Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

http://wikileaks.org/tpp/

by shill • 13 years ago

650 192 13 years ago

wikileaks.org

stevengg• 13 years ago

Any good overviews of this leak yet?

TomGullen• 13 years ago

There's a lot of information there... probably take a few days.

simgidacav• 13 years ago

I hope someone will post tl;dr indeed. This is like reading licenses. No wonder there's people who just blindly accepts everything without reading. I love when there's a blog post and they put tl;dr on head.

On the other hand, by sticking to the tl;dr you accept the version the non-lazy guy will give you.

ihsw4• 13 years ago

The EFF will definitely be issuing some manner of condemnation and praise, especially since a variety of nation's stances are made clear.

Skimming through it, it's entertaining to see "CA/CL/AU/NZ/JP/ETC oppose; US/BLAH propose" strewn about. One has to wonder where the line is drawn between self-interest and political favors.

Here is the section that might interest you, on ISP liability:

http://wikileaks.org/tpp/#QQI1

A small part of me feels like some party attributions may not be written by representatives of their respective country, and that there is some political/corporate hand-wringing influencing/forcing party attributions. To avoid political fallout, these party attributions must be kept secret (lest they contradict prior established stances).

nodata• 13 years ago

The Verge has one: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/13/5099236/wikileaks-publish...

logn• 13 years ago

I just skimmed the whole thing. If you've paid attention at all to news related to IP issues in the last 10 years, none of the content of this agreement would come as a surprise. I don't see any radically different provisions here compared to current laws.

The portions on 'genetic resources' were most interesting I thought, only because everything was so vaguely defined that I worried how countries would interpret it.

sdoering2• 13 years ago

Older version on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725046

k3n2• 13 years ago

Oddly, given the same exact title, this newer one is around 2x as successful (comments & votes) as the older one.

sdoering2• 13 years ago

Well I was watching it (I made the mistake, of posting the link with a anchor in it to the start of the document).

It gained some fast early upvotes, without having comments, it reached #2 on the frontpage, gained its first comment, while my submission had about 4 - 5 comments and was trailing some 5 - 6 places behind on the frontpage.

But ok, it gained traction faster, so it is quite ok with me. And, for me the information counts, not who submitted it.

So please, everybody: put your comments on the winning thread, as there will be much more interaction going on there.

mrspeaker• 13 years ago

It's fun seeing how important lil' old words can be!

    Each party shall provide [VN: oppose adequate and effective]
    [VN propose: appropriate] remedies against the registration trafficking

AlexanderDhoore• 13 years ago

I really, really hope the culture of leaking information becomes so strong that governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret. That would give me some hope for the future.

Anyone that leaks information is a fucking hero.

Edit: Stop attacking me personally. I'm talking about the government's privacy here, not mine (nor anyone else's). I actually think my privacy will improve if this becomes a reality.

retube• 13 years ago

That is a very naive and idealistic position. Governments often and rightly have genuine reasons for keeping things secret - as do other institutions, businesses and indeed individual people.

zxcdw• 13 years ago

Apart from "obvious" national security in the name of TERRORISM[1], what are such reasons?

[1] http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror

ssmoot• 13 years ago

He/She is clearly referring to Whistle Blowers.

All the ridiculous, obtuse comments just to feel superior. If you can't attack the actual message, then impeach the character?

Grow up.

Eye_of_Mordor• 13 years ago

Unfortunately governments are obliged to reveal their 'secrets' despite any misgivings, since they are acting on our behalf. They know this, they don't like this and they have utterly failed us.

hackula13• 13 years ago

Fine, don't shut down the programs, but is it too much for the people paying for these programs to ask about their nature and to be informed of the accountability breaches?

Every citizen has a right to know the nature of what we are doing (how else can we decide whether or not we want to live with the trade offs or not?), and to be informed when something goes off the rails on the ethics side of things. This is a pretty low bar to set.

mikevm• 13 years ago

Don't you think that there are legitimate reasons for governments to keep certain things secret?

dubcanada• 13 years ago

Nope I wanna know about ALIENS! Do they exist?

tokenadult• 13 years ago

I really . . . hope . . . that governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret.

