Wikileaks Releases Obama's Secret Plan for Trade Agreement

Via Popular Resistance: Recently Wikileaks offered a reward for the text of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A people's hero must have stepped forward because today Wikileaks released the full text of the chapter on Intellectual Property Rights. Click here to see their report.

A new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that the vast majority of U.S. workers would see wage losses as a result of the pending "free trade agreement" called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

Update: What will the "mainstream media" report? Back in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all the news media in the U.S. --- Now 6 corporations control 90% of the US media. One day following the release of the TPP documents, nothing to my knowledge has been mentioned by the corporate-own mainstream media on this topic. The following are from the top Google searches to date:

CNET.com is a collective of the tech-savvy and tech-obsessed. From CNET.com: Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "Hollywood, the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this." 

From RT.com: The California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that the agreement “would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate,” all of which is being agreed upon without any oversight or observation.

From the Guardian: Julian Assange said, "If instituted, the TPP’s intellectual property regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs."

From Politico: Pharmaceutical patents and copyright issues addressed through the intellectual property rights chapter have proven especially controversial, as the United States seeks strong protections for its drug-makers, and Asian countries fight for cheaper medicines. --- Doctors Without Borders also blasted the United States’ stance on intellectual property rights in the pact. “[The terms] will severely restrict access to affordable medicines for millions of people,” said Judit Rius Sanjuan, U.S. manager of the organization’s Access Campaign.

From the Huffington Post (Canadian version): Canada joined TPP negotiations last October. The member countries together represent a market of 792 million people and a GDP of $27.5 trillion, or 40 per cent of the world economy. “The good news is that Canada is pushing back against many U.S. demands. The bad news is that the U.S. is demanding that Canada roll back its recent copyright reform legislation with a long list of draconian proposals.”

International Business Times (IBTimes) is a digital global news publication that delivers international business news to an audience of over 7 million in the U.S. and 13 million people worldwide. From the IBTimes: 5 Scary Provisions In Trans-Pacific Partnership:

1. Chilling basic Internet use
2. Limiting access to medicine
3. Extending patent protections to surgical methods
4. Lengthen copyright term protections
5. Compelling Internet Service Providers to police copyright violations

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About the TPP Trade Agreement:

The TPP has been kept secret by the Obama Administration for nearly 4 years because they know that if people find out what is in it, they will strongly oppose it. Their worst fears have been confirmed today with the release of the text, as have our suspicions that the TPP was a huge power grab by transnational corporations. The texts reveal that the United States is isolated in bullying other countries to go against the health and desires of their people and that those countries have been pushing back.

The TPP has been negotiated with the assistance of more than 600 corporate advisers while Congress has been largely excluded from the process. The President is pushing Congress to give him Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority so he can sign the agreement before Congress has a chance to vote on it. Under Fast Track, Congress would have limited time to review and debate the TPP and would not have the power to amend it, only to vote up or down on it.

The Obama Administration hoped to have the TPP signed into law by the end of the year, but momentum is building to keep that from happening. This month, two resolutions were passed in Wisconsin opposing the TPP and other local governments are in the process of doing the same. This week, letters were sent by coalitions of members from both parties in Congress opposing the President's request that they give up their responsibility to oversee commerce and fully review the contents of the TPP.

So far there has been a virtual blackout on this topic. As word spreads about this, the corporate media will have to get on board or lose credibility for missing one of the hottest stories today.