9 ms·

With new trade deal, Big Tech wants to be above the law

178 points by andrewinardeer 3y ago

josteink 3y ago
> With IPEF, even Congress has been shut out of negotiations, which limits accountability and transparency. Both Democratic(new window) and Republican(new window) lawmakers have spoken out to oppose the US Trade Representative’s usurpation of congressional authority to craft domestic tech policy. So trade-agreements which overrides national laws are being developed without any representatives from the actual government which is asked to enact this into law? Come on. At least pretend you’re not trying to sidestep democracy and democratic processes entirely. This is embarrassingly transparent, and I can’t see actions like this do anything but further the conspiracy(?)-theories surrounding World Economic Forum.
- amelius 3y ago
  Can't we have a constitutional law that always invalidates any law that is implemented in a way that goes against democratic principles?
  - pjc50 3y ago
    There's a very real problem that "make binding agreement with another country" and "total independence of the legislature" are incompatible. The most obvious one is external debt - see what happened when Argentina tried to legislate theirs away. If your country agrees not to make a law that has a certain effect, and then makes that law, it's breached international law. And for countries other than America that has negative consequences imposed by America.
    - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
      What is the proper way to handle a future legislature saying "who cares what our predecessors ratified? The populace changed its mind. Isn't democracy grand?"
      - chii 3y ago
        > What is the proper way to handle a future legislature by force (ala an invasion), or by not ever dealing with said country again. A populous wanting to change their mind is not a reason to invalidate a treaty unilaterally - this sort of behaviour should be frowned upon. The process should be to renegotiate a new treaty that all parties to the treaty agree to.
        BeFlatXIII 3y ago
        Then it's a behavior that can only be gotten away with if said populace also has a stockpile of W80s and other H-bombs (and is flooded with guns and wannabe domestic terrorists)
  - gostsamo 3y ago
    If you define the democratic principals in the constitution, and define them as fundamental, then the constitutional court would consider any lesser law as unconstitutional.
    - amelius 3y ago
      Yes, but the people in favor of the law will just say that the senate approved of the law, and since they are democratically installed ...
      - gostsamo 3y ago
        It does not matter, it is the constitutional court who decides if the law is compatible with the constitution, not the senate. E.g. if in the constitution it is written that judges must be elected with a popular vote, the senate cannot adopt a law saying that it is a president's prerogative. The fact that both senate and president are democratically elected does not matter, because their legitimacy is given by the constitution and therefore they cannot override it. So, the constitution is a protection, however, you should define well what a "democratic principal" is and how to recognize if something is not part of it. The best way is to assert a list of unalienable rights like right of property, access to information, and right of privacy, such that no law could be adopted which goes against them. The government being democratic is only a secondary defense, and not very reliable should add. * fictional example
        JoeAltmaier 3y ago
        Curiously there was vehement argument at the time of the Bill of Rights, that enshrining a fixed list of rights might mean that no other rights could exist. Which is actually pretty close to what happened. E.g. the right to freedom of speech is generally not enforced except as the government itself will not enact laws to restrict it. Individuals, corporations are still free to censure other individuals. So we don't have freedom of speech in that sense. Thanks, Bill of Rights! So maybe not the 'best way' of ensuring rights.
        3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bregma 3y ago
  Here's how the US Constitution works: the Executive is solely responsible for negotiating and signing international treaties and trade deals with no input from Congress or the Judiciary. Once signed, a treaty or trade deal is a piece of paper with no value. Once a trade deal has been made by the Executive, Congress needs to introduce and pass legislation to implement the deal. They may choose to implement it as is, or more likely make all kinds of changes and implement something completely different. Once Congress has passed an implementation bill into law, the Executive develops all the rules and regulations associated with it and actually implements it, including enforcement bodies and committees to determine if the treaty or trade deal has been violated. Then it's up to the Judicial branch to determine if the laws passed by Congress are valid or not, in terms of other laws and precedents, when asked. So don't go off on some internet-based conspiracy rant that regular constitutional operations are trying to subvert Your Freedoms. Read opinion pieces on the internet in the context of knowledge and actual fact and in the spirit of click draws and eyeball sales.
