Internet activists are planning a major on- and offline protest at what has been described as a "secretive, SOPA-like" agreement being hammered out as the world's largest economies attempt to agree the world's biggest ever free trade deal. They argue the pact will lead to greater web censorship, even though talks between the …

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Friday 25th April 2014 12:16 GMT Graham Marsden

"the US still believes it can complete an agreement by the end of 2014."

No doubt by using subtle methods of persuasion, for instance suggesting that trade with the other countries might suffer if they didn't sign up...

"Nice trade balance you have there, squire. Be a shame if anything happened to it, know what I mean?"

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Friday 25th April 2014 12:44 GMT Vladimir Puta De Madre

Move elsewhere...

If they censor the internet to that degree then why not set up a "new internet" along the lines of TOR ? The original was just a private academic network. With the number of home-based NAS drives now offering terabytes of storage at each node and the ability to run all sorts of applications it would probably be pretty easy to do.

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Friday 25th April 2014 13:05 GMT drexciya

Why even bother calling it a trade agreement?

A link (http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2014/04/new-obama-administration-report-targets-tpp-countries-public-interest-policies-as-trade-barriers-to-.html) containing some actual recommendations for countries like Malaysia and Japan, was so gross and so insensitive to those countries' sovereignty, that it was almost laughable.

Is the US completely out of it's mind? Any sane politician wouldn't sell out it's countries citizens to the corporatist regime in the US. You might as well let the US (it's corporations that is) take over your country, there's not a lot of difference.

What really bothers me about all this, is the fact that mainstream media is completely ignoring what's going on and the implications of the measures in this so-called trade agreement. They should be screaming murder over this. Also, why does the US still think it can force it's stupid policies on any other country in the world?

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1. Friday 25th April 2014 13:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Why even bother calling it a trade agreement?
  
  "Also, why does the US still think it can force it's stupid policies on any other country in the world?"
  
  Because they believe they can persuade the individual politicians of the benefits of such an agreement. Benefits such as: We wont release this or that information about you, corporate support for your further career - political or otherwise - opposition against your opponents - political or otherwise - and other such benefits.
  
  Then you bet on the population of said countries to be too slow or lazy to protest it properly and hey-presto you've got it made.
  
  I was going to suggest that they should set up such a trade with a single country first and then work to include others one by one - but I suspect such a thing is unworkable because such a trade-agreement would quickly show its dark sides and give actual proof for the - probably quite good - arguments used by opponents of the agreement.
  
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2. Friday 25th April 2014 13:58 GMT James Micallef
  
  Re: Why even bother calling it a trade agreement?
  
  Nothing new... it's basically saying: you need to allow our companies complete access to your markets while removing any protections for your citizens/consumers (aka all your profits belong to us)
  
  I wonder if in return for all those concessions, the US is going to remove for example it's subsidies to agricultural producers? Or any 'buy American' laws or standards? Any concession at all, in fact?
  
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3. Friday 25th April 2014 21:06 GMT henrydddd
  
  Re: Why even bother calling it a trade agreement?
  
  Both the Republicans and the Democrats support this bill. The reason is that big business and billionaires in the US are shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars into these politicians coffers. Just look what the Koch brothers contributed to the 2012 elections. The us is NOT a democracy but a plutocracy.
  
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Friday 25th April 2014 13:12 GMT Rick Giles

RE: Why even bother calling it a trade agreement?

No, the US is not out of its mind... Unfortunately, our so called leaders are and out of touch with their constituencies.

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Friday 25th April 2014 13:35 GMT Anonymous Coward

20 rounds of negotiation

methink they have an anti-SOPA mole in their rank. Or a few politicians who have spotted a niche for a long-term, plush job. Long live such politicians! The longer, the better! ;)

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Friday 25th April 2014 13:39 GMT DerekCurrie

SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, ACTA, TPP

For newbies, this is a list of legislation coming out of #MyStupidGovernment, the USA, specifically written by our Corporate Oligarchy for the purpose of treating their customers as default criminals. It's a plain and simple form of tyranny and what I call Neo-Feudalism.

SOPA

PIPA

CISPA

ACTA

TPP

and ???

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Friday 25th April 2014 14:10 GMT Vladimir Plouzhnikov

Putin was wrong!

Teh internets is not a CIA project - it's a RIAA project!

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Friday 25th April 2014 15:07 GMT M Gale

I'm surprised.

9 posts in and not a single shout of "fucking freetards".

Well let me be the first to say you're all fucking freetards, you only want to steal stuff, I bet none of you want to pay for a thing, try getting out of your mummy's basement and finding out what Real Work^TM is.

And clean your teeth. Brush your hair. Wash behind those ears, young man, you're a disgrace!

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1. Friday 25th April 2014 17:55 GMT Tom Maddox
  
  Re: I'm surprised.
  
  Excellent Matt Bryant impression!
  
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2. Friday 25th April 2014 23:31 GMT Rick Giles
  
  Re: I'm surprised.
  
  @M Gale
  
  This isn't about "stealing". This is about control. They will monitor ALL content. It is the equivalent of someone following you through the library or bookstore making a list of all the book titles you even glance at. Say you are horticulturist and you look at all the gardening / planting materials. Then, in a few years time when the Governments have outlawed growing your own food stuffs to make you dependent on their state sanctioned growers/producers, they then have a profile on you. Then, they'll come take all your gardening tools (that you had to register at some point prior) and label you as a dissident.
  
  As for the rest of your trolling comment:
  
  I have a job, a family, a mortgage and two paid for automobiles.
  
  Did you even bother to read the article?
  
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  1. Saturday 26th April 2014 00:03 GMT M Gale
    
    Re: I'm surprised.
    
    I have a job, a family, a mortgage and two paid for automobiles.
    
    So it's true.
    
    Sufficiently advanced parody or satire really is indistinguishable from the real thing.
    
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Friday 25th April 2014 16:20 GMT Anonymous Coward

The one thing going for them

It's one thing to rally the masses against a singular attack. Sadly, it's not all that complicated for them to repeatedly revisit the issue, and gathering the masses to resist will grow weaker and weaker.

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Friday 25th April 2014 17:37 GMT Will Godfrey

Bad

Well I guess my generation will survive this without too much hardship, and our children... maybe.

Today's kids are who I really feel sorry for. I think they are destined to lifelong serfdom and I don't see any way of warning or protecting them.

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Friday 25th April 2014 22:14 GMT pacman7de

Liberalising trade between stakeholders ..

TPP isn't about trade and it isn't an agreement. What it is, is a mechanism for pushing onerous and one-sided copyright, patent, and trademark provisions onto developing economies, the main beneficiaries being the major US corporations. It's the self same corporations who helped write the legislation, the rest of us won't see it until it is signed.

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Saturday 26th April 2014 01:14 GMT Anonymous Coward

Why is anyone surprised?

When the terms of secret backroom deals like this are made public, they're forced to abandon them, but they always turn up in something else eventually, until it does get through before anyone notices. That's how lawmakers push crap the public don't want, and if they figure they can't do that because someone will read the bill before it is voted on (since not everything can be an emergency like the PATRIOT ACT) they'll do it via treaty negotiation.

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Monday 28th April 2014 00:02 GMT Anonymous Coward

Murdoch's do as we say not as we do

Murdoch invested millions in China's top pirate site XUNLEI while promoting criminal penalties on American IP violators. He's not alone in this demented strategy.

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