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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet's Help WikiLeaks Liberate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiating Text
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11019-lets-help-wikileaks-liberate-the-trans-pacific-partnership-negotiating-textLet's Help WikiLeaks Liberate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiating Text
Tuesday, 21 August 2012 13:40
By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed
On September 6, negotiators will go to Leesburg, Virginia, for the latest round of secretive talks on the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" (TPP) agreement. This proposed agreement threatens access to essential medicines in developing countries, threatens environmental regulations and threatens Internet freedom. Even members of Congress and their staff have been blocked from seeing the draft text, while corporate representatives have been allowed to see it.
Americans - and citizens of the other countries that would be covered by the agreement - have a right to see what our governments are proposing to do. Parts of the draft negotiating text have been leaked. But don't we have a right to see the whole text before the agreement is signed? After the agreement is signed, if there's anything in it we don't like, we'll be told that it's too late to change it.
Just Foreign Policy is issuing a reward if WikiLeaks publishes the TPP negotiating text. Instead of getting one rich person to put up the money, we're "crowdsourcing" the reward. We figure, if many people pledge a little bit, that will not only potentially raise a helpful sum of money for WikiLeaks, it will show that the opposition to this secretive agreement is widespread.
If WikiLeaks publishes the TPP negotiating text, it will show that WikiLeaks is still relevant to citizen demands for government transparency, that publishing US diplomatic cables wasn't the end of WikiLeaks' contribution to public knowledge of government misdeeds. And it will show that the WikiLeaks campaign for government transparency isn't just about issues related to war, but extends to every area where secretive government action threatens the public interest.
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struggle4progress
(118,273 posts)More Anti-LABOR Free Trade treaties "negotiated" in secret.
War Profiteers HONORED.
Corrupt Wall Street Bankers Bailed Out and walk free.
while Whistle Blowers and Watchdogs are hounded and persecuted.
Its the Uniquely American Solution!!
Our neighbors in Latin America have given us a Blue Print for change.
The Populist Reforms sweeping across South and Central America give me hope for the World.
VIVA Democracy!
I pray we get some here soon.
You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their rhetoric, promises, or excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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G_j
(40,366 posts)but to corporate interests..
bvar22
(39,909 posts)...do NOT want US to know
what OUR government
is doing with OUR money
in OUR name.
[font color=firebrick][center]The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR. [/font][/center]
[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity99![/font]
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)I don't see why it matters if it is released via wikileaks, public citizen, a senate office, or whatever.