WikiLeaks offers $100k for details of Obama’s trade deal | Hacker News Reader

WikiLeaks offers $100k for details of Obama’s trade deal

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426 pointsitbeho214 comments

TPP details definitely need to be in the public, but I'm surprised WikiLeaks is offering a bounty. Have they done this before? Not that I can recall. And I would think offering money would change the tone of prosecuting the "whistle-blower". It'd be hard to claim that you are a whistle-blower when you are receiving money- that seems a lot more like standard espionage to me.

Well I assume the information would be made publicly available to anyone.

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean here.

I understood the OP as saying that Edward Snowden (and people like him) justify their actions as being altruistic, for the greater good of society. If you give a financial incentive to someone to be a whistleblower, it no longer looks like altruism.

There is an ocean of money sloshing around buying Congress and buying provisions in treaties like this. Altruism is for suckers.

*Moral suckers

is that a reasonable assumption?

This is meant as a serious question. Would the details of the agreement be made public, eventually?

I remember when the music/movie industry argued that it was perfectly legal to pay informers, who then just happen to gain access to private servers owned by release groups. Several complains was sent in to the police and nothing came out of it, so I would assume, being that the law treats everyone equal, that this is equally legal.

Paying people to divulge information about illegal activities is perfectly legal, yes - leaking classified government information, however, is not. One thing is not like the other. It's not about paying people to share information, it's what kind of information, and which laws protect said information.

What is the classified information a crime committed by the government? :)

Is it strictly legal (visa-vi US constitution) for the US government to operate in secret as they are doing with TPP?

Nothing in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 seems to require the discussions take place in public.

Fair enough. I was genuinely curious. I'm jealous of countries with constitutions to protect them from particularly egregious laws. But I guess no constitution is perfect.

While I appreciate your knowledge of the Swedish juridical system, the point of the infiltration belorn mentions above was that it was in fact the paid infiltrators who had uploaded the illegal content the server owners was busted over. That is something of a moral gray area, if not a legal one.

TPP details definitely need to be in the public...

Details? Why? Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this), but why force negotiators making difficult tradeoffs to hash them out in the open?

> Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this)

Obviously? They've already fast tracked it even before it is available to the public. They've made it available to members of congress without it being available to the public. While on paper they might release it just before it became law, they could easily release it a week before giving nobody time to mount a real challenge.

I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly unlikely.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk. Who, not coincidentally, negotiate all sorts of critically important legislation in private.

Besides, the version of TPA under consideration by the House this month requires that any agreement be public for at least 60 days before it can be signed by the President and submitted to Congress for enabling legislation.

> but members of the (U.S.) public had their say when they voted for their President, Senators and Congressfolk.

That's not how it works. If it was, we'd have SOPA, but we don't.

Citizens telling their representatives what they do and don't want is fundamental aspect of a well-functioning democracy.

Agreed, there are few more harmful concepts to a representative democracy, especially one with as poor of an electoral system as the US, but any representative democracy as well, as the idea that citizen input begins and ends with voting. It's like saying a boss's input on an employee's work is limited to hiring and firing.

And no trade agreement has ever become law without months of Congressional hearings and debate. The proposed version of TPA would guarantee at least two, and at least four is what's likely. So what's the point again?

Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-functioning democracy. The people at the top certainly don't think they should listen.

RECENTLY, when Vice-President Cheney was asked by ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz about polls showing that an overwhelming majority of US citizens oppose the war in Iraq, he replied, "So?"

"So — you don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked.

"No," Cheney replied, and explained, "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls."

Later, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, explaining Cheney's comments, was asked whether the public should have "input."

Her reply: "You had your input. The American people have input every four years, and that's the way our system is set up."

That's correct. Every four years the American people can choose between candidates whose views they reject, and then they should shut up.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20080403.htm

> Well then, the only conclusion is that by design you don't have this well-functioning democracy

Yes. I would agree that the US is not a well-functioning democracy.

To be blunt more than most on this very site were just fat dumb and happy when the FCC fast tracked their rules changes without prior publication, in fact some were insisting on it to quell debate.

There is one simple rule, apply the same standards to all or you have no leg to stand on. Far too many people dismiss the rules when they think the outcome is one they may like; even if that decision is one hundred percent ignorant of facts

Fast tracked means it goes through an up-or-down vote instead of the appalling amendment process Congress usually prefers, which makes no sense in an international trade agreement.

