5 ms·

The very fact that this is being negotiated in secret shows that the people involved know it is wrong. Any law that comes out of this "agreement" should be cons

by phaemon 11y ago

The very fact that this is being negotiated in secret shows that the people involved know it is wrong. Any law that comes out of this "agreement" should be considered completely invalid.

aw3c2 11y ago
Not necessarily. They might be under the impression that the public does not fully understand the economics and how the world really works.
- gmac 11y ago
  Also, although transparency always sounds wonderful, negotiating a treaty in the open is potentially very difficult: the media are liable to trumpet a 'humiliating U-turn!' any time someone ends up negotiating to a new position, even though that's kind of the point.
  - retrogradeorbit 11y ago
    So this is kept secret to avoid hurting some bureaucrat's feelings?
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I think GP's point is that media will take the most idiotic view of the problem possible; it's not about hurting bureaucrat's feelings, it's about people hurting themselves by mindless, knee-jerk reactions.
    - gmac 11y ago
      No — 'humiliating U-turn' on the front pages is very much a political problem, and could lead to early entrenchment of positions.
  - switch007 11y ago
    It's better that the public get the wrong end of the stick rather than merely knowing a stick exists. The media would get very bored of treaty details very quickly. Not that most of the media is completely independent of and unrelated to the parties doing the negotiating, anyway.
- tljr 11y ago
  Then they need to understand that they've failed, and hand over the reigns.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Are things negotiated in secret because the public don't understand, or do the public not understand because things like this are secret?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    The public won't understand either way, unfortunately.
- mtgx 11y ago
  By that logic, most of a country's laws should be secret. Also, only a minority of people should be allowed to vote - maybe only those with an IQ of over 110. See where I'm going with this? If you want democracy you take it with the good and bad. The solution for some issues not being easily understood by the public, is for the politicians to fight to explain that law better to the public and what it means - not try to pass it in secret.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > By that logic, most of a country's laws should be secret. That does not follow. Law is public because people need to know what is expected of them and what is the layout of decision-space they navigate. > Also, only a minority of people should be allowed to vote - maybe only those with an IQ of over 110. If this is a bad idea, it's not bad for obvious reasons. > See where I'm going with this? If you want democracy you take it with the good and bad. The solution for some issues not being easily understood by the public, is for the politicians to fight to explain that law better to the public and what it means - not try to pass it in secret. The reality is that instead of "fighting to explain", politicians will pander to the public to get their support. In democracy, popularity wins. While I don't have an opinion yet on whether TPP should be negotiated in secret or not, I can understand the desire to actually get something done, which pretty much precludes involving the public. If you go out there and start asking, you'll get dragged into popularity contest. Also, why the hell are we even bothering with representative democracy, if we can't trust the officials to make good choices in our name?
    - walterbell 11y ago
      > Also, why the hell are we even bothering with representative democracy, if we can't trust the officials to make good choices in our name? How many voters know that their elected representatives have limited access to read TPP drafts, cannot take notes, cannot discuss with staffers? At the same time, TPP negotiations are lead by ex-Citibank staff while industry lobbyists are contributing to the agreements, according to leaked emails, http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-show-close-industry-involvement-in-tpp-negotiations/ http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-... "At another point, Jim DeLisi of Fanwood Chemical said he had just seen the text on rules of origin, and remarked, “Someone owes USTR a royalty payment. These are our rules. … This is a very pleasant surprise.”
- phaemon 11y ago
  True, they might. These people often seem to have a vastly inflated idea of their own intelligence and understanding.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    They may be justified here; it doesn't take much to be smarter than public opinion driven by outrage-inducing media.
- stsp 11y ago
  s/really works/is being ruled/
- chinpokomon 11y ago
  Which implies that they know how economics work. I can't say how unbiased this [0] comic is, but I feel like it does a really good job putting TPP in perspective. [0] http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
gutnor 11y ago
Secret in negotiation is like source control in software development. It is universally recognized best practice. So that's not really an indication of anything. You cannot practically publicly negotiate as that would require either showing your hand to the other countries, or worse would prevent you to make any concession under public/party pressure. Now, of course you know this agreement will be bad. But it is not because they negotiate in secret. That is because they negotiate at all and you know that politicians do not share our(0) views on IP and as such don't mind trading short term money, for what we see is a long term degradation of our liberties. (0) By "ours", I mean definitively ours on HN. Considering past support, I guess it is indicative that "ours" includes a large part of the public too. Although it does not seem something important enough to be an election topic in most of the Western World.
- lumberjack 11y ago
  >It is universally recognized best practice. It is universally recognized best practice for politicians to decide which industries/businesses in their respective countries should go under and lose out on the deal and which industries in both respective countries should be the winners with as little opposition from the losers as possible. I'm sure that there are many people all over the political spectrum that think that politicians are abusing their power by essentially deciding without anyone's input, (except for those with the deepest pockets) who should be sacrificed for the economy's sake and who should stand to gain pretty much everything.
  - zymhan 11y ago
    > politicians are abusing their power by essentially deciding without anyone's input Well the deal isn't negotiated by elected officials, mostly it's negotiated by experts/bureaucrats, and congress will just vote the whole thing up or down. If you oppose the TPP, circulate petitions and call on your congresspeople to oppose it. The average Joe doesn't care about a lot of policy debates, but the economic effects of free trade agreements are apparent to most.
  - tbrownaw 11y ago
    Adversarial negotiations require not telling your negotiation opponent too much about your goals and priorities. This unfortunately doesn't interact well with country-internal public discussion.
Gustomaximus 11y ago
Not at all. Negotiating and ratifying the deal are 2 separate things. Negotiating in secret is a non-issue and likely quite helpful. With open negotiation the negotiators will be beset by media with agendas and every lobby group imaginable trying to push their view on every point, many of which are likely dead-ends or unexpected to progress anyway. Total openness could be a real restriction in getting the job done. What would be a concern is if the negotiated deal is ratified without a reasonable time and availability for political and public scrutiny and a vote. The guys responsible can negotiate secretly all they want but they'll (hopefully) be sent away if they try and pass anything that is not in a nations interest. They should know this and ideally wont take a deal to the table that cant be agreed and signed at a national level.
- Intermernet 11y ago
  >Total openness could be a real restriction in getting the job done. It depends on what you define "the job" as. Many people would say this is a job that doesn't need doing.
- ajnin 11y ago
  > Negotiating and ratifying the deal are 2 separate things. Negotiating in secret is a non-issue and likely quite helpful. I don't agree, with secret negociations the ratifiers will be presented with a "accept everything" or "reject everything" choice, with a very strong political pressure for the former lest they throw away years of work. This tips the scale in favor of ultimate acceptance of the deal so that negociators can cram as much measures as they think will be accepted in the end. If the negociations were public, then each point could be publicly argued with a much lower cost to say "no" than the rejection of the whole treaty. Reminding the negociators from time to time who they work for might also be a nice side effect of publicity.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  > Negotiating in secret is a non-issue and likely quite helpful. only if given strict and well defined mandate by the congress.
- bediger4000 11y ago