  - ororroro 3y ago
    Executive agreements (agreements made in the absence of the Senate) are not mentioned in the Constitution, but they are considered binding U.S. international agreements under Supreme Court case law and as a matter of historical practice.
    - amadeuspagel 3y ago
      What about the Iran Deal? Wasn't that an executive agreement made without the Senate, and wasn't that immidiately scrapped once Trump came into power?
      - ororroro 3y ago
        Not familiar with the details but I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Nuclear_Agreement_Review_Act_of_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Nuclear_Agreement_Review_... provided a loophole. An excellent example of why people scramble for opinion pieces rather than just checking the constitution.
devjab 3y ago
I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about global supply chains for tech mastodons, but seeing how this isn't going to be an European thing, wouldn't this lead to companies like Apple being forced to create a trans pacific and a European iPhone? If so, then I wonder how the benefit realization of this whole thing pans out compared to simply complying with legislation demanding more openness. Even if that made sense, or some of these tech giants simply decided to cut their losses and say good buy to the Euro sector, how long do they really expect these trade deals to last when they try to side step the US democracy as hinted by: > With IPEF, even Congress has been shut out of negotiations, which limits accountability and transparency. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but I doubt that it'll work out well in the long term. The EU has been very strong on enforcing consumer rights, but a lot of the benefits we get here in the EU seem to catch on in the US eventually, and then what will these deals really accomplish? Are those 5-15 years of monopoly really worth all the fighting? And perhaps more importantly, is it really worth more than being a "first mover" on building a more consumer friendly platform?
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  >Even if that made sense, or some of these tech giants simply decided to cut their losses and say good buy to the Euro sector I think it would be short-sighted decision. Currently European tech scene isn't great, because it is hard to compete with US companies awash of VC money or who are highly profitable and entrenched in the EU market. But if those giants would voluntarily clear positions, competition would have arise and could threaten the giants in the long run - i.e. by offering privacy thanks to coming from EU, where GDPR non-compliance is very expensive. This is similar situation to why USA has such huge military presence in Europe in general. Sure it is expensive and Europeans are sometimes ungrateful, but if they would have left, then in the long run EU would likely got its own unified army and become serious geopolitical competitor on level of China, even if ideologically aligned with USA.
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    > Europeans are sometimes ungrateful Why exactly Europeans should be grateful? US presence in Europe is something done to serve US purposes. Let's not pretend it sets up military bases abroad out of the goodness of their hearts, to protect the world or any such bullshit.
londons_explore 3y ago
This blog post doesn't seem to really explain the issue - at least not clearly enough for me to understand it. What exactly does this trade deal say? What specific consequences would that have? (with examples from past or potential local laws)
- WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  The article is not very good but multinationals have been significantly abusing free-trade agreements for decades. These agreements are negotiated in secret with very little public oversight and parliaments usually can only say yes or no to the whole thing. If it’s the EU sometimes national parliaments have no say. Companies lobby to put clauses mandating arbitration or classifying some laws as distortion of competition. Here the article focus on laws impacting big tech but the same could be said for basically any sector.
  - hash872 3y ago
    If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input, there would be so much more corporate abuse it's not even funny. This would give a chance for every favored sector, major employer in a powerful legislator's district, company that the government favors at the moment etc. to add in clauses favoring them. Doing an up-or-down or vote actually greatly reduces pork. >If it’s the EU sometimes national parliaments have no say Yes, that is what the European Union is, by deliberate design. The individual countries voluntarily agreed to give up that power- if they didn't, they'd have been pushed around by China and the Trump administration. The EU is strength in size as a negotiating bloc, as a top 3 global economy. (Also, famously, countries can just leave the EU if they don't feel like it's a good deal)
    - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
      > If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input, there would be so much more corporate abuse it's not even funny. This would give a chance for every favored sector, major employer in a powerful legislator's district, company that the government favors at the moment etc. to add in clauses favoring them. Doing an up-or-down or vote actually greatly reduces pork. The idea that there is less corporate interest meedling because everyting is done in secret and people can't see nor control what's happening is so ridiculous I am at loss to how you could come to this conclusion. Considering your disdain for actual democracy, I'm not surprised you like the EU in its current form.
jmclnx 3y ago
The truth is, all companies want to be above the law. In reality once a company reaches a certain size and can afford a large team of good overpaid lawyers and lobbyists, they become above the law (at least in the US). All these companies want to do is discard their lobbyists and lawyers.
- ta1243 3y ago
  Not even the lobbyists. Once you become "too big to fail" you're quids in.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> Dominant tech companies use their economic power to win favorable concessions in trade deals. Only appointed trade advisers(new window) can participate in the confidential negotiations, and these advisers disproportionately represent Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and their trade associations. They also disproportionately represent the US economy.
amadeuspagel 3y ago
I see many complaints that american tech companies are banned in china, while TikTok is allowed in the US. Maybe this is the kind of thing that this trade deal is supposed to address? Seems reasonable, if so. Would love to learn more about this, but this an extremely one-sided article.
mark_l_watson 3y ago
The blog does a great job describing the overall arc of corporate capture of government regulatory agencies and trade policies. As other people here have said, it could have included more concrete examples - doubling the size of the article with more examples would be good. Still, well written. I have been totally captured by the Apple ecosystem and I am not always happy about that. I am more mellow about Google because I pay for the Google services that I use and love (YouTube with no advertisements and YouTube Music, GCP, Colab). I feel that my relationship with Google is transactional under terms I like well enough. I don’t use Google Search. Off topic, but this blog is on ProtonMail’s domain and I personally think ProtonMail+Calendar+Cloud Storage should get some sort of “most improved product” award. I have been a paying Proton customer for a very long time, but for the last 6 years I have mostly used either Gmail, Apple mail, or FastMail as my primary email with my personal domain. In the last 3 or 4 months I have gone back to using ProtonMail as my primary email provider, and for me it is now 100% “good enough.” Enough small improvements to satisfy me. I would like to talk more about digital independence and freedom, so I am going to go try to find a Reddit community for this.
- mark_l_watson 3y ago
  Search Reddit manually didn’t much help, but Bing+ChatGPT suggested: /r/privacy, /r/degoogle, /r/deapple/, /r/free software, /r/privacytoolsIO, /r/LinageOS
- hansvm 3y ago
  Even when paying, Google scares me a bit for anything important. Just last night I switched ISPs, and Google seems to have re-enabled 2FA via God-knows-what Android device and doesn't have a way to disable it (even after logging back in through a network where they trust me more). It's the kick in the pants I needed to finally de-Google.
  - mark_l_watson 3y ago
    You make a good point. Even being careful to always have a printout Google's onetime login codes, we hear enough stories of people being locked out of their accounts. I do a few things to mitigate this possibility: 1. about 3 times a year I do a Google Takeout data dump. 2. I forward my Gmail (which I don't use much) to my main email. 3. I love YouTube Music, especially music with videos, but I have purchased the MP3s for my 200 favorite songs and I will always have those. 4. If YouTube 'went away' both my wife and I would be very unhappy, but we would get back a lot of free time.
thunkshift1 3y ago
> Both Democratic(new window) and Republican(new window) lawmakers have spoken out to oppose the US Trade Representative’s usurpation of congressional authority to craft domestic tech policy. So they can complain about it but wont pass legislation to set it right? Seems fishy
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  2% of Congress signed the letters.

