WikiLeaks Dumps More Documents About Secret TiSA Trade Deal

[Karamjit]

Do you know what your gov't has been secretly negotiating?

WikiLeaks has added even more fuel on the TiSA (Trade in Services Agreement) fire by revealing additional worrisome documents regarding the TiSA trade deal that's currently under negotiation.

After it previously released a draft of the proposal's financial services annex in June 2014, this weekend, the group leaked several new documents.

These detail four major chapters of the deal, the ones addressing Electronic Commerce, Telecommunications Services, Financial Services, and Maritime Transport Services, along with a few explanatory works detailing the position of each country and how it has changed during the course of the negotiations.

Involved in the TiSA deal are the EU (i.e. 28 countries), the USA, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and Uruguay.

TiSA seems to be on the same level of evilness as SOPA

While trade deals shouldn't be that uncommon between countries after a few centuries of international relations, criticism about TiSA spawns from its intense secrecy and fears that national (and consumer) interests will be put aside for bigger, corporate rights.

Many feel the new deal, together with the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), is a way to give corporations the same or more extended rights than whole countries, and are worried national interests will be much more difficult to protect if the country's legislature and corporate interests come head to head.

"The Annexes show a concerted attempt to place restrictions on the ability of participating governments to regulate services sectors, even where regulations are necessary to protect the privacy of domestic populations, the natural environment or the integrity of public services," reads the WikiLeaks press release.

As you can imagine, labor advocacy groups will have a field day in the court of public opinion with these new documents at their disposal and we can only wait for the commerce and services experts to delve into the documentation and uncover some of the truly nefarious consequences of the TiSA deal.

In the meantime, if trade deals are still on your mind, episode 290 of the Common Sense with Dan Carlin podcast reveals some insightful details

From

[kaloo1995]

keep them coming.........

there is no end.