Wikileaks leaks Trans Pacific Partnership agreement

From Fight For The Future:

Last week, WikiLeaks released the final text of the TPP’s intellectual property rights chapter, and it's absolutely terrifying.

These are just a few of its most dangerous pieces:

•Compel ISPs to take down websites without any sort of court order, just like SOPA. (Appendix Section I)

•Extend the US’s copyright regime to require copyrights stand for life plus 70 years, preventing anyone from using works that belong in the public domain. (Article QQ.G.6)

•Criminalize whistleblowing by extending trade secrets laws without any mandatory exemptions for whistleblowers or investigative journalists. (QQ.H.8)

•End anonymity online by forcing every domain name to be associated with a real name and address. (Article QQ.C.12)

•Make it illegal to unlock, modify, or generally tinker with a device you own. (Article QQ.G.10)

•Export the US’s broken copyright policies to the rest of the world without expanding any of the free speech protections, like fair use. (Article QQ.G.17)

The worst part is that this is just one of the TPP’s 30 chapters.

The final text confirms our worst fears — click here to take action demanding Congress vote NO on the TPP.

For years, governments have held critics of the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in a perfect catch 22. Officials brushed off public outcry and concern by claiming that the dissenters didn’t have all the facts.

This was by design—the 12 country trade deal was negotiated entirely behind closed doors by industry lobbyists and government appointees, and even now the text of the agreement is still classified.

But late last week, WikiLeaks released the final text of the Intellectual Property chapter, meaning those excuses won’t work anymore.

We’re planning to go all out against the TPP, but the first step is to make sure Congress knows just how many people oppose the TPP.

Taking action today is just the beginning, because if all we do is send emails and make phone calls, Congress is not going to reject the TPP. Too many giant industries are seriously invested in making sure Congress ratifies the TPP.

If we’re going to win, we need to go big. Which is exactly what we’re going to do.

So take action right now. Contact your Congresspeople now and tell them to vote against the TPP. Then get ready to do more because we’re going to unleash some of our strongest campaigns ever.

Already we have plans to work with hundreds of different groups as a massive coalition to fight the TPP, coordinate gigantic on-the-ground protests in key cities across the country, and produce compelling content to spread the word to as many different audiences as possible just what is at stake in the TPP.

To do all that, we need your help — if you can, pledge to chip in $5 every month between now and when the TPP fight ends so that we can run our biggest, boldest, and best campaign yet.

Thanks for all you do,
Charlie

Click here to take action demanding Congress vote NO on the TPP.

P.S. Want to read the text of the chapter for yourself? Check it out on WikiLeaks here, or read their overview of it here. It’s long and complicated, so maybe you'll see something that we didn't. If you do, send us an email.

SOPA is back

From Fight For The Future:

Yesterday, WikiLeaks published a previously secret chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The document confirms our worst fears: the TPP would force extreme SOPA-like censorship onto the world’s Internet users.


Tell your leaders to say NO to Internet censorship and oppose the TPP


Now we know why the U.S. government worked so hard to keep the TPP negotiations secret: the Obama administration claims to champion Internet freedom and openness, but they’ve been quietly pushing for draconian copyright provisions that benefit Hollywood and giant pharmaceutical companies at the expense of our basic rights and freedoms.


We told the world once that SOPA was a deal breaker. But, now monopolists have found a backdoor to pass it -- the TPP. They’re doing everything in their power to make sure it gets signed. Our time to fight this is short, but there is still hope. Experts say that the TPP negotiations could still fall apart if we keep the pressure on.


The first thing we all need to do is speak out against censorship before it’s too late.


The TPP doesn’t just affect the Internet. It’s bad for the economy, jobs, the environment, food, and even access to medicine. The worst part is that it’s being debated behind closed doors, with no input from human rights advocates or technical experts, but plenty of influence from Industry lobbyists and government bureaucrats.


World leaders are meeting NEXT WEEK to continue negotiations on the TPP. Now that we know what’s in it, it’s clear we have no choice but to stop it completely. And we don’t have much time.


Click here sign the petition to stop the TPP


We spent yesterday combing through the WikiLeaks release, and we hate to say it, but the TPP is even worse than we thought. Here’s a glance of what it contains, read the full documents for yourself here:


* Shutting off our Internet connection and blocking entire websites over claims to copyright infringement -- check.

* Encouraging our ISPs to spy on everything we do on the web and sharing our private data with copyright holders - check.

* Accusing people of copyright infringement without due process -- check.

* Making medicine and medical care harder to get -- check.

* Circumventing protections for workers and the environment -- check.

* Undermining democracy and national sovereignty -- check.