Secret TPP released by Wikileaks

Well well well..... Good on Wikileaks again eh. 

The super duperly secretly negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, which has been worrying the public on all sides of the Pacific (not least because of the secrecy involved) has been released by Wikileaks. Well the entire  Intellectual Property Rights chapter. It's here darlings:
https://wikileaks.org/tpp/

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. go here

I didn't know the thing was so bloody secret. Why the secrecy? What have they got to hide? 

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. more

It looks like a long read. I guess I'll have a bit of a look, but really might have to leave it up to the outraged members of the public who know about these things to report back on the significance of it. 

To be honest I'm not sure how good or bad the thing may or may not be. Keeping the thing under lock and key with such secrecy surely gives rise to suspicion. If the thing does mean that we'll all end up slaves to the capitalists without any sovereign rights, then of course that's too bad to even consider. But how the fuck would we know anything with the bloody thing apparently too much for us pawns. Last I heard Abbott was very keen to sign the thing, all in secret I guess, by the end of this year. Why the rush? What about the free exchange of ideas in the public domain? These pollies get it wrong; they think their our masters when in reality they're simply public servants.

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. more