5 ms·

TPP details definitely need to be in the public... Details? Why? Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this), but why for

TPP details definitely need to be in the public... Details? Why? Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this), but why force negotiators making difficult tradeoffs to hash them out in the open?

Someone1234 11y ago
> Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this) Obviously? They've already fast tracked it even before it is available to the public. They've made it available to members of congress without it being available to the public. While on paper they might release it just before it became law, they could easily release it a week before giving nobody time to mount a real challenge. I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly unlikely.
- twoodfin 11y ago
  Not to put too fine a point on it, but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk. Who, not coincidentally, negotiate all sorts of critically important legislation in private. Besides, the version of TPA under consideration by the House this month requires that any agreement be public for at least 60 days before it can be signed by the President and submitted to Congress for enabling legislation.
  - imron 11y ago
    > but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk. That's not how it works. If it was, we'd have SOPA, but we don't. Citizens telling their representatives what they do and don't want is fundamental aspect of a well-functioning democracy.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Agreed, there are few more harmful concepts to a representative democracy, especially one with as poor of an electoral system as the US, but any representative democracy as well, as the idea that citizen input begins and ends with voting. It's like saying a boss's input on an employee's work is limited to hiring and firing.
    - twoodfin 11y ago
      And no trade agreement has ever become law without months of Congressional hearings and debate. The proposed version of TPA would guarantee at least two, and at least four is what's likely. So what's the point again?
    - EliRivers 11y ago
      Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-functioning democracy. The people at the top certainly don't think they should listen. RECENTLY, when Vice-President Cheney was asked by ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz about polls showing that an overwhelming majority of US citizens oppose the war in Iraq, he replied, "So?" "So — you don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked. "No," Cheney replied, and explained, "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls." Later, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, explaining Cheney's comments, was asked whether the public should have "input." Her reply: "You had your input. The American people have input every four years, and that's the way our system is set up." That's correct. Every four years the American people can choose between candidates whose views they reject, and then they should shut up. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm
      - imron 11y ago
        > Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-functioning democracy Yes. I would agree that the US is not a well-functioning democracy.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  To be blunt more than most on this very site were just fat dumb and happy when the FCC fast tracked their rules changes without prior publication, in fact some were insisting on it to quell debate. There is one simple rule, apply the same standards to all or you have no leg to stand on. Far too many people dismiss the rules when they think the outcome is one they may like; even if that decision is one hundred percent ignorant of facts
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  Fast tracked means it goes through an up-or-down vote instead of the appalling amendment process Congress usually prefers, which makes no sense in an international trade agreement. They've made it available to members of congress without it being available to the public. Yes. So they can do the jobs they were elected to do - represent your interest. I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly unlikely. Honestly, I don't think the public is really competent to form opinions on most of this. >>90% of the complaints I see about trade deals are uninformed, counterfactual, and ignorant. This doesn't mean I think all trade deals are necessarily perfect by any means, but the signal:noise ratio is appalling.
- noelsusman 11y ago
  It will be fully public for 60 days before Congress gets a chance to vote for it. Fast tracking just means Congress cannot amend the bill, they can only vote up or down. Opposing fast tracking is essentially the same thing as opposing the entire deal. Our negotiators would be in much weaker positions since other countries would have no reason to believe anything they say.
gnud 11y ago
Because, when the time comes to actually pass/reject the final agreement, the choice is binary. And a _lot_ of work has been put in from all sides, under the assumption that the tradeoffs they make will be accepted.
zeeed 11y ago
it can very well be disputed whether or not all details of the trade agreement will be made public, I see no reason or evidence to the contrary. Why force making it public? I guess there have been arguments of mistrust - or am I getting this wrong?
happyscrappy 11y ago
>Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this) A good number of people don't understand that these have to be debated publicly in order to pass Congress. Wikileaks shamefully plays on this misunderstanding.
- peeters 11y ago
  A good number of people realize that by the time it goes to Congress for its rubber stamp, it's too late to tweak the agreement. It's not like a bill where you can introduce amendments. They have to either throw away years of negotiations, or accept the agreement with its significant warts.
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    If your goal is to prevent a trade deal then forcing them to negotiate the terms publically will accomplish your goal.
peeters 11y ago
Because once the agreement is finalized in negotiations, it's expected to get a "yea" or "nay" vote from participant legislatures. To my knowledge, congress cannot amend the agreement at that point. So having the negotiations done in secret puts lawmakers and the public in a difficult position. Instead of compromising and tweaking, if they don't like parts of the agreement, they have to decide whether to flat out reject it, or approve it and live with the crappy parts. And those that reject it will be framed as anti-trade, anti-economy, etc. (even if they only vote against the bill because of its draconian copyright rules, e.g.)
- rlpb 11y ago
  > even if they only vote against the bill because of its draconian copyright rules I think it's about time that politicians start voting against bills because of the underhanded way they were drafted, and that voters start to support this behaviour. It doesn't have to be binary, either. "No for now but you can present it again in a year's time so that it can receive proper debate" should be perfectly acceptable. If for a process reason that actually means "No forever" in practice, then it should be made clear that it was the underhanded process that led to "No forever" and not the politician who was forced to vote it that way just because there was no opportunity to fix the process.
- twoodfin 11y ago
  Why would our trading partners make any painful concessions at all if they believe any corresponding painful concessions we make will simply be amended out of the enabling legislation by Congress? The result would be a scuttled agreement, and all the political headache of having made those concessions without any of the corresponding gain. The U.S. hasn't entered into a major trade agreement without "Fast Track" in 40 years. It's fine to be against liberalizing trade agreements, but it's practically impossible to be for them but against some form of TPA.
  - peeters 11y ago
    I don't know what you're arguing against, but I never once said that Congress should be able to amend the treaty as they see fit. That doesn't make sense; it's a treaty. All participants need to ratify the same document. I was arguing for transparency into the process, when the treaty is still being drafted.
mcv 11y ago
With the positions of the various parties secret, there's no way for the people to know whether their interests have been taken into account. These are some seriously heavy negotiations for something that can't possibly be considered more than a preliminary proposal. In particular, there seem to be provisions in it that cannot be remotely considered acceptable to any democratic system. And the way public interest and civil rights groups are explicitly kept out of this, while corporate groups have pretty thorough access, it's pretty clear who's interests are and aren't being represented. The entire negotiation process seems utterly pointless.
Zigurd 11y ago
> negotiators making difficult tradeoffs Are there any "difficult tradeoffs" that need to be secret? Or is it just the bad copyright provisions and undermining of environmental protections?
- evgen 11y ago
  All of them need to be made in secret. If industry A learns that it is going to lose a domestic subsidy for the sake of letting industry B gain a foothold in some other country then A is going to lean on the legislators it owns to try to have pressure applied to the negotiators to change the calculus involved, then industry B will jump in, etc. Better for everyone to see the final deal and decide of the collection of tradeoffs is worthwhile than to have to deal with pressure politics from every particular interest group that has a dog in the fight while at the same time trying to deal with trade negotiators from a number of other countries.
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    Example? All the examples I can think of work the other way: Horrors that industry lobbyists want that sell out the people.
    - wmil 11y ago
      Depends on your definitions of 'industry' and 'the people'. Take for example the Canadian wine industry. There's international pressure for Canada to open up it's domestic wine market. In Ontario, the largest province, foreign wines can only be sold at government run liquor stores. Opening up the domestic market is problematic, because apart from ice wine Ontario wine is awful. At any given price point Ontario reds are substantially worse than California reds. Even if nothing happens, once the government starts openly negotiating to open the market the property value of vineyards will plummet. Farmers will be underwater on their mortgages and will have trouble getting insurance. The government doesn't want to endanger people's livelihoods like that unless it's sure that the rest of the agreement is worth it.
  - mrgoldenbrown 11y ago

