19 ms·
TTIP Leaks
- creshal 10y agoNot that it's still not all documents, and already out of date: > The documents that Greenpeace Netherlands has released about half of the draft text as of April 2016, prior to the start of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US (New York, 25-29 April 2016). As far as we know the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters and many extensive annexes. The EU Commission published an overview stating that they have now 17 consolidated texts. This means the documents released by Greenpeace netherlands encompass 3/4 of the existing consolidated texts. Consolidated texts are those where the EU and US positions on issues are shown side by side. This step in the negotiation process allows us to see the areas where the EU and US are close to agreement, and where compromises and concessions would still need to be made. Of the documents released by Greenpeace Netherlands, in total 248 pages, 13 chapters offer for the first time the position of the US. So politics will probably pull the "your complaints are all addressed in the still secret parts / were changed after the leak, we pinky-swear" card.
- vog 10y ago> So politics will probably pull the "your complaints are all addressed in the still secret parts / were changed after the leak, we pinky-swear" card. Maybe, but I deeply hope that the public reaction to that will be either: "Yeeeaaah, sure ..." Or, the more diplomatic variant: "How do you plan to reestablish the trust needed to make your promise credible?"
- freddref 10y agoWill the public reaction be considered at all in this proposal? In line with current trends is it not more likely that public reaction will for the most part be ignored?
- glasz 10y agothere were 250k ppl on the street in berlin. marching against ttip. the first thing spiegel.de did, while the ppl were marching, was releasing a polemic article basically saying "it's all nazis". days later gabriel went public: "we don't care. we'll do it anyway." now, nobody try telling me shit about public opinion's worthiness!
- r0h1n 10y agoThe #2 and #3 stories are both links to ttip-leaks.org. The only difference b/w them seems to be the presence of a "www" in one case. Doesn't HN dupe detection handle something as basic?
- jychang 10y agoHere's the preview for relevant section for the TTRIP with regards to the Internet: http://www.ttip-leaks.org/agamemnon/doc4.pdf http://www.ttip-leaks.org/agamemnon/doc4.pdf The actual preview function seems to be broken, it only opens in a tiny iframe.
- leaveyou 10y agoIANAL and the essence of that text escapes me even after several minutes of intelligent gazing over it. Could someone summarize it in non-legalese for the rest of us ? Thanks
- Loic 10y agoFirst page: "Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to: ... (b) require a Party to compel any enterprise exclusively engaged in the broadcast or cable distribution of radio or television programming to make available its broadcast or cable facilities as a public telecommunications network." Which means, if your cable company is in monopoly somewhere, you cannot have any regulations to force sharing the network to foster competition. This is basically just going against what is making Internet great in most Europe. Just right on the first page. Ouch! Update to be clearer: "public telecommunications network means telecommunications infrastructure used to provide public telecommunications services;"
- matt4077 10y agoIt means that TTIP doesn't force such sharing. It doesn't mean that no other law can do it. I know laws are hard to parse, but sure the difference between "I don't want water" and "nobody ever gets any water" is accessible to the layman?
- rory096 10y ago>you cannot have any regulations to force sharing the network >Nothing in this... shall... require a Party to compel It says nothing about prohibiting regulations - that clause clearly just says no changes are required by the agreement. Way to start spreading the disinformation early.
- 10y ago
- riffraff 10y agoI don't understand this FAQ: > None of the chapters we have seen reference the General Exceptions rule. This nearly 70-year-old rule enshrined in the GATT agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO), allows nations to regulate trade “to protect human, animal and plant life or health" or for "the conservation of exhaustible natural resources" [1]. as point 2 in agriculture states > In this regard, nothing in this Agreement will restrain the Parties from taking measures necessary to achieve legitimate policy objectives such as the protection of public health, safety, environment or public morals, social or consumer protection, or the promotion and protection of cultural diversity that each side deems appropriate.
