
WikiLeaks offers $100k for details of Obama’s trade deal - itbeho
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2015/06/02/wikileaks-offers-100000-for-details-of-obamas-trade-deal/?hpid=z2
======
ohitsdom
TPP details definitely need to be in the public, but I'm surprised WikiLeaks
is offering a bounty. Have they done this before? Not that I can recall. And I
would think offering money would change the tone of prosecuting the "whistle-
blower". It'd be hard to claim that you are a whistle-blower when you are
receiving money- that seems a lot more like standard espionage to me.

~~~
twoodfin
_TPP details definitely need to be in the public..._

Details? Why? Obviously agreements will be public before they become law
(nobody disputes this), but why force negotiators making difficult tradeoffs
to hash them out in the open?

~~~
Someone1234
> Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes
> this)

Obviously? They've already fast tracked it even before it is available to the
public. They've made it available to members of congress without it being
available to the public. While on paper they might release it just before it
became law, they could easily release it a week before giving nobody time to
mount a real challenge.

I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and
members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly
unlikely.

~~~
twoodfin
Not to put too fine a point on it, but members of the (U.S.) public had their
say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk. Who, not
coincidentally, negotiate all sorts of critically important legislation in
private.

Besides, the version of TPA under consideration by the House this month
requires that any agreement be public for at least 60 days before it can be
signed by the President and submitted to Congress for enabling legislation.

~~~
imron
> but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their
> President, Senators and Congressfolk.

That's not how it works. If it was, we'd have SOPA, but we don't.

Citizens telling their representatives what they do and don't want is
fundamental aspect of a well-functioning democracy.

~~~
EliRivers
Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-
functioning democracy. The people at the top certainly don't think they should
listen.

 _RECENTLY, when Vice-President Cheney was asked by ABC News correspondent
Martha Raddatz about polls showing that an overwhelming majority of US
citizens oppose the war in Iraq, he replied, "So?"

"So — you don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked.

"No," Cheney replied, and explained, "I think you cannot be blown off course
by the fluctuations in public opinion polls."

Later, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, explaining Cheney's comments, was
asked whether the public should have "input."

Her reply: "You had your input. The American people have input every four
years, and that's the way our system is set up."

That's correct. Every four years the American people can choose between
candidates whose views they reject, and then they should shut up._

[http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm](http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm)

~~~
imron
> Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-
> functioning democracy

Yes. I would agree that the US is not a well-functioning democracy.

------
oskarth
It's a publicity stunt. The goal is to raise awareness for the shady nature of
this trade deal, and hopefully get someone to step up and release the rest of
the documents. So far it's been going well - this article was written the
Washington Post, and it raises awareness of TPP. What remains to be seen is
whether someone will step up.

~~~
snowwrestler
I agree that it's a publicity stunt. Most of the agreement will be totally
boring to HN type folks--pages and pages of fine-grained calibration of
relative tariffs on agricultural products, etc.

The most controversion provisions are probably already known (ISDS, which has
been a standard part of trade deals for years), or leaked (the IP chapter).

That said, I'll be interested to see the language on cross-border data flows.
One of the reported provisions is that signatories to the TPP will have to
treat data from all signatories equally (i.e. no nation-based filtering).
Another is that signatories will not be able to require tech companies to
house their servers locally to provide services locally. Those both sound like
they would be welcomed by tech companies.

------
BinaryIdiot
Maybe I'm wrong (and please correct me if I am) but I thought the agreement
was being done in secret until it's completed at which point it will go to the
legislature of all of the nations involved. Since it's being "fast-tracked"
that means congress can't add or remove things from the bill but can vote on
it and it will be fully accessible publicly.

They certainly shouldn't be doing the writing of this thing in secret and we
should be able to comment on it now but it will be fully available before
being voted on so $100,000 seems a bit much to getting it a few months early.
Again, as far as I understand everything so please correct me if I'm wrong.

~~~
tim333
They are planning to use the:

>"fast track" Trade Promotion Authority. This would require the United States
Congress to introduce and vote on an administration-authored bill for
implementing the TPP with minimal debate and no amendments, with the entire
process taking no more than 90 days. Fast-track legislation was introduced in
Congress in mid-April 2015. (Wikipedia)

So 90 days for minimal debate and no amendments - sounds like true democracy
in action to me.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes. There are times you shouldn't amend and the Constitution expressly
provides for the executive branch to do treaty negotiation, not Congress.
Congresss can advise and consent, but there is no way I want that body trying
to add a bunch of amendments to it. That's how we went without a budget for 5
years.