Someone1234 11y ago

> Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this) Obviously? They've already fast tracked it even before it is available to the public. They've made it available to members of congress without it being available to the public. While on paper they might release it just before it became law, they could easily release it a week before giving nobody time to mount a real challenge. I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly unlikely.

twoodfin 11y ago
Not to put too fine a point on it, but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk. Who, not coincidentally, negotiate all sorts of critically important legislation in private. Besides, the version of TPA under consideration by the House this month requires that any agreement be public for at least 60 days before it can be signed by the President and submitted to Congress for enabling legislation.
- imron 11y ago
  > but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk. That's not how it works. If it was, we'd have SOPA, but we don't. Citizens telling their representatives what they do and don't want is fundamental aspect of a well-functioning democracy.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Agreed, there are few more harmful concepts to a representative democracy, especially one with as poor of an electoral system as the US, but any representative democracy as well, as the idea that citizen input begins and ends with voting. It's like saying a boss's input on an employee's work is limited to hiring and firing.
  - twoodfin 11y ago
    And no trade agreement has ever become law without months of Congressional hearings and debate. The proposed version of TPA would guarantee at least two, and at least four is what's likely. So what's the point again?
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-functioning democracy. The people at the top certainly don't think they should listen. RECENTLY, when Vice-President Cheney was asked by ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz about polls showing that an overwhelming majority of US citizens oppose the war in Iraq, he replied, "So?" "So — you don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked. "No," Cheney replied, and explained, "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls." Later, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, explaining Cheney's comments, was asked whether the public should have "input." Her reply: "You had your input. The American people have input every four years, and that's the way our system is set up." That's correct. Every four years the American people can choose between candidates whose views they reject, and then they should shut up. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm
    - imron 11y ago
      > Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-functioning democracy Yes. I would agree that the US is not a well-functioning democracy.
Shivetya 11y ago
To be blunt more than most on this very site were just fat dumb and happy when the FCC fast tracked their rules changes without prior publication, in fact some were insisting on it to quell debate. There is one simple rule, apply the same standards to all or you have no leg to stand on. Far too many people dismiss the rules when they think the outcome is one they may like; even if that decision is one hundred percent ignorant of facts
anigbrowl 11y ago
Fast tracked means it goes through an up-or-down vote instead of the appalling amendment process Congress usually prefers, which makes no sense in an international trade agreement. They've made it available to members of congress without it being available to the public. Yes. So they can do the jobs they were elected to do - represent your interest. I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly unlikely. Honestly, I don't think the public is really competent to form opinions on most of this. >>90% of the complaints I see about trade deals are uninformed, counterfactual, and ignorant. This doesn't mean I think all trade deals are necessarily perfect by any means, but the signal:noise ratio is appalling.
noelsusman 11y ago
It will be fully public for 60 days before Congress gets a chance to vote for it. Fast tracking just means Congress cannot amend the bill, they can only vote up or down. Opposing fast tracking is essentially the same thing as opposing the entire deal. Our negotiators would be in much weaker positions since other countries would have no reason to believe anything they say.

gnud 11y ago

Because, when the time comes to actually pass/reject the final agreement, the choice is binary. And a _lot_ of work has been put in from all sides, under the assumption that the tradeoffs they make will be accepted.

zeeed 11y ago

it can very well be disputed whether or not all details of the trade agreement will be made public, I see no reason or evidence to the contrary. Why force making it public? I guess there have been arguments of mistrust - or am I getting this wrong?

happyscrappy 11y ago

>Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this) A good number of people don't understand that these have to be debated publicly in order to pass Congress. Wikileaks shamefully plays on this misunderstanding.

