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Comment by gnodar | Hacker News Reader

There's a lot of controversy regarding the specific contents of the TPP, but for me personally, I am against the cloud of secrecy that it (along with most trade agreements) was developed under. It took WikiLeaks to even let the public know of its existence. And after that they refused to let members of congress (our elected officials) from even reviewing the document except for selected sections, under the watchful eyes of a USTR official. No matter what the pros and cons of the TPP, the people had no say in it, nor did our elected officials; and when we tried to get a say, they refused. That's inherently anti-democratic.

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Just to preface, I haven't decided myself on whether TPP is 'good' or 'bad'. Still in the researching phase. And I am very much in the same boat as the original comment wondering why there's such a seemingly strong consensus that it's not just bad from an economic sense, but evil from ethical/environmental/freedom reasons as well. Now all of these maybe true, but my alarm bells always go off when people scream so much hyperbole denouncing a certain thing.

However I have heard this specific argument that it was done in secret with no accountability, which is why it's evil and must be stopped. But, I just don't see much validity in this argument.

1. Initial negotiations happened in private, as I would assume any/all types of treaties, agreements, partnerships of this type would be. Imagine trying to conduct any negotiation out in public, it would devolve into rumor, hearsay, misinformation and be counter productive. For the HN crowd, the best analogy might be trying to conduct a sale of your company, or negotiating some contract with an important ($$) client. Always in secret, until all parties are satisfied and agreed upon.

2. Now, this being a democracy and a government partnership, it needs to be voted upon before becoming law even after all sides have agreed on the contents of the document. And so the full document has been made available here[1]. This allows the entire congress, as well as concerned citizens, to understand the details. An argument can be made that there wasn't sufficient time provided for this review process, but nevertheless, that's what your lawmakers are elected for, to review these types of things, or vote no/yes in response.

[1]: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-full-text-of-the-trans-paci...

I just don't buy this argument, that a trade deal can't be negotiated in secret. The public's control over its government in the US is exclusively through its election system, and the idea that the public "has a right to debate the deal" is, to me, utter nonsense.

You elect officials who you trust to appoint other officials who will negotiate with the US's best interest in mind. If the deal goes through, you elect different people who you trust will fix the laws you don't agree with.

"The people" never have a say in any legislation, not directly, and there are countless meetings that take place on Capitol Hill which aren't open to the public.

We don't have a "democracy" as you describe it, and for very good reason. Populism is reactionary and predatory. It would be very harmful to minorities if we did live in a system where the most popular decisions were the ones that got made. Remember prop 8 in California, or more recently brexit?

You just gave the cookie cutter answer without reading the comment you replied to. Some members of Congress were denied access to the agreement during the negotiations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Secr...

I still don't see a problem with barring members of congress from the TPP negotiations. It makes it harder for the Obama administration to convince them to pass TPP, but that's up to White House to decide if that's the most prudent way to negotiate, and apparently they thought so.

The "democratic" part of the TPP comes when the US elected the congress who will or won't pass the resolution, and when the US elected Obama into office to negotiate on our behalf.

> "The people" never have a say in any legislation, not directly,

I "think" that the existence of ballot initiatives (and especially direct initiatives) directly contradicts this. For a real life example of ballot initiatives in action: http://singlepayerhealthcarenow.com/2015/12/27/single-payer-...

You mean ballot initiatives like prop 8?

> It took WikiLeaks to even let the public know of its existence.

A trade deal was openly proposed in 2008.[0] Wikileaks did not leak specific provisions until 2013.

I think it's reasonable to expect democratic accountability, which requires transparency in some part of the process.

That's compatible though with allowing a period of time where negotiators are allowed to work on drafts in private. Since legislators and the public are allowed to see the proposed agreement before ratification, I'm not as worried about the secrecy issue.

There was even an openly publicized notice and comment period where citizens were encouraged to weigh in on the draft with any concerns by writing directly to USTR.[1]

There are a lot of aspects of TPP I don't agree with, but the process wasn't quite as cloak and dagger as some have suggested.

[0] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&o...

[1] http://www.flushthetpp.org/your-chance-to-officially-tell-th...

For as long as we have money (or crypto currencies or whatever the Spice may be) the world will always drive toward domination of those with money over those without. Governments can no longer protect the average person from being dominated by corporations and their interests.

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