supporting Unions: This is not good for us
Sanders said TPP was not good!
2015-2016 Election season Hillary: I'm (now) against the Trans Pacific Partnership

Re:Re

[Ol Olsoc]

Decently put. I'm in the same boat.

I was going to disagree with you about capitalism, but the wiki on free-market capitalism says that it includes some intervention where necessary to keep the market set by supply/demand (e.g. no monopolies). So it kind of depends on which definition of capitalism you go with.

I actually like Capitalism. But it seriously has to be protected from itself, as do most idealistic concepts. Because it kills itself very quickly. A system based on greed - or better put, the concept of doing well for yourself will almost always shake out to the greediest, after they get ahead of others, wanting to alter the game so they make more, or in pathological cases, all of the money.

As for the definition of capitalism, it has been corrupted, and altogether too many politicians have bought into it. The old "class warfare" pejoratives that used to be trotted out any time someone complained about excesses were the highlight of the one sided supply side argument.

Somewhere along the line, we forgot that the best way to have producers become wealthy was to have people have the money to purchase their goods.

Maybe this is why there's been a push lately to not teach algebra in schools. THe idea that an equation has two sides is dangerous thought.