{"id":27357,"date":"2015-05-22T04:54:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T02:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=27357"},"modified":"2015-05-22T04:55:36","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T02:55:36","slug":"27357","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/27357\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Companies Object to TPP"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Rocky Road to Globalization<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than 250 tech companies have signed a letter demanding greater transparency from Congress and decrying the broad regulatory language in leaked parts of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cTPP\u2019s trade secrets provisions could make it a crime for people to reveal corporate wrongdoing \u2018through a computer system\u2019,\u201d says the letter. \u201cThe language is dangerously vague, and enables signatory countries to enact rules that would ban reporting on timely, critical issues affecting the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

If TPP\u2019s backers truly believed that they were doing the people\u2019s work, they\u2019d have invited the people into the room. The fact that they went to extreme, unprecedented measures to stop anyone from finding out what was going on\u00a0 tells you that this is something being done *to* Americans, not *for* Americans.<\/p>\n

There was a notable absence from the letter of big, international tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. Apple and AT&T are part of the president\u2019s International Trade Advisory Committee (which advises the Oval Office on matters relating to industry.<\/p>\n

Several companies and industry trade groups sent statements to Congress in support of the legislation, among them Cisco and the Consumer Electronics Association. The Seminconductor Industry Association (SIA) said: \u201cSIA strongly supports trade promotion authority (TPA) and applauds the introduction of this bipartisan legislation. TPA paves the way for free trade by empowering US negotiators to reach final trade agreements consistent with negotiating objectives laid out by Congress. Free trade is especially critical to the US semiconductor industry, which designs and manufactures the chips that enable virtually all electronics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of particular concern to the tech community is an \u201cInvestment Chapter\u201d of the TPP drafted in 2010 and leaked by Wikileaks. The letter\u2019s signatories argue the provisions would allow corporations to use an international legal system to override national sovereignty.\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of the internet is simply too important to be decided behind closed doors,\u201d said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Rocky Road to Globalization More than 250 tech companies have signed a letter demanding greater transparency from Congress and decrying the broad regulatory language in leaked parts of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill. \u201cTPP\u2019s trade secrets provisions … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t