> With IPEF, even Congress has been shut out of negotiations, which limits accountability and transparency. Both Democratic(new window) and Republican(new window) lawmakers have spoken out to oppose the US Trade Representative’s usurpation of congressional authority to craft domestic tech policy. So trade-agreements which overrides national laws are being developed without any representatives from the actual government which is asked to enact this into law? Come on. At least pretend you’re not trying to sidestep democracy and democratic processes entirely. This is embarrassingly transparent, and I can’t see actions like this do anything but further the conspiracy(?)-theories surrounding World Economic Forum.

amelius 3y ago
Can't we have a constitutional law that always invalidates any law that is implemented in a way that goes against democratic principles?
- pjc50 3y ago
  There's a very real problem that "make binding agreement with another country" and "total independence of the legislature" are incompatible. The most obvious one is external debt - see what happened when Argentina tried to legislate theirs away. If your country agrees not to make a law that has a certain effect, and then makes that law, it's breached international law. And for countries other than America that has negative consequences imposed by America.
  - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
    What is the proper way to handle a future legislature saying "who cares what our predecessors ratified? The populace changed its mind. Isn't democracy grand?"
    - chii 3y ago
      > What is the proper way to handle a future legislature by force (ala an invasion), or by not ever dealing with said country again. A populous wanting to change their mind is not a reason to invalidate a treaty unilaterally - this sort of behaviour should be frowned upon. The process should be to renegotiate a new treaty that all parties to the treaty agree to.
      - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
        Then it's a behavior that can only be gotten away with if said populace also has a stockpile of W80s and other H-bombs (and is flooded with guns and wannabe domestic terrorists)
- gostsamo 3y ago
  If you define the democratic principals in the constitution, and define them as fundamental, then the constitutional court would consider any lesser law as unconstitutional.
  - amelius 3y ago
    Yes, but the people in favor of the law will just say that the senate approved of the law, and since they are democratically installed ...
    - gostsamo 3y ago
      It does not matter, it is the constitutional court who decides if the law is compatible with the constitution, not the senate. E.g. if in the constitution it is written that judges must be elected with a popular vote, the senate cannot adopt a law saying that it is a president's prerogative. The fact that both senate and president are democratically elected does not matter, because their legitimacy is given by the constitution and therefore they cannot override it. So, the constitution is a protection, however, you should define well what a "democratic principal" is and how to recognize if something is not part of it. The best way is to assert a list of unalienable rights like right of property, access to information, and right of privacy, such that no law could be adopted which goes against them. The government being democratic is only a secondary defense, and not very reliable should add. * fictional example
      - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
        Curiously there was vehement argument at the time of the Bill of Rights, that enshrining a fixed list of rights might mean that no other rights could exist. Which is actually pretty close to what happened. E.g. the right to freedom of speech is generally not enforced except as the government itself will not enact laws to restrict it. Individuals, corporations are still free to censure other individuals. So we don't have freedom of speech in that sense. Thanks, Bill of Rights! So maybe not the 'best way' of ensuring rights.
        3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bregma 3y ago
Here's how the US Constitution works: the Executive is solely responsible for negotiating and signing international treaties and trade deals with no input from Congress or the Judiciary. Once signed, a treaty or trade deal is a piece of paper with no value. Once a trade deal has been made by the Executive, Congress needs to introduce and pass legislation to implement the deal. They may choose to implement it as is, or more likely make all kinds of changes and implement something completely different. Once Congress has passed an implementation bill into law, the Executive develops all the rules and regulations associated with it and actually implements it, including enforcement bodies and committees to determine if the treaty or trade deal has been violated. Then it's up to the Judicial branch to determine if the laws passed by Congress are valid or not, in terms of other laws and precedents, when asked. So don't go off on some internet-based conspiracy rant that regular constitutional operations are trying to subvert Your Freedoms. Read opinion pieces on the internet in the context of knowledge and actual fact and in the spirit of click draws and eyeball sales.
- ororroro 3y ago
  Executive agreements (agreements made in the absence of the Senate) are not mentioned in the Constitution, but they are considered binding U.S. international agreements under Supreme Court case law and as a matter of historical practice.
  - amadeuspagel 3y ago
    What about the Iran Deal? Wasn't that an executive agreement made without the Senate, and wasn't that immidiately scrapped once Trump came into power?
    - ororroro 3y ago
      Not familiar with the details but I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Nuclear_Agreement_Review_Act_of_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Nuclear_Agreement_Review_... provided a loophole. An excellent example of why people scramble for opinion pieces rather than just checking the constitution.

devjab 3y ago

I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about global supply chains for tech mastodons, but seeing how this isn't going to be an European thing, wouldn't this lead to companies like Apple being forced to create a trans pacific and a European iPhone? If so, then I wonder how the benefit realization of this whole thing pans out compared to simply complying with legislation demanding more openness. Even if that made sense, or some of these tech giants simply decided to cut their losses and say good buy to the Euro sector, how long do they really expect these trade deals to last when they try to side step the US democracy as hinted by: > With IPEF, even Congress has been shut out of negotiations, which limits accountability and transparency. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but I doubt that it'll work out well in the long term. The EU has been very strong on enforcing consumer rights, but a lot of the benefits we get here in the EU seem to catch on in the US eventually, and then what will these deals really accomplish? Are those 5-15 years of monopoly really worth all the fighting? And perhaps more importantly, is it really worth more than being a "first mover" on building a more consumer friendly platform?

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
>Even if that made sense, or some of these tech giants simply decided to cut their losses and say good buy to the Euro sector I think it would be short-sighted decision. Currently European tech scene isn't great, because it is hard to compete with US companies awash of VC money or who are highly profitable and entrenched in the EU market. But if those giants would voluntarily clear positions, competition would have arise and could threaten the giants in the long run - i.e. by offering privacy thanks to coming from EU, where GDPR non-compliance is very expensive. This is similar situation to why USA has such huge military presence in Europe in general. Sure it is expensive and Europeans are sometimes ungrateful, but if they would have left, then in the long run EU would likely got its own unified army and become serious geopolitical competitor on level of China, even if ideologically aligned with USA.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  > Europeans are sometimes ungrateful Why exactly Europeans should be grateful? US presence in Europe is something done to serve US purposes. Let's not pretend it sets up military bases abroad out of the goodness of their hearts, to protect the world or any such bullshit.

londons_explore 3y ago

This blog post doesn't seem to really explain the issue - at least not clearly enough for me to understand it. What exactly does this trade deal say? What specific consequences would that have? (with examples from past or potential local laws)

