If you are a long time reader of Continuations, you will know that I wrote repeatedly about ACTA, the attempt to strengthen global intellectual property rights that was soundly defeated by the European Parliament. At the time I mentioned that the next attempt at roughly the same would be the TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not unlike ACTA, most of the TPP negotiations have taken place in secret and the TPP too contains further extensions and strengthening of copyright and patent provisions.

While I am not against trade agreements in principle, I believe that the process for negotiating and passing these should be open and should involve the legislatures in the participating countries. Now one could argue that Congress has become so dysfunctional that if we relied on it nothing would get done but that way lies a dangerous road towards excessive executive power (on which we have already gone quite far).

At present Congress is working on legislation to extend the so-called fast track process for trade agreements. That process at present helps keep negotiations secret (including from Congress) and allows only for a vote on a finished bill without amendments. Put differently it reduces the power of Congress to an all or nothing vote. I can understand the need for an all or nothing vote on multi-lateral agreements (otherwise you might never finish). But if that’s to be the case then it is all the more important for the negotiations to be public so that representatives can do their work leading up to the final vote.

If you agree with that I would strongly encourage you to contact your representative. Thankfully the fine folks at Fight for the Future have created a web site that makes this easy, so go check out Stop Fast Track.