.. why the TPP is such a protected document that leakers are offering large sums of money for even a piece of it? I've read tons of information about how secretive it is, whether it's unprecedented, only 43 members of congress have seen it, what they can and can't say/do, etc. I just want to understand, why does a trade agreement have to be kept so protected? The goal is that this becomes a public agreement between 11 nations IIRC. It might be one of those questions to which the answer is so obvious that no one even mentions it, but I can't figure out why this crazy level of protection? And now they want to get the approval fast tracked so the window within which people/media can analyze this is going to be full of members of congress, who will obviously be handsomely reimbursed by corporations, doing anything to make sure this passes. Doesn't this seem strange? Why are trade agreements negotiated this way?
Like the Orange Juice Futures in Trading Places, there will be exploitable advantages within the TPP and the information should be available to all the players at once to keep the playing field level,
My understanding is that any member of Congress CAN read it, if they actually want to - but I'm not sure. That said, I think the reason for negotiating behind the scenes is that these are very complex negotiations. There are going to be lots of things people like and other people dislike in it, and if you negotiate it in the public sphere, there's going to be incredible pressure against random single items that are unpopular. When you have as many countries as this, it's impossible to negotiate that way - it's sort of like what the GOP wanted with the Iran agreement, trying add pet provisions, etc. Ultimately, the negotiators from all the countries have to come up with an overall agreement they think is best, and then Congress can vote it down if they want. But having 500 members of Congress individually trying to weigh in and influence the agreement would be sort of a mess because it's not domestic legislation. When working with dozens of countries, each one needs one voice that they are speaking from.
Democracy is such a hassle for the corporate elite and trickle up has been so good for them in recent years. The one percent doesn't want the 99% to get a chance to block this deal which is good for the corporate elite. The corporate elite are worried that the Congress, though largely bought with Citizen's United money, might not still be somewhat responsive to the the American electorate. So why chance it?
This strikes me as the right answer. Stock and commodity prices will move in reaction to what is included and excluded from the deal, and how negotiations are progressing. Traders with an information advantage can make a ton of money at the expense of the rest of the market. If you can keep everything silent until a final document is delivered, everyone will trade on the same information. (The only problem being that I don't trust the people who do have insider information in our government to not selectively share it, and I doubly or quintupley don't trust the negotiators in other countries to not leverage their advantage. But insider trading is probably unavoidable in this situation, whether the negotiation is public or private.)
I'm sure Mr Beeks has a copy and plenty of people have called him up to meet in the Orange Section Rocket River Secrecy rarely secret to those with money
It seems absurd to think that this downside of publicising the draft agreement outweighs the potential upsides, right? This is an agreement that affects the long term well being of 1 out of every 6 humans on earth, with predecessors having catastrophic effects on their subjects. There are about a billion players here, how is it a level playing field if 99.99% of them are kept in the dark until a later stage?
Members of congress can request to read it within a limited time period, in a secret room, cannot discuss the details, cannot take notes, cannot bring their lawyers or aides with them to help them understand a highly complex documents consisting of hundreds of pages. It does not meet any reasonable definition of transparency. That's why only 43 have read it. The rest are already huge supporters or don't see any value in it or don't give a F (all the more reason to let the public analyze it). Your argument seems to be saying that public or congressional scrutiny is chaotic, but you don't seem to be considering who is responsible for the chaos? You're also not considering the incredible impact of this agreement. It's simply not something where you can say "well, congressional ineptitude is a separate problem." This agreement is of immense global and domestic significance. Is it really unreasonable to say congress simply cannot be trusted to handle this at this point in time? It is of such immense significance that it makes sense to bicker over every last detail of it over a long period of time. The alternative is to trust congress men and women to negotiate in good faith to american people while passing a fast track decision and then giving those same congress people two months to detail hundreds of pages to Americans and come up with alternatives while each of the nations involved pits their citizens against a ticking clock. I'm sorry, it's just really strange. I conjured up the same idea - that there are financial losses and political bickering involved with making this public - but I honestly thought that was just too insignificant in the grand scheme of things for why this has to remain private. These people have NO qualms about bickering about anything else. I understand that these congress people can generate tremendous amounts of money by flipping through this document in secret. Does that concern you?
Letting facts get out killed SOPA, and killed ACTA when people saw what was in it. They want to pass a massive, overreaching treaty and present it as a fait accompli before anybody can protest. It's easier to beg forgivness than ask permission. "Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." Prosperous people want to do things contrary to the public interest to protect their prosperity. TPP will basically be "ACTA II:The ACTAing"
Does it seem weird to you that you're simultaneously argung that many Congresspeople don't give a F, but then wanting them to have more influence in the process? You either trust Congress to be responsible or you don't. If you do, then they will the opportunity to reject an agreement they don't like. If you don't, then why would you want them weighing in? This is not a new concept in politics or in world history. Virtually no treaties are done in public. Did the peace treaties after WWI and II get negotiated in public and in Congress? Or look at the more recent Iran treaty and Congress' reactions - different members all having their own ideas of what random things to add to it. It was difficult enough corraling 7 countries into agreement. That thing never exists if the details are negotiated in the public realm, because detractors always have more power to distort than defenders do to explain in a soundbite. That's not the alternative - Congress is not tracked at all with coming up with an alternative against a ticking clock. They either agree or reject. If they reject, it's up to the administration to decide how to move forward. And it's not like approval is just a given rubber stamp - for example, NAFTA was a long, ugly fight. Again, if you're worried that Congresspeople are unethical and going to exploit this for their own personal gain, why on earth would you want them actually helping draft it, which would let them do even more of that?
