Ai, carumba, have we been waiting for this! Good job, cypherpunks! An hour ago they announced:
Our prediction: Today’s release spells the end of the #TPP.
About fifteen minutes ago they put it up. From the press release:
“Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. The WikiLeaks release of the text comes ahead of the decisive TPP Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013. The chapter published by WikiLeaks is perhaps the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents. Significantly, the released text includes the negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states.
The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP. Both pacts exclude China.
Since the beginning of the TPP negotiations, the process of drafting and negotiating the treaty’s chapters has been shrouded in an unprecedented level of secrecy. Access to drafts of the TPP chapters is shielded from the general public. Members of the US Congress are only able to view selected portions of treaty-related documents in highly restrictive conditions and under strict supervision. It has been previously revealed that only three individuals in each TPP nation have access to the full text of the agreement, while 600 ’trade advisers’ – lobbyists guarding the interests of large US corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart – are granted privileged access to crucial sections of the treaty text.
The TPP negotiations are currently at a critical stage. The Obama administration is preparing to fast-track the TPP treaty in a manner that will prevent the US Congress from discussing or amending any parts of the treaty. Numerous TPP heads of state and senior government figures, including President Obama, have declared their intention to sign and ratify the TPP before the end of 2013.
WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange stated: “The US administration is aggressively pushing the TPP through the US legislative process on the sly.” The advanced draft of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, published by WikiLeaks on 13 November 2013, provides the public with the fullest opportunity so far to familiarise themselves with the details and implications of the TPP.
The 95-page, 30,000-word IP Chapter lays out provisions for instituting a far-reaching, transnational legal and enforcement regime, modifying or replacing existing laws in TPP member states. The Chapter’s subsections include agreements relating to patents (who may produce goods or drugs), copyright (who may transmit information), trademarks (who may describe information or goods as authentic) and industrial design.
The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to detailing new policing measures, with far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and environmental commons. Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards. The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with secret evidence. The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement provisions from the shelved SOPA and ACTA treaties.
The consolidated text obtained by WikiLeaks after the 26-30 August 2013 TPP meeting in Brunei – unlike any other TPP-related documents previously released to the public – contains annotations detailing each country’s positions on the issues under negotiation. Julian Assange emphasises that a “cringingly obsequious” Australia is the nation most likely to support the hardline position of US negotiators against other countries, while states including Vietnam, Chile and Malaysia are more likely to be in opposition. Numerous key Pacific Rim and nearby nations – including Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and, most significantly, Russia and China – have not been involved in the drafting of the treaty.
In the words of WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, “If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”
Current TPP negotiation member states are the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei.”
Read the full secret TPP treaty IP chapter here;
Download the full secret TPP treaty IP chapter as a PDF here.
Meanwhile, Yves Smith reports on an ‘update from the New York Times’ coverage from yesterday (they love the deal, of course; my bolds):
‘The Obama administration is rushing to reach a new deal intended to lower barriers to trade with a dozen Pacific Rim nations, including Japan and Canada, before the end of the year.
But the White House is now facing new hurdles closer to home, with nearly half of the members of the House signing letters or otherwise signaling their opposition to granting so-called fast-track authority that would make any agreement immune to a Senate filibuster and not subject to amendment. No major trade pact has been approved by Congress in recent decades without such authority.
Two new House letters with about 170 signatories in total — the latest and strongest iteration of long-simmering opposition to fast-track authority and to the trade deal more broadly — have been disclosed just a week before international negotiators are to meet in Salt Lake City for another round of talks…
Many members have had a longstanding opposition to certain elements of the deal, arguing it might hurt American workers and disadvantage some American businesses. Those concerns are diverse, including worries about food safety, intellectual property, privacy and the health of the domestic auto industry.
Others say that they are upset that the Obama administration has, in their view, kept Congress in the dark about the negotiations, by not allowing congressional aides to observe the negotiations and declining to make certain full texts available.
The most secure way to contribute to WikiLeaks seems to be through the Press Freedom Foundation and because Julian had praised m.i.a.:
(cross-posted at My.fdl.com)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Hope this is the end of the TPP.
They never stop though. Something else is going to stop them. Something like the Typhoon.
well, i reckon this chapter might be a major game changer, mark/mafr. but stopping it will take some major force, won’t it? cripes, i’ll even call my C-critters, and it’s been a while. not ‘stop the fast track’, but stop it all!
explain the typhoon stopping them, please? just got off the phone with our daughter, and my mind may be stuck there right now.
wendye, as I just posted at fdl, (and yes, you are so smart,wordpress, to track this wee kiwi down there, working for the NXA r u? And yes again, I left that X in there on purpose, that I did.) I repeat, as I just posted at fdl, this is a game changer I do believe, since secrets so entirely revealed should give a lot of folk involved in the actual process time to think, and we may hope five percent of them will. A few eyebrows of a sort may be raised, since it would appear even corporates involved have not yet in actuality seen the full monty. I’m no expert (you know me) but even I don’t see this as any kind of limited hangout – this is not what secretive folk want to hang out – lots of dirt in this underwear if you will pardon the analogy.
Bravo to you; bravo to you.
Someone once noted that the crafting of the Constitution of these United States once had a similar secret process ongoing. It is edifying that there were a few Edward Snowdens and wikileaks in the mix – I think they used to be called historians, one of whom I believe was James Madison if I remember correctly. TPP doesn’t sound like any sort of Constitutional enterprise though; it really doesn’t.
dunno about the corporates not having seen it; there are over 600 dedicated trade reps, and i reckon the communications have been flyin’. nsa listenig in? yah, for shure. but i didn’t see your comment over yonder; was it on kevin’s piece maybe?
i didn’t know that about the constitution, juliania, the secrecy, i mean. ‘i think they used to be called historians’ was great!
we really need to keep pushing, and stop it. i don’t see anything that could benefit US in it: it’s not a trade deal at all!
