TPP agreement poses serious threat to global Internet users
Trans-Pacific Partnership countries announce
agreement reached, posing serious threat to global Internet
users
Largest
and most secretive agreement in the world’s history covers
40% of global trade and contains provisions to censor the
Internet and rob the public
domain
October 4, 2015 –
The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement reached
today comes as the result of over five years of negotiations
and poses an extreme threat to free expression online.
Although the full text of the deal won’t be
available for a month, recent
leaks of the TPP’s Intellectual Property chapter show
Canada faces an overhaul of copyright
legislation, including: 20 year copyright term
extensions, new provisions that would allow ISPs to block
websites due to alleged infringement, and new criminal
penalties for the circumvention of digital locks and rights
management information.
“Canadians who care about
the open Web should be very concerned about this
ultra-secret pact, which could be disastrous for Canada’s
digital economy,” said OpenMedia’s Digital Rights
Specialist Meghan Sali. “What we’re
talking about here is global Internet censorship. It will
criminalize our online activities, censor the Web, and cost
Canadians money. This deal would never pass with the whole
world watching – that’s why they’ve negotiated it in
total secrecy.”
Under Canada’s caretaker
convention, the government can sign the TPP now, but it has
to be put to a vote in Parliament before the agreement can
be ratified and brought into force. There has been much controversy over the limits of the
Conservative government’s power to continue to negotiate a
deal mere weeks before a federal election – with NDP
leader Tom Mulcair stating his party will not be bound to any agreement the
Conservatives sign before the October 19 federal
election.
A poll conducted just days ago by
Innovation Research shows that 70% of Canadians are either
not very familiar, not at all familiar, or have not heard
about it the TPP until now.
Details remain unclear
as to when the public will be able to perform a full
analysis of the text and what it means for Internet users.
Also unclear is the timeline for the completion of the
agreement, including ratification. However, under Trade
Promotion Authority, U.S. President Barack Obama has
committed to releasing the text for public scrutiny
60 days before a final vote in Congress. Despite pressure to complete the deal by the end
of the year, analysts suggest that at this late stage the
TPP will be impossible to ratify until
2016.
ends