Trans Pacific Partnership

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=341368756047449&video_source=pages_finch_main_video

Please read this article that I found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141217/09013129465/new-tisa-leak-us-collision-course-with-eu-over-global-data-flows.shtml

New TISA Leak: US On Collision Course With EU Over Global Data Flows

Although most attention has been given to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), also known as TTIP, it's important to remember that a third set of global trade negotiations are underway -- those for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), which involves more countries than either of the other two. Like TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, TISA is being negotiated in strict secrecy, but earlier this year the financial services annex leaked, giving us the first glimpse of the kind of bad ideas that were being worked on. Now, another leak has surfaced, which reveals the US's proposals to free up data flows online.

 For the European Union, that's a hugely sensitive issue. Under data protection laws there, personal data cannot be sent outside the EU unless companies sign up to the self-certification scheme known as the Safe Harbor framework. However, in the wake of Snowden's revelations about NSA spying in Europe, the European Parliament has called for the Safe Harbor scheme to be suspended. If that happens, the only way that US Internet companies could comply with the EU Data Protection Directive would be to hold personal information about EU citizens on servers physically located in Europe. But it is precisely that kind of requirement the leaked TISA position seeks to forbid:
Article X.2: Local Content

 l. Subject to any conditions, limitations and qualifications set out in its Schedule, no Party may, in connection with the supply of a service by a service supplier, impose or enforce any requirement; enforce any commitment or undertaking; or, in connection with the supply of a service through commercial presence, condition the receipt or continued receipt of an advantage on compliance with any requirement:

 (a) to purchase, use or accord a preference to:

 ...

 (iii) computing facilities located in its territory or computer processing or storage services supplied from within its territory;
 Another section would stop countries from imposing any restrictions on data flows:
Article X.4: Movement of Information

 No Party may prevent a service supplier of another Party from transferring, accessing, processing or storing information, including personal information, within or outside the Party's territory, where such activity is carried out in connection with the conduct of the service supplier's business.
 It comes as no surprise that the US is pushing for the unhindered cross-border flow of all data, including personal data: it's what both the USTR and US companies have been demanding for a while. But it's going to be hard to get the European Union to agree to such a direct attack on its privacy framework. The European Commission has publicly stated that TISA will not undermine the EU's data protection laws. Moreover, just a few hours after the TISA leak was published, the EU politician with responsibility for TISA in the European Parliament, Viviane Reding, tweeted as follows:
As @EP_Trade Rapporteur on #TiSA, I'll oppose any provision undermining right to data privacy: competition by the rules, not for the rules!
 With such entrenched positions on both sides, it's hard to see how any kind of compromise will be possible. The imminent battle between the US and the EU on this key issue in TISA will doubtless be fun to watch; what a pity it will happen in secret, behind closed doors.

Also : http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1401/S00203/green-groups-leaked-tpp-environment-chapter-unacceptable.htm
Thursday, 16 January 2014, 4:24 pm
Press Release: World Wildlife Fund

Posted on 15 January 2014

Washington DC:Today, WikiLeaks posted a draft environment chapter of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that governments have negotiated in secret for nearly four years.

TPP nations have billed the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as an "ambitious, 21st-century trade agreement." However, a joint analysis of the WikiLeaks document, dated November 2013, by environmental organizations reveals that countries are nowhere close to that goal.

“This peek behind the curtain reveals the absence of an ambitious 21st-century trade agreement promised by negotiating countries,” said Carter Roberts, CEO of WWF-US.

“The lack of fully-enforceable environmental safeguards means negotiators are allowing a unique opportunity to protect wildlife and support legal sustainable trade of renewable resources to slip through their fingers. These nations account for more than a quarter of global trade in fish and wood products and they have a responsibility to address trade’s impact on wildlife crime, illegal logging, and overfishing,” he said.

Last Autumn, 24 environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and WWF-US, sent a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Froman, calling for a strong and legally enforceable environment chapter that includes the elimination of harmful fisheries subsidies, which are a key driver of overfishing; a ban on trade in illegally harvested timber, wildlife, and fish; and obligations to uphold domestic environmental laws and commitments under multilateral environmental agreements.






“If the environment chapter is finalized as written in this leaked document, President Obama’s environmental trade record would be worse than George W. Bush’s,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

“This draft chapter falls flat on every single one of our issues - oceans, fish, wildlife, and forest protections - and in fact, rolls back on the progress made in past free trade pacts,” he said.

