[x-pubpol] EFF on TAFTA

[Joly MacFie]

http://www.ifex.org/international/2013/07/10/tafta_agreement/

*Electronic Frontier Foundation <https://www.eff.org/> *10 July 2013
The first round of talks in what the U.S. and EU trade representatives
intend to be the largest bilateral trade agreement ever have
begun<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/us-usa-eu-trade-idUSBRE96704F20130708>.
The governments call it TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP). Everyone else calls it TAFTA, the Trans-Atlantic Free
Trade Agreement. Whatever the name, it will regulate all U.S. and EU trade,
or around 30 percent of world trade in goods. And according to the first
leaks of negotiation documents, it threatens to be yet another trojan horse
for copyright and internet issues.

We have been following developments since Pres. Barack Obama announced his
intention to create a U.S.-EU agreement at his State of the Union address
earlier in 2013. Now, it seems that our concerns were warranted: a newly
leaked document<http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/TAFTA_leaked_doc_08-07-2013>
from
La Quadrature du Net shows how EU delegates intend to set rules around
liability for Internet Service Providers and regulations over the transfer
and processing of users' personal online data, as well as rules to set a
"uniform approach" to cyber security across the region. While the document
makes no mention of copyright enforcement, other
statements<http://keionline.org/node/1726> lead
us to believe that it will alsobe
included<http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/fact-sheets/2013/june/wh-ttip>
.

U.S. and European delegates will negotiate TAFTA secretly, mirroring the
same undemocratic processes that led to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA <https://www.eff.org/issues/acta>). Like the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP <https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp>) agreement, TAFTA's
objective is to address a wide range of cross-border regulatory issues
under one overarching agreement. In March, EFF joined 44 other U.S. and EU
organizations<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/transatlantic-declaration-leave-copyright-patent-issues-out-tafta>
in
calling for transparency in the process and to ask our trade
representatives to leave copyright, patent, and trademark issues off of the
drafting table.

In light of the recent revelations, La Quadrature du Net says TAFTA is
bound to threaten freedoms
online<https://www.laquadrature.net/en/trans-atlantic-trade-talks-bound-to-harm-freedoms-online>
:

*The precedent of ACTA shows that industries can have tremendous (if not
total) influence on the content of such an agreement, and that EU
negotiators from the Commission can hardly be trusted to defend general
interest [ . . . ]*

The same goes for U.S. negotiators. Lobbyists paid by the concentrated
wealth of special interests currently dominate the objectives of our
national trade policies - such as Internet companies that would prefer lax
privacy controls, or entertainment industry companies pushing for copyright
crackdowns. The creators and users of new, decentralized technology, who
exercise their right to free speech and association over the Internet, have
no voice at the table. This results in agreements, like ACTA or TPP, that
uphold the concerns of a few powerful private interests at the expense of
the present and future public interest and the civil liberties of Internet
users worldwide.

Given how trade delegates have reacted so far over this latest
transatlantic agreement, there is no doubt that established corporate
interests from both sides of the Atlantic will do the same to influence
TAFTA. If the process were open and transparent, we would at least know if
and when problematic language was being included in this agreement. Until
there are more leaked documents, we can only guess what kinds of specific
proposals trade negotiators are developing inside these closed-door
meetings.

During the week of 1 July 2013, European leaders publicly
complained<http://www.ifex.org/international/2013/07/03/nsa_surveillance/>
that
TAFTA was impossible given the revelations that the U.S. spies on its
Europe's negotiators. That now looks to have been political bluff. It seems
that surveillance by trade partners will continue to be acceptable, as long
as the negotiations themselves are concealed from the general public.

--
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