- tommyman 10y agoSo business groups and lobbyists for companies like IBM, Apple, Google et al. are deeply involved in the US side of negotiations (far more than any public interest groups). Then on the EU side, business groups and lobbyists for companies like IBM, Apple, Google et al. are deeply involved in negotiations to the detriment of all public groups. So this is really lots of big US companies negotiating with themselves on how to screw over Europe. This is a takeover attempt through the backdoor.
- leaveyou 10y agoWhat you say seems quite plausible and I wonder if this scheme wasn't used before against EU interests. US has the ability to spy basically any person in EU. That has serious implications.
- tamana 10y agoYou mean like ECHELON?
- _pmf_ 10y agoYou can probably bet that the German government uses TTIP as leverage against future "irregularities" regarding automotive regulations. The spin in Europe (at least in Germany) is that the EU is portrayed as being pro-consumer, which is basically a joke (ask any VW owner in Germany how they are being compensated).
- Hermel 10y agoWhat is a joke is the disfunctional legal system of the US with its exorbitant fines, out of which a disproportionate amount flows into the pockets of reckless lawyers.
- lispm 10y agoThe spin in Germany actually is that regulation GENERALLY in the EU is working differently and that few want to change to the US model (less regulation to bring products to the market, but costly court cases). You can study the effects of the differences in many areas. That it is not working in some areas and that there is a lot industry lobbying is another topic.
- elcapitan 10y agoI hope somebody who speaks Lawyerish will create a human-readable, per-paragraph annotated version of this (rather than the sensationalist editorial things that the media will publish).
- angrypython 10y agoRemember that it only matters if it's an american lobby. When Volkswagen lies and regulators change suddenly the rules to make these lies legal that's not harmful lobbying. When taxi drivers manage to get Uber banned that's not harmful lobbying, and european socialdemocracy is clearly winning.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rkrzr 10y agoThis leak once again shows the importance of transparency in negotiations that will impact the lives of 800 million people (and the rest of the world indirectly). If TTIP were ratified, it would be out of the control of any subsequently elected democratic governments as it would be part of international law. Regardless what you think of TTIP it seems like the very least to ask is that a contract of such importance is discussed in the open where the public can have a voice in their own future.
- lumberjack 10y agoWhat I'm now wondering is, can the WTO bully US and EU states in the way it can bully third world countries? What if renegade states across both sides of the Atlantic decided to disregard the treaty and the fines that will follow immediately? What will the WTO do then? Sanction them?
- RobertoG 10y agoThis is not how it works. The US and the EU use the WTO for bullying others. Those treaties are a way of creating a legal framework that can't be altered by national governments. This is not happening against the governments but it's done by the governments to their populations. This is not US against EU but corporations against people. The idea is to be sure that national governments can't vote against the interest of international business.
- lumberjack 10y agoI understand that completely. I was thinking, if by some miracle a populist was elected and he went renegade, would they actually dare sanction a western state?
- tajen 10y agoI need help in argumenting: What's the difference between the EU-US WTO agreements and the TTIP, apart from the former being from the XXth century. Aren't we happier and wealthier since the WTO exists? Please don't tell me about how a treaty should be voted on by the people, because I already agree about this part.
- msvan 10y agoCecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Trade, on the documents: > First of all, and contrary to what many seem to believe, so-called "consolidated texts" in a trade negotiation are not the same thing as an outcome. They reflect each side's negotiating position, nothing else. [...] In that sense, many of today's alarmist headlines are a storm in a teacup. [...] No EU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment. Trade agreements will not change our laws on GMOs, or how to produce safe beef, or how to protect the environment. http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom/blog/negotiating-ttip_en http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom/blog/nego...
