Another "Free Trade" Deal - in Secret, Of Course

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday sent a letter to President Barack Obama's nominee to head U.S. trade negotiations, expressing concerns about the administration's lack of transparency in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade deal being negotiated largely in secret.

[...]

The letter signals that Warren's tough stance on bank regulation extends to other major consumer and public interest matters.

What the public does know about the TPP has been learned through leaked documents. According to those documents, the Obama administration is seeking to grant corporations the ability to directly challenge regulations in countries involved in the talks -- a political power that was typically reserved for sovereign nations until the 1990s. Obama opposed such policies as a presidential candidate in 2008. The leaked intellectual property chapter of the deal includes provisions that would increase the costs of life-saving medicines in poor countries.

  HuffPo

[T]the idea that ideas themselves and digital goods and services are exactly like physical property, and that therefore the law should treat them the same way [...] defies both reality and the American Constitution, which expressly called for creators to have rights for limited periods, the goal of which was to promote inventive progress and the arts.

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[T]he negotiators would further stiffen copyright holders' control while upping the ante on civil and criminal penalties for infringers. [...] It's Hollywood's wish list.

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The medical industry has a stake in the outcome, too, with credible critics saying it would raise drug prices and, according to Love's analysis, give surgeons patent protection for their procedures.

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One of TPP's most abhorrent elements has been the secrecy under which it's been negotiated. The Obama administration's fondness for secret laws, policies and methods has a lot to do with a basic reality: the public would say no to much of which is done in our names and with our money if we knew what was going on.

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

These are not the first leaked documents from the secret negotiations.
June 12, 2012
Democracy Now!