------
jamesk_au
There are many reasons favouring disclosure of this information, but is
offering to buy the information really the best approach here?

The public officials who possess the information are likely bound by legal
duties not to disclose it to those not entitled to see it. If an official
chooses to leak confidential information in the public interest, that may be
one thing, but selling confidential information for personal financial gain is
corrupt conduct.

To be fair to WikiLeaks, they describe the money as a "reward" for turning
over the missing chapters, and do not overtly say they are looking to buy, but
it seems to come awfully close to offering a financial inducement to break the
law. The only people who have the information are those who are bound not to
reveal it or who should never have had it in the first place.

~~~
kauffj
The individual who leaks this information is doing so for the public good. Why
not also allow them to be compensated for assuming that risk?

~~~
scuba7183
How do you know they're not leaking it for the cash?

~~~
yellowapple
Why do we care, so long as the leak is accurate and - therefore - public well-
being is achieved?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Because the leak may not end up being really accurate; when the contribution
is done for cash and not out of care for public well-being, then all bets are
off.

------
JumpCrisscross
The purpose of a trade deal is to lower protectionism. Like corn subsidies.
Corn subsidies are a blatant manifestation of American protectionism. Imagine
U.S. trade negotiators trying to cut corn subsidies in exchange for something.
The same forces that created the subsidies – a motivated minority mobilising
against a dis-interested, harmed majority – will defeat any attempt to kill
them. Repeat this process by interest groups across every country and you may
see why Doha failed.

Secrecy is annoying, and our present government gives us reason to distrust
it. But if you believe in free trade and are realistic about how negotiations
(and interest groups) work, you understand why they must be secret.

~~~
harry8
But apparently they _aren 't_ secret from the interest groups where such
interest groups donate large sums to political parties. See copyright
extensions that we know are coming in this.

"Believe in free trade.." Fry and Laurie made me laugh about that line back in
the day. YMMV.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcMwvf0iyWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcMwvf0iyWs)

If you believe in free trade you know that there are massive gains to be had
from abolishing rubbish like corn subsidies period. Just do it, it's a win for
any domestic economy. If you don't "believe in free trade" then you need this
secret nonsense to pretend to abolish it then not actually do it. Again.

------
genericuser
Hilarious twist option Obama gives WikiLeaks and everyone else the trade deal
details, and claims the 100k. He could then just put it back into the
government where 100k will not even be noticed, donate to some charity in some
sort of PR stunt, or whatever as I am sure there are both better and more
entertaining options.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Would be funny, but I doubt Obama has access or much of a say in the matter,
and he himself would get arrested and sued for leaking secrets - the president
is not above the law.

~~~
hyperpape
>> and he himself would get arrested and sued for leaking secrets - the
president is not above the law

You must be new around here.

Executive branch officials leak classified information whenever it's
convenient to them. As long as it's done with approval from higher up, there
are no consequences. Even Petraeus received minimal consequences after sharing
secrets with his mistress.

~~~
scintill76
Maybe "law" is the wrong term, but considering this is an international
treaty, there is not really a "higher up" with the authority to "approve"
leaking this. (Unless you believe several of the nations involved are secretly
governed by a higher body.) There would probably be fairly severe diplomatic
consequences regardless how it leaked, and even worse if it was clearly a
high-level official.

~~~
hyperpape
Perhaps I was a bit sloppy. I was referring specifically to prosecution. Of
course there would be diplomatic problems, and a serious loss of credibility.

~~~
harry8
Credibility loss? It could get worse than the last 15 years?

------
kauffj
Information wants to be $100,000.

~~~
snowwrestler
The actual original quote is: "Information wants to be free. Information also
wants to be expensive." The second half frequently gets forgotten.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free)

~~~
StavrosK
Wait, so the quote actually means "information wants to be gratis", rather
than "information wants to be libre"? I've been parsing it wrong this whole
time.

~~~
snowwrestler
Yes, and I think that the distinction between "gratis" and "libre" is not
actually that clear. When folks pirate movies they wave the banner of libre,
but they are also getting their movie gratis.

What would a piece of information look like that is libre but not gratis? In
the free software movement, the whole point is to permit end users to acquire
and share the source code, which for software is the entire product. There's
no mechanism to charge for things that anyone can share with anyone else.

~~~
yellowapple
> What would a piece of information look like that is libre but not gratis?