- lifeisstillgood 10y agoThis is probably the most important takeaway In most cases TTIP raised the level of consumer protection to the highest on whatever side of the pond was already best (for example Americans see European chicken as raised in shot basically do our chicken farmers will have to up the game (assuming battery hens is something we think is a high standard anyway) As for beef, Germans think the US do beef like we do chickens. And so there will be a cost to the US cattle industry. But consumers win Are there parts of TTIP that are frankly dumb and will be damaging for years? Yes. Would that have been fixed by an open process. Meh. So if we the people don't like this, then we the people need to write our MPs and congres people and say "start a new WTO round and don't stop till you get something good - keep it open and don't let people like trump comment on it at all"
- tech-no-logical 10y ago> This is probably the most important takeaway although this is important, I can't see how you reach the conclusion that > But consumers win from that. you see, the EU negotiator also said : > "In #TTIP, we will not agree on anything that will imply lowering of protection. Full stop." also, we can conclude from the leaked documents (both these and older ones) that the US proposals in some fields differ wildly from the current EU regulations, and I can't see the US giving in to EU demands on all of these (like GMO's, chlorine chicken and less stringent environmental rules). so, with these powers combined we can conclude that further negotiation is useless, and TTIP is dead. so why are we still negotiating ? fear is that a compromise will be reached somehow, and the EU citizens draw the short straw (I say that as a concerned EU citizen)
- mangeletti 10y agoThere is little excuse[1] for such a website to not employ TSL encryption of all traffic. I can't even imagine the size of the TLA database containing <"evil" page visited>: <ip of visitor> records at this point. 1. https://letsencrypt.org/ https://letsencrypt.org/
- kpcyrd 10y agoI agree that TLS would be nice, but it doesn't hide the fact that you've visited www.ttip-leaks.org
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- GordonS 10y agoTLS does not hide your IP address or that of the hosting server. If the powers that be want to know if you've visitied ttip-leaks.org, they will know regardless of whether TLS was employed. As an aside, many web servers also log details of GET and POST requests - e.g. the visitor's IP address and the page they visited.
- callcallcall 10y agoInstead of complaining into the echo chamber of comments, do something actionable and call your representatives, it takes 2 minutes. Cynics will say that calling has no value but they forget how we beat SOPA in 2012 and protected Net Neutrality in 2014 Call your Reps: http://TryVoices.com http://TryVoices.com (it takes 2 minutes)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- known 10y agoI hate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority
- alva 10y agoRespect to Greenpeace for sourcing and distributing these. They tend to get a good amount of news coverage. The more organisations that get involved in this, the more pressure we can place on our respective governments.
- jessup 10y ago"The original text has been typed again and obvious spelling and grammar errors, possibly put there deliberately as markers to identify the origin in case of a leak, have been removed. Other apparent textual or formatting-related markers were removed as well. None of these adjustments have altered the content of the text in any way." This statement is leading me to rethink my conception of how steganography might be applied In The Real World.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- andrei_says_ 10y agoCan we make it clear that we will not reelect any politician who supports this?
- alex20 10y agoi get the idea but it's not true. the tables enumerating the tariffs and such on different classes of products alone can take thousands of pages, and there generally isn't anything so malicious in there. they get incredibly specific. for example in the section of the TPP relating to Chile, there are three subcategories of "articles for Christmas festivities." Another example of how specific they get is a class "Endless transmission belts of trapezoidal cross-section, of an outside circumference exceeding 60cm but not exceeding 180cm" edit: I should clarify that it's a tariff elimination schedule, so it's thousands of pages describing exactly how quickly the tariffs drop to 0. Most lines of the table are "Year 1: 0%." As to why some products have a more gradual decline over a few years, I don't know, probably some special interest influence, true. A small change in tariffs can mean life or death to certain businesses.
- woodpanel 10y agoThe Europeans are socialists. In the sense that (anglo-saxons aside) they like to socialize access to justice, thus the codefied law system. Having to switch to abitral courts which decisions cascade into laws and juresprudence, comes in detrimental to european legal cultures. TTIP is thus even more disliked than the European Union itself is, with its regulations and directives.
- randyrand 10y agoMy reading of this situation so far is that the TTIP is to increase free trade? To me that's a good thing....