That having been said, the very fact that they're stifling transparency at every turn and trying to keep these things a secret surprise is pretty good foreshadowing.
Although the treaty is characterized as a free trade agreement, in fact only two of its 26 provisions relate primarily to trade. The agreement is basically a trojan horse that seeks to substitute corporate rule for the participating nations' elected governments. It wouldn't just extend over-reaching copyright and patent protections so as to criminalize minor copyright violations and deprive millions of affordable medicines, promote outsourcing of jobs, eviscerate environmental protections, and prohibit restrictions on the kinds of speculation in derivatives that led to the global financial crisis; but it would also set up a system of private justice to ensure that any corporation whose predatory conduct was prevented by local laws would have the right to require the resisting nation to compensate it for its lost profits, imposing the burden of such compensation on that nation's taxpayers.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 18.7 ms ] threadhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/1002678173
That having been said, the very fact that they're stifling transparency at every turn and trying to keep these things a secret surprise is pretty good foreshadowing.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968191
(I don't know of a way to fix this post to correct the initial URL.)