There are quite a few FOSS projects that cost money, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
being the _de facto_ textbook example.

~~~
snowwrestler
RHEL is available for free under the name CentOS. Red Hat makes their revenue
selling support, not information.

------
davotoula
Why stop here... Let's crowdsource bribes, I mean lobby funds, for politicians
and finally get some people's wishes through.

~~~
kauffj
If there were a completely transparent market for bribes, I think that would
be a far superior system to the one we have today.

~~~
draugadrotten
> there were a completely transparent market for bribes,

There's a disruptive startup opportunity hiding in there. Think "Uber for
bribes", where politicians can sign up as 'advisors' and people can pay for
'advice'.

------
drawkbox
WikiLeaks is getting into the lobbying game, not a bribe, a lobby. You can't
tell me companies don't do this same thing to politicians.

It would be something for someone to actually get prosecuted for releasing a
bill/law that will affect us all. What message would that send?

When releasing a bill in Congress is illegal, I think we have seriously lost
it. Bills throughout the process should be public at all times once our
representatives are going over it for sure.

------
tim333
Good on them. I just pledged a small amount towards the $100k. I think the
purpose of this is more a PR stunt to make more people aware that the
governments that are supposed to serve us are trying to sign us up to a bunch
of dubious stuff behind our backs than bribery. Indeed "Putting the public
back into the public interest." as they put it on their site.

[https://wikileaks.org/pledge/](https://wikileaks.org/pledge/)

------
joshstrange
My first reaction is this goes too far but on second thought is this just the
state of the world now? We are going to come out of the shadows and just be
upfront about what we are doing? Is it a "The rich and the powerful lie,
cheat, steal, bribe, corrupt, etc. Why shouldn't we?" situation?

I think money in politics is ruining the USA, is using money to fight back
against these dirty politicians and lobbyists the only tool we have left?

~~~
shit_parade2
The power and authority of the state emanates from the people, don't let your
government convince you otherwise. If enough enough people woke this morning
deciding their government was no longer legitimate those in power would be
gone by night fall.

~~~
FD3SA
That is a little idealistic, don't you think? The Occupy movement got crushed
by the police. It is in the state's best interest to prevent social movements
from reaching critical mass. As such, they use their massive enforcement arms
to nip the troublemakers in the bud.

------
billiam
Since the rich and powerful have effectively diluted our most precious right,
free speech (ask the relatives of the Yangtzee River tragedy about that) by
having the Supreme Court make money equivalent to speech through Citizens
United, I find it pretty funny to see the Obama administration's obsession
with secrecy challenged via the same mechanism we use to fund video games and
fanciful geek hardware.

Of course, the real joke is that there's plenty of money chasing the secrets
of the TPP already--only not to show those secrets to the public, but just to
corporations and governments that want to benefit from them. The only thing
stopping that would be the civil (and criminal?) penalties that would face
anyone who could spill the beans.

~~~
aaardvark
What does the Yangtzee River tragedy have to do with Citizens United?

------
vonklaus
Leaving aside how important dissemination of this topic is. What is the plan?
Raise a 100K from netizens, and then wire it to the whistleblower? Then what,
they are hung for treason?

------
jokoon
That's either ballsy or desperate, or both.

I'd be interested to check the donors though.

I want to trust Assange, but I kinda trust Obama too.

I agree that things could be better, but you can't always argue that secrecy
is always against the interest of the public. Leader sometimes have to be able
to have discretion when the want to take decisions, if not, some will just be
able to anticipate those decisions, and it won't work.

It's true that mandatory secrecy is bad, but it can be difficult to have it
everywhere. I'm really not an expert though, so I could be wrong. It's true
that the US is trying to make strategic moves for its own interests, and it
can be scary and dubious waters for US citizens, but it's the game of
international relations.

I don't think you can always mix the debate on secrecy and healthy democracy.
Maybe Obama has legitimate reasons to use secrecy. Although it's expected from
wikileaks to make moves about it.

Anyway Washington is really not going to like it. At all.

------
genericuser
Another thing to consider is as soon as the details are public, we will be
assaulted by ad campaigns by various interest groups which this negatively
effects telling us why it will ruin our lives. While the general Hacker News
population may be too smart to be swayed from reason by these ads, ads like
this exist because they work.

A portion of the public will be swayed by the plight of the American Pipe
Layers Union or whoever is potentially going to lose a little bit of business
as the ads, like others of their kind, will provide them with a partial
picture of the deal and telling them why this is horrible, without providing
enough context for them to come to a different conclusion.