Does that include personal information about you, for example your personal medical information that is part of the treatment records of a government-administered medical insurance plan? Some countries (not many) make personal income tax filings public information. Do you live in such a country?

swombat7• 13 years ago

I've made my company fully transparent, including, for example, all salary information. Most of those steps seemed very scary at first. In hindsight, there was nothing to be scared about, really.

This is not to say that extreme transparency applied to all things is right - just that it often looks a lot more scary than it is. When you act transparently you relinquish some control, and some people hate the very idea of giving up any control.

celticninja• 13 years ago

there is a difference between keeping something confidential (because it relates to an individual and doesnt really need public scrutiny, indeed there is no public interest in scrutinisg the data e.g. a private citizens medical or tax records) and keeping something secret, something that is purposefully being kept from the public and there is a public intertest element in it -e.g. government behaviour, secret laws that would impact on private citizens etc.

njs12345• 13 years ago

I always liked the idea of making income tax filings public. Seems like it would make catching people who are dodging tax and the relevant discussions around it a lot easier.

windexh8er• 13 years ago

The good thing here is that containment is the hard part and honor and integrity seems to be more on everyone's mind in today's world of egregious corruption within our 'democratic' governments.

I share your hope and support the leaks. It is an awkward position to be in for the next US administration, I'll be curious to see how it plays out during the all annoying campaign season.

Information wants to be free...

mpyne10• 13 years ago

Information wants to be free...

Just remember that for the next NSA-related story.

kevando• 13 years ago

What if I told you your government knows what you masterbate to?

freehunter• 13 years ago

The end game is, if they couldn't keep things like this secret, people would demand they stop storing this information in the first place.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

Oh no! I'm so ashamed of my sexuality that someone else knowing my porn habits is going to make me sing a tragic operatic solo!

lttlrck• 13 years ago

Secrets have existed since the dawn of man, your hopes of eradicating them are naive.

How would you propose that "culture" be contained within the sphere of government? It clearly could not, it would spread to corporate and private spheres of life (if it didn't start here). It sounds dangerously close to a 100% surveillance society. How lovely.

nikcub2• 13 years ago

governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret.

That isn't the goal, not for privacy advocates nor for Wikileaks or Julian Assange, who said:

"The goal is justice, the method is transparency. It's important not to confuse the goal and the method."

Advocates of individual privacy rely on the government, as a service provider, to keep secrets in order to protect the rights of individuals.

jewbacca• 13 years ago

I find it amazing how often supposedly substantive discussions about Wikileaks and Julian Assange go on without any explicit mention or acknowledgment of what I've always considered his central thesis:

----

"The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance

[...]

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption."

http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org#T...

http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf

mpyne10• 13 years ago

That may have been Assange (and WikiLeaks) goal when it was founded. It's hard to claim that's currently their goal, given that their push for "transparency" is limited to the USA (and occasionally the UK) ever since their site switchover back 5-6 years ago.

mcphilip• 13 years ago

It's not quite so simple as considering all leaks of government information heroic. For instance, would it have been heroic to leak news that U.S. code breakers had cracked enemy codes in WW2?

jellicle• 13 years ago

Even better, what if the government was closing in a child pornographer with chemical weapons and a nuke, and the leak allowed him to rape more children while nuking a nunnery and poisoning an orphanage?

logfromblammo6• 13 years ago

Like, for instance, that the Japanese diplomatic codes had been broken and that the administration had prior knowledge of an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor, yet chose to do nothing, because the public response would finally allow the U.S. to enter the war?

Absolutely, it would have been heroic. It might have led to real justice instead of ruinous warmongering.

dlsx• 13 years ago

yes it is simple.

You are implying that there was a good vs evil paradigm with WWII which is completely a USA fallacy.

Both sides were being funded by the central banking cartel. Do you actually think there would be any difference if you were living under Nazi control or not?

Look at all the astroturfing of the phrase "6 million Jews" in WWI before Hitler even came in to power.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

it will only work in governments where fear of terminal retribution is minimal. Put another way, some governments have no qualms about keeping secrets through fear. There are numerous examples where they round up whole families and disappear them

_mulder_6• 13 years ago

"governments will become incapable of keeping anything a secret."

The fundamental problem with this is that a government isn't a single entity. It's comprised of thousands of people all working on their own specific piece. So by it's very nature, only a very few people will know the bigger picture. If "governments" start leaking information left, right and centre, what that means in reality is hundreds of workers start exposing all of their work without understanding the larger picture.