by phaemon 11y ago

The very fact that this is being negotiated in secret shows that the people involved know it is wrong. Any law that comes out of this "agreement" should be considered completely invalid.

aw3c2 11y ago

Not necessarily. They might be under the impression that the public does not fully understand the economics and how the world really works.

gmac 11y ago
Also, although transparency always sounds wonderful, negotiating a treaty in the open is potentially very difficult: the media are liable to trumpet a 'humiliating U-turn!' any time someone ends up negotiating to a new position, even though that's kind of the point.
- retrogradeorbit 11y ago
  So this is kept secret to avoid hurting some bureaucrat's feelings?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I think GP's point is that media will take the most idiotic view of the problem possible; it's not about hurting bureaucrat's feelings, it's about people hurting themselves by mindless, knee-jerk reactions.
  - gmac 11y ago
    No — 'humiliating U-turn' on the front pages is very much a political problem, and could lead to early entrenchment of positions.
- switch007 11y ago
  It's better that the public get the wrong end of the stick rather than merely knowing a stick exists. The media would get very bored of treaty details very quickly. Not that most of the media is completely independent of and unrelated to the parties doing the negotiating, anyway.
tljr 11y ago
Then they need to understand that they've failed, and hand over the reigns.
onion2k 11y ago
Are things negotiated in secret because the public don't understand, or do the public not understand because things like this are secret?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  The public won't understand either way, unfortunately.
mtgx 11y ago
By that logic, most of a country's laws should be secret. Also, only a minority of people should be allowed to vote - maybe only those with an IQ of over 110. See where I'm going with this? If you want democracy you take it with the good and bad. The solution for some issues not being easily understood by the public, is for the politicians to fight to explain that law better to the public and what it means - not try to pass it in secret.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > By that logic, most of a country's laws should be secret. That does not follow. Law is public because people need to know what is expected of them and what is the layout of decision-space they navigate. > Also, only a minority of people should be allowed to vote - maybe only those with an IQ of over 110. If this is a bad idea, it's not bad for obvious reasons. > See where I'm going with this? If you want democracy you take it with the good and bad. The solution for some issues not being easily understood by the public, is for the politicians to fight to explain that law better to the public and what it means - not try to pass it in secret. The reality is that instead of "fighting to explain", politicians will pander to the public to get their support. In democracy, popularity wins. While I don't have an opinion yet on whether TPP should be negotiated in secret or not, I can understand the desire to actually get something done, which pretty much precludes involving the public. If you go out there and start asking, you'll get dragged into popularity contest. Also, why the hell are we even bothering with representative democracy, if we can't trust the officials to make good choices in our name?
  - walterbell 11y ago
    > Also, why the hell are we even bothering with representative democracy, if we can't trust the officials to make good choices in our name? How many voters know that their elected representatives have limited access to read TPP drafts, cannot take notes, cannot discuss with staffers? At the same time, TPP negotiations are lead by ex-Citibank staff while industry lobbyists are contributing to the agreements, according to leaked emails, http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-show-close-industry-involvement-in-tpp-negotiations/ http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-... "At another point, Jim DeLisi of Fanwood Chemical said he had just seen the text on rules of origin, and remarked, “Someone owes USTR a royalty payment. These are our rules. … This is a very pleasant surprise.”
phaemon 11y ago
True, they might. These people often seem to have a vastly inflated idea of their own intelligence and understanding.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  They may be justified here; it doesn't take much to be smarter than public opinion driven by outrage-inducing media.
stsp 11y ago
s/really works/is being ruled/
chinpokomon 11y ago
Which implies that they know how economics work. I can't say how unbiased this [0] comic is, but I feel like it does a really good job putting TPP in perspective. [0] http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/