Some portion of the public outcry when something like this becomes public will
be due these special interest groups effectively buying the opinions of the
public by telling them what to think in the same manner they usually do.

~~~
0xffff2
I was under the impression that most of the Hacker News population needs no
help in being set against the TPP...

~~~
genericuser
I agree with you, but I do not agree with what seems to be the prevailing
opinion here which I would summarize as "If you don't have information about
something, that something is bad"

I realize I phrased this in what is probably an offensive way to many, and I
apologize I didn't want to spend 20 minutes rewording it so I could figure out
how to insult as few people as possible.

I agree it is better to have transparency but honestly, because not all actors
(businesses, special interest groups, other countries) are guaranteed to act
transparently, sometimes it is actually in the American public's best interest
for some level of obfuscation. Is this one of those instances? Hell if I know.
Transparency from only one party in an arrangement between many parties has
costs as well as benefits is my point, costs which should be considered.

~~~
yellowapple
What?

Obfuscation is _never_ in the best interests of a democracy. Democracy relies
on the public being able to make informed decisions, and that ability is
physically impossible when the relevant information is obfuscated.

~~~
genericuser
Would you mind if I create a strawman of an edge case to test your devotion to
the use of the word 'never'?

That is a fairly absolute word, and I tend to doubt you actually mean never.

~~~
yellowapple
Sure, go ahead and create a strawman if you think it helps you. It won't
change the fact (not opinion, but _fact_ ) that the democratic process depends
on transparency.

~~~
genericuser
I agree that democracy depends on transparency, I don't know where you got the
idea I thought otherwise. I just stated that sometimes, and I mean sometimes
as in not all the time, it is in the best interest of the public to not have
all the information.

Alright say there is a pretty decent leader who has a personal trait which
would make them unelectable to the public, but really shouldn't in any
reasonable situation effect their ability to lead and make decisions. Is it in
the public's best interest to know about that trait prior to the election?

~~~
yellowapple
> Alright say there is a pretty decent leader who has a personal trait which
> would make them unelectable to the public, but really shouldn't in any
> reasonable situation effect their ability to lead and make decisions. Is it
> in the public's best interest to know about that trait prior to the
> election?

Yes. Elected officials are representatives of the people. If that personal
trait really does make the candidate unelectable, it means that the public
does not want someone with that trait representing them. It's therefore in
their best interests to not elect that person, since said person is not an
accurate/desirable representation of the public.

> but really shouldn't in any reasonable situation effect their ability to
> lead and make decisions

Then why would it make them unelectable?

~~~
genericuser
>Then why would it make them unelectable?

Because enough of the public is bigoted and fearful of personal differences
that through out history many traits such as Polio, being Catholic, being
single, being black, being a woman, being gay, and being a transsexual have
been and some continue to be big enough deal breakers to enough people that a
candidate will not get elected if they openly have that trait, regardless of
how preferable they are to the public's best interests.

People are stupid, and honestly if hiding the fact you have polio is the only
way you can get elected and help the country you live in, then damn it you
should hide the fact you have polio for the time being. And later when you do
reveal you have polio maybe people will become a bit more accepting, and
realize how little that really mattered.

What I am saying is that your pure transparency model would be great for a
theoretical democracy where equality and rational thought actually existed,
but for the world we have, the democracy we have, transparency isn't always
best.

------
singularity2001
Technical question: Are there any programs that try to roughly measure the
shill factor in conversations? I.e. by taking statistics over all commenters,
whether they ever submitted/commented before etc? Would be nice if HN would
measure this in-house, since they have access to IP addresses.

------
bernardom
This seems illegal. Any lawyers here?

Two reasons: 1- Offering money for someone to commit a crime. If somebody
obtains the details illegally, Wikileaks would be liable for that. 2-
Interfering with the executive branch's negotiation of a treaty is definitely
illegal, though not necessarily always enforced. (See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory))

All that said, Wikileaks probably doesn't care. They already leaked a ton of
US gov't classified data, so why would more indictments matter?

------
moonbug
Because whistle-blowing for cash is much more defensible than doing it for
conscience.

~~~
vaadu
[http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/04/news/johnson-and-johnson-
whi...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/04/news/johnson-and-johnson-
whistleblower-payout/index.html)

This type of whistleblowing should not just be for pharmaceuticals. It should
apply to all government and commercial activities too. Publicity is the best
disinfectant.

------
andor
How do they intend to transfer $100,000 to an anonymous source?