They've made it available to members of congress without it being available to the public.

Yes. So they can do the jobs they were elected to do - represent your interest.

I'd have no issue if I thought it was going to take six months to pass, and members of the public could have a say, but fast tracking makes that highly unlikely.

Honestly, I don't think the public is really competent to form opinions on most of this. >>90% of the complaints I see about trade deals are uninformed, counterfactual, and ignorant. This doesn't mean I think all trade deals are necessarily perfect by any means, but the signal:noise ratio is appalling.

It will be fully public for 60 days before Congress gets a chance to vote for it. Fast tracking just means Congress cannot amend the bill, they can only vote up or down. Opposing fast tracking is essentially the same thing as opposing the entire deal. Our negotiators would be in much weaker positions since other countries would have no reason to believe anything they say.

Because, when the time comes to actually pass/reject the final agreement, the choice is binary. And a _lot_ of work has been put in from all sides, under the assumption that the tradeoffs they make will be accepted.

it can very well be disputed whether or not all details of the trade agreement will be made public, I see no reason or evidence to the contrary.

Why force making it public? I guess there have been arguments of mistrust - or am I getting this wrong?

>Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this)

A good number of people don't understand that these have to be debated publicly in order to pass Congress. Wikileaks shamefully plays on this misunderstanding.

A good number of people realize that by the time it goes to Congress for its rubber stamp, it's too late to tweak the agreement. It's not like a bill where you can introduce amendments. They have to either throw away years of negotiations, or accept the agreement with its significant warts.

If your goal is to prevent a trade deal then forcing them to negotiate the terms publically will accomplish your goal.

Because once the agreement is finalized in negotiations, it's expected to get a "yea" or "nay" vote from participant legislatures. To my knowledge, congress cannot amend the agreement at that point.

So having the negotiations done in secret puts lawmakers and the public in a difficult position. Instead of compromising and tweaking, if they don't like parts of the agreement, they have to decide whether to flat out reject it, or approve it and live with the crappy parts. And those that reject it will be framed as anti-trade, anti-economy, etc. (even if they only vote against the bill because of its draconian copyright rules, e.g.)

> even if they only vote against the bill because of its draconian copyright rules

I think it's about time that politicians start voting against bills because of the underhanded way they were drafted, and that voters start to support this behaviour.

It doesn't have to be binary, either. "No for now but you can present it again in a year's time so that it can receive proper debate" should be perfectly acceptable. If for a process reason that actually means "No forever" in practice, then it should be made clear that it was the underhanded process that led to "No forever" and not the politician who was forced to vote it that way just because there was no opportunity to fix the process.

Why would our trading partners make any painful concessions at all if they believe any corresponding painful concessions we make will simply be amended out of the enabling legislation by Congress?

The result would be a scuttled agreement, and all the political headache of having made those concessions without any of the corresponding gain.

The U.S. hasn't entered into a major trade agreement without "Fast Track" in 40 years. It's fine to be against liberalizing trade agreements, but it's practically impossible to be for them but against some form of TPA.

I don't know what you're arguing against, but I never once said that Congress should be able to amend the treaty as they see fit. That doesn't make sense; it's a treaty. All participants need to ratify the same document.

I was arguing for transparency into the process, when the treaty is still being drafted.

Congress can amend implementing legislation. A treaty can't be amended, but a treaty is ratified by the Senate, not the House, and requires a supermajority in the Senate.

Personally, if you want a fast track with no amendments to implementing legislation for an international agreement that requires such legislation (is, is not self-executing), then a prerequisite for that is that the underlying agreement itself should be signed and ratified by the Senate as a treaty first.

You can't modify it because it's implementing a treaty only works as an argument if you accept that the treaty needs to be ratified before we talk about the implementing legislation.

You can't modify it because it's implementing a treaty only works as an argument if you accept that the treaty needs to be ratified before we talk about the implementing legislation.

Is anyone making this argument? Has the Constitutional treaty process ever been used for modern trade agreements?

The actual argument is that no agreement can be reached unless Congress concedes their authority to amend enabling legislation. It makes perfect sense: Why would our trade partners want to do N rounds with Congress or other nations' legislative bodies after they've already completed difficult negotiations to get to an agreement with the Executive in the first place? This is why we have a President and a USTR confirmed by Congress.