WastingMyTime89 3y ago
The article is not very good but multinationals have been significantly abusing free-trade agreements for decades. These agreements are negotiated in secret with very little public oversight and parliaments usually can only say yes or no to the whole thing. If it’s the EU sometimes national parliaments have no say. Companies lobby to put clauses mandating arbitration or classifying some laws as distortion of competition. Here the article focus on laws impacting big tech but the same could be said for basically any sector.
- hash872 3y ago
  If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input, there would be so much more corporate abuse it's not even funny. This would give a chance for every favored sector, major employer in a powerful legislator's district, company that the government favors at the moment etc. to add in clauses favoring them. Doing an up-or-down or vote actually greatly reduces pork. >If it’s the EU sometimes national parliaments have no say Yes, that is what the European Union is, by deliberate design. The individual countries voluntarily agreed to give up that power- if they didn't, they'd have been pushed around by China and the Trump administration. The EU is strength in size as a negotiating bloc, as a top 3 global economy. (Also, famously, countries can just leave the EU if they don't feel like it's a good deal)
  - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
    > If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input, there would be so much more corporate abuse it's not even funny. This would give a chance for every favored sector, major employer in a powerful legislator's district, company that the government favors at the moment etc. to add in clauses favoring them. Doing an up-or-down or vote actually greatly reduces pork. The idea that there is less corporate interest meedling because everyting is done in secret and people can't see nor control what's happening is so ridiculous I am at loss to how you could come to this conclusion. Considering your disdain for actual democracy, I'm not surprised you like the EU in its current form.

jmclnx 3y ago

The truth is, all companies want to be above the law. In reality once a company reaches a certain size and can afford a large team of good overpaid lawyers and lobbyists, they become above the law (at least in the US). All these companies want to do is discard their lobbyists and lawyers.

ta1243 3y ago
Not even the lobbyists. Once you become "too big to fail" you're quids in.

nonethewiser 3y ago

> Dominant tech companies use their economic power to win favorable concessions in trade deals. Only appointed trade advisers(new window) can participate in the confidential negotiations, and these advisers disproportionately represent Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and their trade associations. They also disproportionately represent the US economy.

amadeuspagel 3y ago

I see many complaints that american tech companies are banned in china, while TikTok is allowed in the US. Maybe this is the kind of thing that this trade deal is supposed to address? Seems reasonable, if so. Would love to learn more about this, but this an extremely one-sided article.

mark_l_watson 3y ago

The blog does a great job describing the overall arc of corporate capture of government regulatory agencies and trade policies. As other people here have said, it could have included more concrete examples - doubling the size of the article with more examples would be good. Still, well written. I have been totally captured by the Apple ecosystem and I am not always happy about that. I am more mellow about Google because I pay for the Google services that I use and love (YouTube with no advertisements and YouTube Music, GCP, Colab). I feel that my relationship with Google is transactional under terms I like well enough. I don’t use Google Search. Off topic, but this blog is on ProtonMail’s domain and I personally think ProtonMail+Calendar+Cloud Storage should get some sort of “most improved product” award. I have been a paying Proton customer for a very long time, but for the last 6 years I have mostly used either Gmail, Apple mail, or FastMail as my primary email with my personal domain. In the last 3 or 4 months I have gone back to using ProtonMail as my primary email provider, and for me it is now 100% “good enough.” Enough small improvements to satisfy me. I would like to talk more about digital independence and freedom, so I am going to go try to find a Reddit community for this.

mark_l_watson 3y ago
Search Reddit manually didn’t much help, but Bing+ChatGPT suggested: /r/privacy, /r/degoogle, /r/deapple/, /r/free software, /r/privacytoolsIO, /r/LinageOS
hansvm 3y ago
Even when paying, Google scares me a bit for anything important. Just last night I switched ISPs, and Google seems to have re-enabled 2FA via God-knows-what Android device and doesn't have a way to disable it (even after logging back in through a network where they trust me more). It's the kick in the pants I needed to finally de-Google.
- mark_l_watson 3y ago
  You make a good point. Even being careful to always have a printout Google's onetime login codes, we hear enough stories of people being locked out of their accounts. I do a few things to mitigate this possibility: 1. about 3 times a year I do a Google Takeout data dump. 2. I forward my Gmail (which I don't use much) to my main email. 3. I love YouTube Music, especially music with videos, but I have purchased the MP3s for my 200 favorite songs and I will always have those. 4. If YouTube 'went away' both my wife and I would be very unhappy, but we would get back a lot of free time.

thunkshift1 3y ago

> Both Democratic(new window) and Republican(new window) lawmakers have spoken out to oppose the US Trade Representative’s usurpation of congressional authority to craft domestic tech policy. So they can complain about it but wont pass legislation to set it right? Seems fishy

pseudalopex 3y ago
2% of Congress signed the letters.