gutnor 11y ago

Secret in negotiation is like source control in software development. It is universally recognized best practice. So that's not really an indication of anything. You cannot practically publicly negotiate as that would require either showing your hand to the other countries, or worse would prevent you to make any concession under public/party pressure. Now, of course you know this agreement will be bad. But it is not because they negotiate in secret. That is because they negotiate at all and you know that politicians do not share our(0) views on IP and as such don't mind trading short term money, for what we see is a long term degradation of our liberties. (0) By "ours", I mean definitively ours on HN. Considering past support, I guess it is indicative that "ours" includes a large part of the public too. Although it does not seem something important enough to be an election topic in most of the Western World.

lumberjack 11y ago
>It is universally recognized best practice. It is universally recognized best practice for politicians to decide which industries/businesses in their respective countries should go under and lose out on the deal and which industries in both respective countries should be the winners with as little opposition from the losers as possible. I'm sure that there are many people all over the political spectrum that think that politicians are abusing their power by essentially deciding without anyone's input, (except for those with the deepest pockets) who should be sacrificed for the economy's sake and who should stand to gain pretty much everything.
- zymhan 11y ago
  > politicians are abusing their power by essentially deciding without anyone's input Well the deal isn't negotiated by elected officials, mostly it's negotiated by experts/bureaucrats, and congress will just vote the whole thing up or down. If you oppose the TPP, circulate petitions and call on your congresspeople to oppose it. The average Joe doesn't care about a lot of policy debates, but the economic effects of free trade agreements are apparent to most.
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  Adversarial negotiations require not telling your negotiation opponent too much about your goals and priorities. This unfortunately doesn't interact well with country-internal public discussion.

Gustomaximus 11y ago

Not at all. Negotiating and ratifying the deal are 2 separate things. Negotiating in secret is a non-issue and likely quite helpful. With open negotiation the negotiators will be beset by media with agendas and every lobby group imaginable trying to push their view on every point, many of which are likely dead-ends or unexpected to progress anyway. Total openness could be a real restriction in getting the job done. What would be a concern is if the negotiated deal is ratified without a reasonable time and availability for political and public scrutiny and a vote. The guys responsible can negotiate secretly all they want but they'll (hopefully) be sent away if they try and pass anything that is not in a nations interest. They should know this and ideally wont take a deal to the table that cant be agreed and signed at a national level.

Intermernet 11y ago
>Total openness could be a real restriction in getting the job done. It depends on what you define "the job" as. Many people would say this is a job that doesn't need doing.
ajnin 11y ago
> Negotiating and ratifying the deal are 2 separate things. Negotiating in secret is a non-issue and likely quite helpful. I don't agree, with secret negociations the ratifiers will be presented with a "accept everything" or "reject everything" choice, with a very strong political pressure for the former lest they throw away years of work. This tips the scale in favor of ultimate acceptance of the deal so that negociators can cram as much measures as they think will be accepted in the end. If the negociations were public, then each point could be publicly argued with a much lower cost to say "no" than the rejection of the whole treaty. Reminding the negociators from time to time who they work for might also be a nice side effect of publicity.
venomsnake 11y ago
> Negotiating in secret is a non-issue and likely quite helpful. only if given strict and well defined mandate by the congress.
bediger4000 11y ago