What if a worker reveals details of a program to track "innocent people". Only to find out after the leak they were actually all in witness protection and they're now in great danger.

When you're part of a huge machine like a government (particularly in Policing or security), most workers will not know the full extent of their work, and therefore cannot understand (or be answerable for) the wider impacts of their actions.

BetterLateThan• 13 years ago

> so strong that governments will become incapable...

Sounds like you expect governments to be ashamed of what they do once the plans become public.

It's not about shame. It's about the power to persist until the goal is reached.

The plebes have neither the goals nor the persistence - this is what makes them plebes, and they will stay this way with or without Wikileaks.

As long as there is quasifood in the supermarkets and quasientertainment on the TV, the masses will not give a damn about what or how the government is doing. Human nature has not changed for thousands of years.

Here's a simple manual for running a country that has been working like a charm ever since the emperor Septimius Severus: "Enrich the soldiers and damn the rest".

nikcub2• 13 years ago

The content isn't interesting[1] because bilateral free trade agreements are public[0], and having the USA force partners into accepting patent enforcement, copyright laws like the DMCA etc. are well known

What is a little interesting is the negotiations and diplomacy at work. You can see how each country is trying to further its own position and interest. Looking at this version of the document, it is impossible to see how a compromise will be reached since there are so many areas that are at complete opposite viewpoints - but you know that in a few weeks time an agreement will be announced as one side or another gives way (guess which!), and the public are nonethewiser.

Some are really good at watering things down, eg.

The Parties shall endeavour to [US/SG propose: cooperate] [US oppose: establish a framework for cooperation] among their respective patent offices to facilitate

You can see already that they don't intend to cooperate. Establishing a framework? what the hell does that even mean ..

You can now see that Australia, Singapore and Mexico are on Team USA when it comes to copyright terms (Australia opposed it during the FTA negotiations), everybody else opposes, but they will eventually have to come around on this:

[NZ/BN/MY/VN/CA/JP propose; US/AU/SG/MX oppose: The term of protection of a work, performance or phonogram shall be determined according to each Party's domestic law and the international agreements to which each Party is a party.]

[0] Here is USA - Australia: http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/a...

Here is NAFTA - https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Default.aspx?tabid=97&langua...

[1] It might not be interesting because we have seen a lot of this in completed deals previously, but it is very important. The USA enforces its business interest laws such as patent and copyright terms onto recipients of "free trade" agreements, in exchange for getting access to the non-protected part of their domestic market. This is why US laws are so important to the rest of the world, because we end up having to adopt them (this is what modern imperialism looks like).

Camillo• 13 years ago

The content isn't interesting[1] because bilateral free trade agreements are public[0]

That's like saying that weather forecasts aren't interestings because the weather is public. The point is that we want to have a public discussion on these agreements before they are signed.

sounds• 13 years ago

So far I have seen no mention of Article QQ.G.10, on TPM.

"The US wants this separate cause of action to extend even to cases where there is no copyrighted works" [1]

Even the DMCA only protects copyrighted works. The provisions of QQ.G.10 for example would make it illegal in enough countries to distribute dvdcss that linux would not play my DVDs.

Once implemented, this will have a significant impact on linux users.

[1] http://keionline.org/node/1825

einehexe• 13 years ago

this is what modern imperialism looks like

Well that is a pretty tepid imperialism. If a country isn't willing to put their money where their mouth is then maybe they should be quiet.

x3ro• 13 years ago

What money? [1]

[1] http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/

wonderyak6• 13 years ago

My understanding is that the TPP is not public (yet?), and parties involved are not allowed to discuss it for 4 years.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/11/house-pushing-back-on...

mtgx2• 13 years ago

How is that possible, when there were rumors they intend to pass it by the end of the year?

mwilcox• 13 years ago

An earlier version was leaked in 2011.

rtpg• 13 years ago

[NZ/BN/MY/VN/CA/JP propose; US/AU/SG/MX oppose: The term of protection of a work, performance or phonogram shall be determined according to each Party's domestic law and the international agreements to which each Party is a party.]

