Tell Congress let the public see TPP

From The Daily KOS:

One of the most controversial aspects of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is that it’s secret from the public. If the proponents of the agreement have their way, the text will still be secret from the public when the House votes on Fast Track trade negotiating authority, essentially a vote to pre-approve the agreement.

Members of Congress, individually and collectively, could do something about this. For example,
•The House and Senate intelligence committees have the power to declassify any document in their possession if they believe that doing so would serve the public interest;
•Any individual Member of Congress could publish — e.g., by entering into the Congressional Record — a portion of the draft TPP negotiating text, as Republican Congressman Darrel Issa did when he published the intellectual property chapter;
•Members of the House who have not yet committed to vote no on Fast Track could pledge to vote no on Fast Track if the text of the TPP is not made public before the vote.

Urge Congress to use its power to force publication of the TPP text by signing our petition.

TPP is on shaky ground

From Fight For The Future:

Did you see this? The Wall Street Journal just broke the amazing news that the groups listed on StopFastTrack.com have collectively mobilized 600,000 people to take action, and driven more than 40,000 phone calls to Congress to oppose Fast Track for the dangerous Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (1).

We need your help to keep this effort strong! Click here to support our work to stop the TPP.

Here’s the proof that it’s working: last month, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid came out strongly opposing Fast Track (2). That’s a HUGE victory. For now, it looks like the Camp-Baucus Fast Track bill is in big trouble -- which means the entire Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is on shaky ground.

We are winning, but we can’t relax yet. Corporate lobbyists will be pulling out all the stops to buy as many votes as they can so they can ram through the TPP without transparency or debate -- we still have an epic fight on our hands.

Here’s the bad news: we’re running low on funds to keep this StopFastTrack.com project going. This effort has been game-changing and undeniably effective; we need everyone reading this to help out so that we can continue to keep the pressure on at this crucial moment in the fight.

It’s more important than ever before that we spread the word far and wide about the TPP and the Fast Track bill. The mainstream media has been completely ignoring the issue -- so much so that a research group just released a study about the lack of coverage (3). Fight for the Future is a tiny but feisty organization and our team is working around the clock to overcome the media blackout and defeat Fast Track and the TPP once and for all.

We’re making a promise: we will do whatever it takes to stop Fast Track and derail the TPP. Are you with us? Please click here to support our work to defend democracy.

The stakes are high: our most basic rights, our Internet, our environment, and our economy are all on the line. But victory is within sight. We’ll keep you posted with occasional updates. If you ever want to unsubscribe, use the link at the bottom of all our emails.

Sincerely,

Evan, Tiffiniy, and Holmes

Fight for the Future

StopFastTrack.com StopFastTrack.com

SOURCES:

1) Wall Street Journal, “Fast-Track opponents rally support” click here
2) Huffington Post, “Harry Reid: Fast Track Free Trade Bill Goes Nowhere”click here
3) Media Matters, “STUDY: Media Leaves Viewers In the Dark About Trans-Pacific Partnership” click here

Stop Fast Track;TPP

Fight For The Future:

Good news this time. Today we’re launching a massive, coordinated effort to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership Internet censorship plan in its tracks and make history by taking down this secretive, corporate fueled trade agreement once and for all.

We can win this, but only if everyone speaks out right now. Are you in?

Go here

Just yesterday, the media reported that the White House is doubling down and pressuring Congress to vote to “Fast Track” the TPP (1). “Fast Track” is DC-speak for an anti-democratic process where Congress gives full authority to the Executive Branch to negotiate trade deals, with no meaningful debate or transparency (2).

If the Fast Track bill passes, it’s a death blow for democracy and Internet freedom.

But here’s the awesome part. If Fast Track fails -- and it’s going to be a really close vote -- there’s a very good chance that the entire TPP will fall apart (3). The U.S. negotiators are trying to bully other countries into adopting SOPA-like copyrigh t policies that would lead to a more expensive, censored, and policed Internet (4), but if we defeat Fast Track, the U.S. loses their biggest bargaining chip, and the corporate lobbyists who are driving this deal won’t have the leverage they need to get what they want.

We won’t get another chance like this to bring down the TPP and stop Internet censorship. Click here to add your voice.

We’ve been researching the crap out of this and developing our strategy and it’s clear to us that we win or lose the war against the TPP with this battle against Fast Track. That’s why we’ve pulled out the big guns. For the last few weeks we've be en quietly building an epic coalition of groups from across the political spectrum to oppose this. It’s an unlikely list of names: reddit, the AFL-CIO, EFF, the Sierra Club, Imgur, the Pirate Party, 350, BoingBoing, and the Teamsters -- these are groups and companies that rarely agree on much of anything, but they can all agree that Fast Tracking the TPP is a terrible idea. So together, we’ve launched “10 Days to Stop Fast Track.”

Click here to read -- in their own words -- why more than 50 organizations have joined our effort to derail Fast Track for the TPP.

The next ten days are going to be awesome for us, and terrible for the corporate lobbyists who are so desperate to control the free and open web. We need all hands on deck for this. You’ve read this far, now do what has to be done.

With love for the Internet,
-Evan and Tiffiniy
Fight for the Future

P.S. we’re really proud of this effort and the incredible array of organizations that we’ve been able to bring together. This type of networking can only bode well for the future as we continue to fight governments and corporations that seek to ruin the Internet we love. We’re stronger right now than we’ve ever been before. If that makes you smile, please chip in $15 to keep us fighting.

1) The Hill, Obama: Give me fast track trade
2) Electronic Frontier Foundation, Congress must not fast track TPP to ratification.
3) Public Citizen, Fast Track: an undemocratic path to unfair ‘trade
4) OpenMedia, Top 5 ways that lobbyists win and you lose with the Trans-Pacific Partnership