All of the copyright advisors to the admin on the TPP are from the industry. ALL of them. [View all]

[cali]

Five key questions – and answers – about the leaked TPP text

Susan Sell is a professor of political science at George Washington University, who has carried out landmark research on international negotiations over intellectual property. Below is her response to five questions about the intellectual property chapter of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which the Obama administration has been negotiating with trading partners behind closed doors. A draft of the chapter was leaked to WikiLeaks two days ago.

The draft TPP text was kept secret from the general public. Who has seen it and why?

The United States Trade Representative and the Obama administration have kept the treaty texts secret from the public. However, they have shared texts with 700 or so “cleared advisers,” all of whom come from intellectual property rights holders’ industries. Members of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights have had access to texts all along. These members include representatives of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Entertainment Software Association, as well as firms such as Gilead Sciences, Johnson and Johnson, Verizon, Cisco Systems, and General Electric.

Select members of Congress have had very limited access to the draft treaty texts. After Thursday’s leak of the intellectual property chapter it is obvious why the USTR and the Obama administration have insisted on secrecy. From this text it appears that the U.S. administration is negotiating for intellectual property provisions that it knows it could not achieve through an open democratic process. For example, it includes provisions similar to those of the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that the European Parliament ultimately rejected. The United States appears to be using the non-transparent Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations as a deliberate end run around Congress on intellectual property, to achieve a presumably unpopular set of policy goals.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/15/five-key-questions-and-answers-about-the-leaked-tpp-text/

There is NO excuse for this. There is NO defense for this.

It's hard to argue that President Obama and this administration are doing anything but the heavy lifting for corporate interests.

And yes, the President and the administration and corporate assholes who are the USTR, deserve the harshest of criticism for selling out the people to benefit corporations. Oh, and fuck Hollywood bigwigs whose "wishlist" the admin is fulfilling.