Since a bipartisan consensus on trade was reached in May 2007 between Congress and the Bush Administration, the environment chapters of all U.S. free trade agreements have been legally enforceable and included a list of environmental treaties that countries committed to uphold. Today's leaked text does not meet the standard set by Congress.

"Environmental protections are only as effective as their enforcement provisions, and a trade agreement with weak enforcement language will do little or nothing to protect our communities and wildlife," said Peter Lehner, executive director of the NRDC.

"Starting with the Bush administration, the United States has insisted that all trade pacts include enforceable environmental protections, and we should settle for nothing less in the TPP. Considering the dire state of many fisheries and forests in the Asia-Pacific region and the myriad threats to endangered wildlife, we need a modern trade agreement with real teeth, not just empty rhetoric," said Lehner.

One more: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1410/S00117/leaked-draft-confirms-tpp-will-censor-internet.htm


Leaked draft confirms TPP will censor Internet
Friday, 17 October 2014, 9:34 am
Press Release: OpenMedia

For Immediate Release


Leaked draft confirms TPP will censor Internet and stifle Free Expression worldwide


October 16, 2014 – This morning Wikileaks published a second leaked draft of the Intellectual Property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The draft confirms people’s worst fears about Internet censorship. That’s according to community-based organization OpenMedia, which is leading a large international Fair Deal Coalition aimed at securing balanced copyright rules for the 21st Century.


“It is hugely disappointing to see that, yet again, Canadians - and members of the public worldwide - have to be informed about these critical issues through leaked drafts, instead of through democratic engagement on the part of governments and elected officials,” said OpenMedia Campaigns Coordinator Meghan Sali. “When will our decision-makers recognize that negotiating serious issues - especially proposals that would censor our use of the Internet - must be considered and debated democratically instead of in secret meetings with industry lobbyists?”


Sali continued, “It is now clearer than ever that we need a positive alternative to this secretive process. It is unacceptable to design and impose new laws through closed-door processes that disenfranchise individuals around the world and shut off debate on important issues that will affect all of our futures. This is what the Our Digital Future report, released just yesterday, is all about - challenging the notion that we can’t make these laws in a more democratic manner.”







This morning, copyright and digital rights expert, Prof. Michael Geist, weighed in on his blog about the most recent leaked draft, noting that the Canadian negotiators have been opposing U.S. pressure to introduce stricter enforcement for patent and copyright law - with the strongest pushback coming in the “patents, enforcement, trademarks and copyright sections.”


Geist writes on his blog: “As the treaty negotiations continue, the pressure to cave to U.S. pressure will no doubt increase, raising serious concerns about whether the TPP will force the Canadian government to overhaul recently enacted legislation that it has steadfastly defended as reflecting a balanced, “made in Canada” approach.”


With the next round of TPP negotiations taking place in Australia at the end of October, pressure is mounting on negotiators to finalize the agreement, and copyright issues are a main stumbling block to achieving the consensus needed to finish negotiations. This leaked document may contribute additional strain to already tense negotiations.


Early legal analysis of the leaked TPP IP chapter can be found through Fair Deal Member KEI here: http://keionline.org/node/2108


About OpenMedia.ca


OpenMedia.ca is an award-winning community-based organization that safeguards the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy by engaging hundreds of thousands of people in protecting our online rights.


Through campaigns such as StopTheMeter.ca and StopSpying.ca, OpenMedia.ca has engaged over half-a-million Canadians, and has influenced public policy and federal law.


About the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement:
The TPP is one of the most far-reaching international free trade agreements in history. We know from leaked TPP draft texts that participating nations would be bound to much stricter and more extreme copyright laws than now exist under current national laws. These new rules would criminalize much online activity, invade citizens’ privacy, and significantly impact our ability to share and collaborate online.
Negotiators from 12 of the TPP negotiating nations—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Peru, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States— are meeting in Asia this week to discuss these changes without input from the public, creators, or most businesses. The negotiating documents are classified—unless you are one of just 600 industry lobbyists permitted to participate.
U.S. negotiators are pushing hard to force smaller nations into accepting a censored Internet. However, reports have indicated that the intellectual property provisions have been quite a “challenging” issue for those behind the agreement.
Hundreds of thousands of people have supported campaigns organized by OpenMedia to speak out about Internet censorship and the secrecy surrounding the TPP.

Please contact your representatives to express your concerns of this threat to our rights!

http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/tpp/
http://www.stopfasttrack.com/

The article for the environment was publish earlier this year.