On a sidenote, wouldn't it be great if we could at least get unified copyright law? From the draft it seems like the US is pushing more towards that

rodgerd• 13 years ago

Not on US terms, it wouldn't be.

spunky• 13 years ago

The US copyright system is broken.

wonderyak6• 13 years ago

Not when its coupled with things like Corporations being able to sue governments for 'loss of potential future profits' for policy decisions. That is incredibly dangerous.

aferreira• 13 years ago

I'm actually more interested in the US-EU negotiations, I wonder how long that one's going to take :)

pvnick• 13 years ago

This revelation proves Wikileaks is stil alive and relevant. I hope they see a renewed jolt of donations and interest. This is the organization of heroes that helped get Snowden to safety.

Also, I'm getting sick and tired of our "leaders" attempting to legislate free speech and intellectual property in secret through anti-democratic means. It's disgusting.

Edit: second paragraph

ihsw4• 13 years ago

The problem with these kinds of things is that the document might be watermarked to obviate who leaked it. It follows the same vein as "spying on allies" which -- until recently -- was tin-foil-hat conspiracy territory.

The political fallout will not be minimal, and it will not be kept secret.

twoodfin2• 13 years ago

It follows the same vein as "spying on allies" which -- until recently -- was tin-foil-hat conspiracy territory.

Not at all. Nations have been spying on their allies since there have been nations and spies. Anyone "shocked" by those revelations is either putting on a show or rather naive.

CWuestefeld• 13 years ago

Sorry to be pedantic here, but I don't think that "obviate" is at all what you meant here. Judging from the context, it seems you believe the definition is "to make obvious", but it actually has nothing to do with that.

ars• 13 years ago

spying on allies" which -- until recently -- was tin-foil-hat conspiracy territory.

What? Nations have been spying on each other, including allies, since the invention of spying.

The political fallout will not be minimal

The fallout will be so minimal as to be non-existent. Nations already know allies spy on them, it's not in any way surprising.

It also doesn't really bother them. They have to protect against all spying, if an ally can, so can an enemy. So finding out an ally spied really just means an enemy did too - so it's actually useful information.

gasull• 13 years ago

The Collateral Murder video was most likely watermarked. I think the low quality of the video is because the quality had to be degraded so the watermarks can't be seen/scanned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

The contention over Wikileaks has never been about relevancy, but their methods, e.g. editorializing when they claim to merely be leaking.

JackFr• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that wikileaks isn't actually a wiki?

k3n2• 13 years ago

But it actually is... or at least it uses the Wikimedia software:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Confidential_plans_for_1.2_billion...

warnick2• 13 years ago

but the conceptual framework is not there. (I.E. most visitors cant edit anything)

warnick2• 13 years ago

No, every time I think about them this comes up in the back of my mind and I get a little confused

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". "Wiki" (pronounced [ˈwiti] or [ˈviti]) is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast" or "quick".

Great, now I'm bothered by the fact that everybody pronounces "wiki" wrong :D

_mulder_6• 13 years ago

Or the fact that they keep half of their leaked material secret from us.

mpyne10• 13 years ago

I'm still waiting for the WikiLeaks major leaks about Moscow that we were all promised. At least, promised until Assange got his TV show on Russia Today.

foobarqux• 13 years ago

It started as a wiki. It didn't work. They kept the name.

namdnay• 13 years ago

I'm sure it used to be, back in the pre-Collateral Murder days. I remember being able to search through the pages and see people comment on the authenticity or not of publicly uploaded documents.

sker• 13 years ago

Wikileaks again messing up the world's economy and putting lives at risk. Won't somebody shut them down?

On a more serious note, wasn't there a reward if they got their hands on this leak?

Also, as a mexican, it sucks that we're part of this treaty. So far Mexico has been a lawless wild west with regards to copyright enforcement.

gesman• 13 years ago

Would be great if someone to summarize this bloat of gibberish in human readable bullet-points format...

trendoid• 13 years ago

good overview and relevant links at reddit : http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1qj6xd/wikileaks_...

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1qj6xd/wikileaks_...

Aaron Swartz turned in his grave.

lettergram• 13 years ago

Seems to me this may have just been given to Wikileaks directly from the government. The language seems a bit simpler than most trade agreements I have read (though to be fair I have only read 3 or 4).

shmerl4• 13 years ago

At last.

shmerl4• 13 years ago

Note how some propose more proper approach of not applying anticircumvention restrictions on non infringing usage, while others oppose it. It's good that Wikileaks now published this with demonstrating opinions of the participants as well.