Clinton and ram twisted and levered nafta through against a lot of opposition. all of the opponents were right. they’re gone, clinton for some reason is a hero. Ram still a big shot.
a few years ago, after the battle in seattle it was said that all the trade deals were finished.
they don’t ever give up with this stuff. They want everything there is to have. they see Africa, the far east, Bangladesh as the model to build towards.
But
everything humans do will now be affected by the climate. It’s going to get worse, cause enough people do not care about it enough, for various reasons.
That’s going to be the thing that changes everything, more than what we can and can’t do.
That’s what I meant, sorry to be so obtuse.
I don’t mean this is not a positive thing, I think it is fantastic, and as you say just keep poking and pushing. Obama is so screwed up these days, anything is possible.
Alex Jones covering this today. countries would not be allowed to favour domestic business.
agreement covers 40 % of global gdp.
good show.
he’s got some ideas that are whacky, but he’s been talking about this for years.
no, i’m sure it was my fault for not getting it. but thank you for expanding it. wasn’t it clinton they called ‘the teflon president’? or someone else? i could barf when he goes on late night shows and watch the crowds grow wild. ‘paint your rooves white’ sort of climate fixes (not that it wouldn’t help, but what a monster the man is. i wish he had to live among the haitians he’s trampled on so cruelly and cavalierly, i swear i do.
can the nonviolent revolution happen before we have to listen to hillary’s stump pieces, please?
yes, that’s a huge part of global gdp; i think i put that part of yves’ piece in, but now i forget. :~)
I have to apologize for my reports from Down Under on this being pretty nonexistent – the poor people are going through the television digital makeover – worse there by far than what I still experience with that malevolent red eye glowering at me and stations magically disappearing – they apparently have lost ‘free to air’ non-commercial programming completely as per the following:
“Triangle’s Face TV channel will continue to be aired across New Zealand on SKY Television’s pay-to-view satellite platform. However, it will survive without the 140 hours a year of prime-time local current affairs content that has been funded by NZ On Air – including Bomber Bradbury’s Citizen A, Noel Cheer’s In Conversation, Lindsay Dawson’s Let’s Talk, Selita Millar’s Pacific Viewpoint, and The Beatson Interview. They will go because NZ On Air requires the local content it funds to be broadcast on a free-to-air platform.
Meantime, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage website continues to advertise the government’s Regional and Community Broadcasting Framework and the existence of non-commercial television broadcasting licences as if nothing was happening.
We could be optimistic – but it really looks like Catch 22 in the Digital Switch Over policy could kill non-commercial television broadcasting in New Zealand.
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/11/14/exclusive-tvs-digital-switch-over-switches-off-non-commercial-television/#sthash.kZgQDnN8.dpuf”
No doubt a great distraction for folk from nasty problems like TPP and NSA snooping. [My sister is already in a frazzle due to expensive antenna on roof not doing the job it is supposed to do.]
Sorry to go OT – back to our regular program.
Back on topic – good ol’ scoop.co.nz was not to be deflected – this is worth it for analysis of other countries’ stances on TPP:
http://werewolf.co.nz/2013/11/tpp-the-never-to-be-ended-story/
WTP (We The People) ALL MUST Flush TPP or suffer the Overwhelming ¢harnel $TENCH of the Bush (and Obamanable BS [Bush Shadow’s]) New World ODOR!
@ juliania: yes, in our area digital conversion was a nightmare, but network news i never watched in any event. missed pbs, but just for mystery, etc, lol.
it’s okay; you do plenty of reporting from down under. hope to look in; nz has some big objections to medical and eternal copyright issues, iirc. i did follow some of the wiki tweets, and got some flavor.
@ bruce: i wish to goddess they’d never gone with the ‘flush’ stuff. they even had bumper stickers, as if anyone even knew wtf the TPP *was*, lol.
yah; this wasn’t the new world odor the birchers ever meant, eh? irony on top of irony. obomba: bush to the second power; cripes.
“C’mon” (to quote Mike Wallace), TPP is what you get out of the PNAC! Und ja, modern birchers might want to consider cleansing their spas by beating their vitha on the Bushs, out of their sweat lodges or saunas (for US Swedes).
simmer down, now… :)
Jawohl!
und
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Swedish+sauna&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=AB21A0BF04E4DE039D2CAB21A0BF04E4DE039D2C
(chillin’ + sleepin’ with the candlefishes tonight) Rest easy.
a-ooga-chooga. ;)
the werewolf had a good analysis of the fast-track authority and the issue of currency manipulation as well, juliania. did it seem to you that he would *not* want to see the pact die? he at least mentioned a bilateral agreement with japan, which is what i reckon many nations are after.
oh, and i didn’t remember that clinton hadn’t scored fast track, either; i was sure wrong about that.
What is the sleeping elephant in the room on all of it is that New Zealand is heavily into Chinese trade. When I was down there in the ’90s (and we still had no ‘made in China’ labels back here) it was all China imports. Not to forget also that kiwi fruit is a long ways back Chinese import – we used to call them ‘Chinese gooseberries’ when I was a kid. And there are now a lot of wealthy Chinese occupying mansions round the countryside, hence the present government’s eagerness to divest itself of public owned enterprises, an activity generally abhorred by the voting public. They can’t do it fast enough, it appears; and probably this is to mollify the Chinese for TPP shenanigans. The latest hasty sellof is of all things the iconic Air New Zealand.
The public? Well, as here, they really don’t count.
‘The public don’t really count’. how unusual./s
for later perusal:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/tea-party-joins-liberals-in-push-against-fast-track-trade.html