Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Top Democratic Senator Blasts Obama's TPP Secrecy

I could possibly support the TPP. I've seen a few articles from Economists and they claim it isn't that big a deal. There's likely less an impact on employment than we think and yes something will happen without us and it's better to be in it than not. I'm most concerned about the judicial issues with transnational companies.

But then I read shit like this this Intercept report, "You Can Read My Notes? Not on Your Life!": Top Democratic Senator Blasts Obama's TPP Secrecy.

“They said, well, it’s very transparent. Go down and look at it,” said Boxer on the floor of the Senate. “Let me tell you what you have to do to read this agreement. Follow this: you can only take a few of your staffers who happen to have a security clearance — because, God knows why, this is secure, this is classified. It has nothing to do with defense. It has nothing to do with going after ISIS.”

“The guard says, ‘you can’t take notes.’ I said, ‘I can’t take notes?’” Boxer recalled. “‘Well, you can take notes, but have to give them back to me, and I’ll put them in a file.’ So I said: ‘Wait a minute. I’m going to take notes and then you’re going to take my notes away from me and then you’re going to have them in a file, and you can read my notes? Not on your life.’”

Sorry, I can't support anything that I'm not allowed to read and my representatives can't meaningfully evaluate. I'm sorry that transparency makes negoations more difficult, but that's what you have to live with and it's a reason that government is not like businesses. They have to be accountable to all the people and just because it's more difficult doesn't mean you can impose secret laws on us.

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