~~~
vesinisa
Bitcoin?

~~~
andor
Does Bitcoin mixing work well enough to anonymize transfers of this size?

------
JustSomeNobody
Can someone explain why this needs to be a secret and why the Freedom of
Information Act doesn't apply?

------
alexc05
I hate to be overly facetious here, but $100k would pay for one hell of a
funeral. At the very least it may be difficult to spend that money from a life
in exile.

I agree that it should be made public - but the money would only serve to
create a paper trail that you could be traced by.

Doesn't it increase the risk?

------
JonFish85
How is a person supposed to collect on this? I imagine it'd be difficult for a
person to claim their $100k without immediately being outed. I guess Bitcoin
might work, but even then, there's the problem of actually using it without
someone noticing.

------
geophile
It would be great to make the TPP documents public, but this isn't the way.
The leaker can rightly claimed to be in it for the money, and this will taint
any further anti-TPP action based on the content of the leaked documents.

We need another Edward Snowden.

------
throwaway12357
If governments aren't doing anything wrong, why are they hiding the TPP?

------
kyleblarson
Most transparent presidential administration in history.....

------
mdariani
Brave Move. Still not sure what the reactions by the U.S. government will be.
behind the door agreements in politics are bad for everyone everywhere.

------
jimrandomh
The classy thing to do would be to leak the trade deal, and tell WikiLeaks to
donate the money to a GiveWell-recommended charity.

------
cbsmith
It's soooo not Obama's deal.

~~~
mayneack
How so? He's pushing pretty hard for it.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/path-to-pacific-
trade-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/path-to-pacific-trade-deal-
may-open-in-senate-after-all.html)

~~~
cbsmith
The origins of the treaty trace back to 2002, and the US formally joined
negotiations in January 2008. Later that year, Susan C. Schwab (an appointee
under then President GWB) announced to the world that the US was entering in
to negotiations to join it. It is entirely possible the treaty won't be
ratified until the next President is in office (or never).

There are 12 countries that are actively involved in the negotiations, of
which four signed on to the original TPSEP in 2005, and 8 were formally
involved in negotiations before Obama ever entered the White House. What we
know of the negotiations show that the US is looking for terms very different
from the other nations, which at least creates a realistic possibility that
much of what is in the treaty agreement is not what the US, let alone
President Obama, would want. In the end, the negotiations are driven by
apolitical business interests (which you can take as a positive or negative, I
think a reasonable case can be made that it is neither).

No question he's been involved in negotiations, promoting it and in favour of
it. His administration has obviously played a significant role in
negotiations.

But this thing is way, way bigger than any President. The forces driving the
negotiation cross at least a dozen nations and both the Republican &
Democratic parties in the US. Suggesting it is Obama's deal is to completely
misrepresent the scope and nature of the deal, the process by which it is
structured, and creates a mythos of it being a part of a domestic partisan
political agenda.

------
dharma1
Maybe a PR stunt because people are starting to forget WikiLeaks?

------
jebblue
If I were rich (which I'm not) I'd offer a higher bounty to black hats to shut
down WikiLeaks until they get out of politics and back to exposing secrets for
the public good.

~~~
dublinben
"Exposing secrets for the public good" is inherently political.

------
shit_parade2
The document is classified and supposed to be kept secret for four years after
the entry into force of the TPP agreement or, if no agreement is reached, for
four years from the close of the negotiations.

How do people put up with this craziness? You all are talking about the rule
of law while your congress is going to pass something many of them can't read,
can't read in full, can't read with the help of aids, and can't disclose, and
can't disclose even after it becomes law.

That's not law, that's tyranny.

------
untog
This adds a lot of weird uncertainty to the idea of Wikileaks, IMO. Where will
the money be coming from (it's crowdsourced)? Where will it be going to?

~~~
harry8
from: crowdsourced - article content

to: person who leaks - fairly obviously

~~~
untog
Right, but who are the crowdsourcers? And who will be the person who leaks?
Presumably we won't know either. Which is what is shady.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Except the person who leaks, if his/her identity is known, will be prosecuted
for sharing trade secrets - and given there's trillion-dollar companies behind
TTP, s/he will spend the rest of their life, if they are arrested, either in
lawsuits, prison, or just disappearing. Snowden and Assange are both
effectively banished from any country that has an extradition policy with the
US, and even where they live now their location has to be kept secret - if
they weren't as public figures as they are (and in Assange's case, locked up
in an embassy), I'm sure they would've 'disappeared' a while ago, regardless
of where they were hiding.

~~~
untog
And you think that trying to give this person $100k will make it easier for
them to remain anonymous?

