http://urbansurvival.com/blog/2013/11/14/another-obama-secret-deal/
If you like Obamacare, you’re really going to love the details coming out about the Trans-Pacific Partnership plans which have been outed by Wikileaks. They’ve issued a press release: *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 <https://wikileaks.org/tpp/>* As I wrote in my book Broken Web The Coming Collapse of the Internet<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009FLCJ8G/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B009FLCJ8G&linkCode=as2&tag=urbansurvivar-20>, it’s only a matter of time until the Internet is placed under the same kind of governmental controls that took control of the airwaves via the Communications Act of 1934<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934> . We’ve been anticipating such a (draconian, usurpation of free speech) as a critical marker which should occur about the bottom of the ongoing (second) economic depression, which as any reader knows is being seriously masked by the creation of money (out of thin air) in order to continue the illusion that all is well – and normal. Still, this should take a year or two before it closes in, and as always, we are very careful only to *report the existence of the story* and not actually print “secret” documents which could later be used against us when the net controls come. No, this is not cowardice…it’s called good editorial decision-making because later on the other rule which will become apparent is “must be present to win.” As one reader put it: “*Ru roh: I don’t like the sound of this at all! They will be claiming everything on the net and IP addresses will be shut down.”* No, only those which violate whatever flavor of “law” is cited. And we don’t need Kafka when we have TPP in the wings. You just need to read the law…which is why about 90% of the conspiracy and “discussion” sites will evaporate when time comes because reposting of more than a few sentences of an article is likely to be interpreted as going beyond Fair Use<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Amount_and_substantiality> under the DCMA <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act>. Even embodied in 17 U.S.C.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_17_of_the_United_States_Code> § 107 <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html> there are already four tests of Fair Use: *1. **purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;* *2. **the nature of the copyrighted work;* *3. **the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and* *4. **the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.* It’s perfectly fine to have a website which expresses and opinion, or viewpoint, like this one, but the constraints of point 3 on *amount and substantiality of the portion used* is what, I think, could be used to bring down a lot of sites around the net which rip off content. And it’s something that wouldn’t be opposed by honest writers whose work is already ripped off wholesale all the time. Don’t mean to start off over in the weeds, but this is likely to become a biggy because it’s where the “wide open web” collides with the limitations on free speech, one of which is the making money on the intellectual efforts of others. __._,_.___ __,_._,___ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