peeters 11y ago
A good number of people realize that by the time it goes to Congress for its rubber stamp, it's too late to tweak the agreement. It's not like a bill where you can introduce amendments. They have to either throw away years of negotiations, or accept the agreement with its significant warts.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  If your goal is to prevent a trade deal then forcing them to negotiate the terms publically will accomplish your goal.

peeters 11y ago

Because once the agreement is finalized in negotiations, it's expected to get a "yea" or "nay" vote from participant legislatures. To my knowledge, congress cannot amend the agreement at that point. So having the negotiations done in secret puts lawmakers and the public in a difficult position. Instead of compromising and tweaking, if they don't like parts of the agreement, they have to decide whether to flat out reject it, or approve it and live with the crappy parts. And those that reject it will be framed as anti-trade, anti-economy, etc. (even if they only vote against the bill because of its draconian copyright rules, e.g.)

rlpb 11y ago
> even if they only vote against the bill because of its draconian copyright rules I think it's about time that politicians start voting against bills because of the underhanded way they were drafted, and that voters start to support this behaviour. It doesn't have to be binary, either. "No for now but you can present it again in a year's time so that it can receive proper debate" should be perfectly acceptable. If for a process reason that actually means "No forever" in practice, then it should be made clear that it was the underhanded process that led to "No forever" and not the politician who was forced to vote it that way just because there was no opportunity to fix the process.
twoodfin 11y ago
Why would our trading partners make any painful concessions at all if they believe any corresponding painful concessions we make will simply be amended out of the enabling legislation by Congress? The result would be a scuttled agreement, and all the political headache of having made those concessions without any of the corresponding gain. The U.S. hasn't entered into a major trade agreement without "Fast Track" in 40 years. It's fine to be against liberalizing trade agreements, but it's practically impossible to be for them but against some form of TPA.
- peeters 11y ago
  I don't know what you're arguing against, but I never once said that Congress should be able to amend the treaty as they see fit. That doesn't make sense; it's a treaty. All participants need to ratify the same document. I was arguing for transparency into the process, when the treaty is still being drafted.

mcv 11y ago

With the positions of the various parties secret, there's no way for the people to know whether their interests have been taken into account. These are some seriously heavy negotiations for something that can't possibly be considered more than a preliminary proposal. In particular, there seem to be provisions in it that cannot be remotely considered acceptable to any democratic system. And the way public interest and civil rights groups are explicitly kept out of this, while corporate groups have pretty thorough access, it's pretty clear who's interests are and aren't being represented. The entire negotiation process seems utterly pointless.

Zigurd 11y ago

> negotiators making difficult tradeoffs Are there any "difficult tradeoffs" that need to be secret? Or is it just the bad copyright provisions and undermining of environmental protections?

evgen 11y ago
All of them need to be made in secret. If industry A learns that it is going to lose a domestic subsidy for the sake of letting industry B gain a foothold in some other country then A is going to lean on the legislators it owns to try to have pressure applied to the negotiators to change the calculus involved, then industry B will jump in, etc. Better for everyone to see the final deal and decide of the collection of tradeoffs is worthwhile than to have to deal with pressure politics from every particular interest group that has a dog in the fight while at the same time trying to deal with trade negotiators from a number of other countries.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  Example? All the examples I can think of work the other way: Horrors that industry lobbyists want that sell out the people.
  - wmil 11y ago
    Depends on your definitions of 'industry' and 'the people'. Take for example the Canadian wine industry. There's international pressure for Canada to open up it's domestic wine market. In Ontario, the largest province, foreign wines can only be sold at government run liquor stores. Opening up the domestic market is problematic, because apart from ice wine Ontario wine is awful. At any given price point Ontario reds are substantially worse than California reds. Even if nothing happens, once the government starts openly negotiating to open the market the property value of vineyards will plummet. Farmers will be underwater on their mortgages and will have trouble getting insurance. The government doesn't want to endanger people's livelihoods like that unless it's sure that the rest of the agreement is worth it.
- mrgoldenbrown 11y ago