Trans-Pacific Partnership Includes Unwanted Elements of SOPA 129
New submitter Error27 writes "Last month Wikileaks leaked a draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty. Here is Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's response to the leaked documents. She points out that there several troubling issues with the trade agreement. It locks countries into extremely long copyright terms. It limits fair use. It includes DRM provisions which would make it illegal to unlock your cell phone. These laws come from the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which Americans already rejected."
There's more to the story (Score:5, Interesting)
The TPP is horrible in a number of ways. It creates so-called free trade between the countries in a number of areas, including automobiles. Unfortunately, if you know anything about the markets you know that even while the Japanese may not place tariffs on automotive products from the US, their market is absolutely closed to US product through a number of other legal but fairly immoral actions.
To top it off, the Japanese are even WORSE at currency manipulations than Americans. As of this second, Japan enjoys an $8000 imbalance between autos made over there versus what we can make them over here, specifically because of their intervention in the currency market.
Free trade doesn't work when countries can play games, dumping products and using massive government subsidies to drive people out of the market. The Automotive industry is virtually the last bastion of American manufacturing, and supports a huge proportion of what remains of the American middle class.
This is a BAD partnership. Oppose it.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but bringing it back to the topic at hand, poster 123456 above stated that if you "can't get a law passed in your country, you convince other governments to make it part of a treaty".
And s/he is perfectly correct in this assessment, and that is exactly what the Trans-Pacific Partnership proponents are trying to do, and, as I pointed out, if ratified, this treaty becomes law (because it does not directly contradict the constitution).
You replied that it was "Not quite that simple". But it is EXACTLY that simple.
1) Get defeated in congress. ...
2) Draft a treaty
3) Get treaty ratified
Profit.
When the SOPA protest caused the bills to be pulled, it was most effective in the House of representatives.
So Chris Dod and friends, are end-running the house all together. They get no say about a treaty.