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.
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.
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.
In response to the sibling, that's an absurdist characterization and a pathetic strawman. There were free trade agreements before this ridiculous process.
I believe deeply in free trade. I also believe in democracy.
Thus I believe all free trade agreements should be negotiated in public with free and open debate, like all other laws.
As I say in the other reply to this message, your position is that there should be no 'free trade' agreements. That's a potentially respectable position, but one corollary is that we would not be having this discussion right now, for computers would be too expensive for all but the relatively wealthy to be using them for things as frivolous as political discussions.
By the same token, they must be handled by our legislature in "fast track" style, a straight up or down vote; modifications by definition negate the negotiations, secret or public.
In between ... well, such a measure should get fully discussed in public. That huge, thousand and multi-thousand measures get passed "in public" without taking the time for serious analysis, let alone public debate, which I assume is what people are really worried about, is a general grave problem in our political system, and decidedly un-American.
But if you say "no secret negotiations" and/or "no fast track" you're also says "no 'free trade' agreements". Which might be the right thing, but it should be admitted by those pushing this line.
They are attempting to pass laws in secret. Nothing is more anti-democratic and un-American.