

I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned - tekacs
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/tpp-elizabeth-warren-labor-118068.html#.VVyZUiiCOnN

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s_q_b
Speak, and speak freely. Let the judiciary prevent the executive from abusing
you. It will be hard but it can be done.

They are attempting to pass laws in secret. Nothing is more anti-democratic
and un-American.

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tzs
They are NOT attempting to pass this in secret. The _negotiation_ of the
treaty is secret, as is normal for trade agreements, but the final proposed
treaty will be presented publicly to Congress for a vote.

Trade agreements are negotiated in secret because if they were not it would be
impossible to ever finish negotiating. Suppose that during negotiation, you at
one point have some terms agreed to that are very favorable for, say, your
automobile industry. At a later point, you get a chance to get favorable terms
for, say, your consumer electronics industry, but to get those you are going
to have to give up some of those favorable automobile industry terms.

If you are doing this in public, you now will have the automobile industry
mobilizing every lobbyist it has to try to keep all the tentative favorable
terms you have for them. Congressmen who are from states and districts where
the automobile industry is strong will be holding hearings, and demanding that
the negotiators return to Washington to testify.

At the same time, the consumer electronics industry will be doing the same
thing to try to make sure that you do go for the favorable terms to them at
the expense of the automobile industry.

The same thing will be going on for every other industry that might be
affected by the treaty, and also for interested non-industry groups, like
environmental groups and labor organizations.

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s_q_b
Ugh, I hate this facile argument. No agreement need be negotiated in secret,
with the possible exception of a constitution. And once negotiated, especially
with fast track authority, it becomes almost impossible for our elected
legislature to modify it, leading to outcomes that favor industry.

Mobilizing the populace and involving our elected representatives is the very
purpose of democracy. It is a moral and public good, not an obstacle. You may
argue that money has too much influence, but that is a separate debate. This
is to say nothing of the fact that lobbyists, such as the MPAA/RIAA, dominate
the treaty negotiation process, which is why the TPP is loaded with copyright
provisions.

If you actually go back and read the Federalist Papers, or any scholarship on
why treaties are negotiated in secret, it is precisely because they are
intended to have minimal effect on domestic law.

Instead, they have become a way for the upper houses of legislatures and the
executive to bypass the normal democratic process, ignore the populace, and
change domestic law. This deceit is deplorable.

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tptacek
You aren't responding to the parent comment, but rather just using it as a
springboard for more rhetoric.

You claimed upthread that the administration is attempting to pass the TPP in
secret. You appear to be wrong about that. They're _negotiating_ in secret,
which is not the same thing.

At this point, you should either acknowledge that you overstated your case, or
present additional evidence.

------
gadders
In the Economist:

Fighting the secret plot to make the world richer
[http://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21649613-america...](http://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21649613-america-inches-towards-big-trade-deal-asia-barack-obama-faces-
showdown)