[CA oppose: noninfringing uses [SG oppose: of a work, performance, or phonogram] in a particular class of works, [SG oppose: performances, or phonograms] when an actual or likely adverse impact on those noninfringing uses [CL propose: or exceptions or limitations to copyright or related rights with respect to users] is [PE oppose: credibly demonstrated] [PE propose: found] [CL propose: demonstrated or recognized] in a legislative or administrative review or proceeding [SG oppose: by substantial evidence]; provided that [AU/PE oppose: any limitation or exception adopted in reliance upon this clause shall have effect for a renewable period of not more than three [SG propose: four] years] [AU/PE propose: any such review or proceeding is conducted at least once every four years] from the date of conclusion of such review or proceeding.]

The bottom line, they want to create some kind of DMCA 1201 clone as was expected. Now hopefully there will be more chances to stop this beast.

mankypro• 13 years ago

The President...shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur... Constitution of the United States, Art. II, Sec. 2

mpyne10• 13 years ago

That's an accurate quote and all. Of course no treaty has been signed yet so I'm not sure what your point is.

husein10• 13 years ago

I think it's absurd that these negotiations were shrouded in such secrecy in the first place. These rules, if implemented, will have a massive impact on how the global economy will work. Yet, the public, who will end up living under the yoke of these rules, not only has very little direct input into the process but didn't (until today) even have a clear view of what rules were being considered.

I don't see how one can have a modern democracy if rules are made in what was (before the leak) a black box.

Hopefully this will lead to more transparency for these types of negotiations in the future. Leaking/spreading this leaked information should help show those with political power that this type of closed door process is not going to be palatable to a connected and informed public.

These types of international agreements tend to stick around for a long time once they are implemented. So, expending energy on the front end to get a more balanced agreement that works for everyone impacted, not just those with an invitation to sit at the table, will save a lot of trouble later on.

shmerl4• 13 years ago

Detailed analysis: http://www.keionline.org/node/1825

contingencies• 13 years ago

The negotiation of this has been known for some time. I submitted an objection to the Wikimedia ethics board when I found out that at the same time this agreement was under negotiation, Wikimedia Indonesia was hosting an event in the US embassy sponsored 'American Cultural Center' (or similar) in Jakarta.

As a long term Wikimedia contributor, I expected at least a response. I received nothing.

ksrm2• 13 years ago

[US propose; AU/NZ/VN/BN/CL/PE/MY/SG/CA/MX oppose: shall make patents available for inventions for the following] [NZ/CL/PE/MY/AU/VN/BN/SG/CA/MX propose: may also exclude from patentability]:

Made me laugh. You're on your own there, USA.

shmerl4• 13 years ago

I wonder why this "USA" there is supposed to represent the whole USA. Who decides? USTR isn't even democratically elected, yet it got some weird authority to draft far reaching regulations which affect everyone.

danbruc• 13 years ago

What the hell is going on? Secret negotiations about trading policies? What is the legitimation for doing this in secrecy? When did the people lose their right to know what their government is doing?

mtgx2• 13 years ago

Here's an explanation for some of the more dangerous stuff in it:

http://keionline.org/node/1825

By the way, they intend to maintain unlocking phones or other devices illegal with TPP. It's just that now it will extend to a lot more countries.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

The title is slightly misleading. They've only released the IP chapter - presumably because they figure the content will annoy hacktivists. I personally want to know about the whole thing, since agricultural tariffs, labor conditions, visa rules and the like seem to me at least as important as IP matters.

s369610• 13 years ago

interesting search: "[US propose".

NamTaf• 13 years ago

The AU government has previously stayed neutral/supportive of our high court ruling that ISPs are included under 'safe harbour' clauses and that they carry common-carrier status, in that they provide a service but do not have to police what that service is used for. In specific, they are not the police when it comes to online piracy and do not have to block websites, disconnect users, etc. iiNet won a hard-fought legal battle to get that ruling and it was used as precedence to basically stop the US IP lobby groups exerting pressure on AU businesses to conform to something our laws didn't even support.

Now it's become apparent from this that the government wants to throw all of that under the bus and is supporting transcontinental IP laws that are almost entirely in US interests and serve to screw over our citizens and go against high court rulings. All to be a lap dog to the US and appease their taskmasters.

I have nothing but hatred for our government for conducting themselves in such a miserable, self-serving sense.

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

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