The Trans-Pacific Partnership
 

Well two days ago, I got a heads up about this legislation that is currently being written. Lobbyists and certain members of Congress are trying to fast track.

Also two days ago, I was told that I would have to speak at a press conference about it. Speaking out against the atrocities that is going down as we speak. While they try to push this partnership through. I did some research on it and I spoke on behalf of my community organization group today.

First, I'll give you a little information about what the TPP is.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership n. 1. A "free trade" agreement that would set rules on non-trade matters such as food safety, internet freedom, medicine costs, financial regulation, and the environment. 2. A binding international governance system that would require the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and any other country that signs on to conform their domestic policies to its rules. 3. A secret trade negotiation that has included over 600 official corporate "trade advisors" while hiding the text from Members of Congress, governors, state legislators, the press, civil society, and the public.

Basically the TPP is basically going to allow Corporations to earn an even greater profit by suing local businesses and saying that they are inhibiting potential profits. This agreement is also going to override the laws and regulations in certain countries that sign up for it. They will also allow Corporations to send more jobs off-shore to countries like Vietnam where they can pay workers even less than the workers in China make.

I mentioned Fast track earlier and the basic jist of fast track is this:It is the mechanism that will allow the Obama administration to circumvent constitutional checks and balances to ram the TPP through Congress
JUST LIKE HIS PREDECESSORS DID WITH NAFTA AND THE WTO.

The somewhat sad part about this is that even members of Congress have no idea what the **** is going on. Only a select few members and their attorneys even know the specifics and details behind this partnership. It is also supposed to be confidential and the members that do get to see the details they aren't allowed to talk about it.

Why should I even care about this you might be asking? Well the big thing besides hurting job creation is that it will even affect Internet Freedom.

Remember SOPA - the "copyright" legislation before Congress last year that public outcry stopped cold? Well, the same corporations behind SOPA have pushed to insert its most pernicious provisions into TPP. Says who? The organizations that stopped SOPA like the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the ACLU.

Under this TPP proposal, Internet Service Providers could be required to "police" user activity (i.e. police YOU), take down internet content, and cut people off from internet access for common user-generated content.

Violations could be as simple as the creation of a YouTube video with clips from other videos, even if for personal or educational purposes.

Mandatory fines would be imposed for individuals' non-commercial copies of copyrighted material. So, downloading some music could be treated the same as large-scale, for-profit copyright violations.

Innovation would be stifled as the creation and sharing of user-generated content would face new barriers, and as monopoly copyrights would be extended. The TPP proposes to impose copyright protections for a minimum of 120 years for corporate-created content.

Breaking digital locks for legit purposes, such as using Linux, could subject users to mandatory fines. Blind and deaf people also would be harmed by this overreach, as digital locks can block access to audio-supported content and closed captioning.

If you want more information about the TPP. Check out this website. It has so much more information than I have posted here.

Expose the TPP