Bounty Hunters

WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 “Bounty” for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters

Wanted Dead or Alive: $100,000 for Full Text of Trans-Pacific Partnership

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

“The transparency clock has run out on the TPP,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all.”

Despite unprecedented efforts by negotiating governments to keep it under wraps, WikiLeaks has been able to obtain and publish three leaked chapters of this super-secret global deal over the last two years. However, there are believed to be 26 other chapters of the deal to which only appointed negotiators, trade officials, and chosen representatives from big corporations have been given access.

“Today, WikiLeaks is taking steps to bring about the public’s rightful access to the missing chapters of this monster trade pact,” the group said in a statement. “The TPP is the largest agreement of its kind in history: a multi-trillion dollar international treaty being negotiated in secret by the US, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia and 7 other countries. The treaty aims to create a new international legal regime that will allow transnational corporations to bypass domestic courts, evade environmental protections, police the internet on behalf of the content industry, limit the availability of affordable generic medicines, and drastically curtail each country’s legislative sovereignty.”

All Hands On Deck: House Fast Track Vote Expected This Week

by Dave Johnson, Common Dreams

Monday, June 01, 2015

The vote in the House of Representatives on fast track trade authority, preapproving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before the public finds out what is in it, is coming up very soon. It is even possible it could happen later this week. The Senate has already passed fast track; if the House passes this it goes to President Obama and he will sign it. That will make TPP a done deal.

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We don’t know much about the contents of TPP – a secret investor/corporate rights agreement negotiated by corporate representatives with labor, environment and other “stakeholders” kept away from the negotiations – but we do know Nike wants it because it will lower tariffs on the shoes they import from Vietnam. We also know that the lowered tariff will mean New Balance may stop making shoes inside the U.S. We know that it opens up Vietnam, which pays workers less than a dollar an hour, for even more “outsourcing” of American jobs. We know that it lets corporations sue governments in “corporate courts” if they think laws and regulations might hurt their profits. (It even lets tobacco companies sue governments for trying to help citizens quit smoking, because that lowers tobacco company profits.)

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Starting this week people should call and show up at the local offices of their member of Congress. Bring a sign if you show up. Get others to come with you. (Use our click-to-call tool to contact your member of Congress. Or you can click here to find the office of your representative.)

Ask your representative if she or he has read TPP. Get them on record whether they have read it.

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Then ask them why you can’t see the text of TPP, especially if they are about to vote to preapprove it with fast track? Why is it being kept secret? (Why are the already-completed parts secret?)