With the positions of the various parties secret, there's no way for the people to know whether their interests have been taken into account. These are some seriously heavy negotiations for something that can't possibly be considered more than a preliminary proposal.

In particular, there seem to be provisions in it that cannot be remotely considered acceptable to any democratic system. And the way public interest and civil rights groups are explicitly kept out of this, while corporate groups have pretty thorough access, it's pretty clear who's interests are and aren't being represented.

The entire negotiation process seems utterly pointless.

> negotiators making difficult tradeoffs

Are there any "difficult tradeoffs" that need to be secret? Or is it just the bad copyright provisions and undermining of environmental protections?

All of them need to be made in secret. If industry A learns that it is going to lose a domestic subsidy for the sake of letting industry B gain a foothold in some other country then A is going to lean on the legislators it owns to try to have pressure applied to the negotiators to change the calculus involved, then industry B will jump in, etc. Better for everyone to see the final deal and decide of the collection of tradeoffs is worthwhile than to have to deal with pressure politics from every particular interest group that has a dog in the fight while at the same time trying to deal with trade negotiators from a number of other countries.

Example? All the examples I can think of work the other way: Horrors that industry lobbyists want that sell out the people.

Depends on your definitions of 'industry' and 'the people'.

Take for example the Canadian wine industry. There's international pressure for Canada to open up it's domestic wine market. In Ontario, the largest province, foreign wines can only be sold at government run liquor stores.

Opening up the domestic market is problematic, because apart from ice wine Ontario wine is awful. At any given price point Ontario reds are substantially worse than California reds.

Even if nothing happens, once the government starts openly negotiating to open the market the property value of vineyards will plummet. Farmers will be underwater on their mortgages and will have trouble getting insurance.

The government doesn't want to endanger people's livelihoods like that unless it's sure that the rest of the agreement is worth it.

That doesn't seem very fair when industry B has 10 representatives involved in the negotiation, and industry A doesn't have any. Of course industry B is doing to argue that the tradeoff is worthwhile. And in reality, it's the big corps that have the reps involved in the negotiations right now, and the public interest group that do not.

IANAL but I don't think whistleblower protections would ever apply to leaking a confidential document to wikileaks regardless of whether you're paid or not.

I highly doubt that whistleblower protections would apply to leaking a draft trade agreement.

Typically those protections are intended to provide protection for people who disclose wrongdoing that would otherwise be unknown. But in the eyes of the law, negotiating a trade deal is not wrongdoing. It is one of the enumerated powers of the executive branch.

Good point!

Strange move. It also changes WikiLeaks from observer and passive receiver of information to actor, instigator. That can't be good.

Will WikiLeaks still pay 100K for the information if it was obtained by killing someone?

> It also changes WikiLeaks from observer and passive receiver of information to actor, instigator.

I think WikiLeaks has only ever seemed passive and neutral to people who agree with its agenda

> I think WikiLeaks has only ever seemed passive and neutral to people who agree with its agenda

No the idea has previously been that any information gets dumped onto wikileaks rather than wikileaks seeking specific pieces of information. This makes them passive.

You can dislike the idea of information being dumped and this would make you disagree with its agenda but it does not mean that wikileaks has (previously) been active rather than passive.

> No the idea has previously been that any information gets dumped onto wikileaks rather than wikileaks seeking specific pieces of information.

I'm not sure the distinction between "dumped onto" vs "seeking out" is a real one, but my main objection is that I don't see any evidence that wikileaks has been a passive conduit for leaks that come their way; they do curation of "leaks" that arrive in their inbox, they choose to promote certain leaks in certain ways, etc.

> I'm not sure the distinction between "dumped onto" vs "seeking out" is a real one

It is huge. It is also recognised as such by laws in many countries. E.g. UK libel act 2013 and US DMCA act (safe harbour provisions). In both cases publishers are protected from legal trouble if they act as an intermediary rather than as a publisher.

> but my main objection is that I don't see any evidence that wikileaks has been a passive conduit for leaks that come their way; they do curation of "leaks" that arrive in their inbox, they choose to promote certain leaks in certain ways, etc.

This is a valid point. But offering money for leaks is a whole different thing.

I had the same reaction at first, but are there any laws stating that the details can't be disclosed? Meaning - is this paying someone to breach a contract or something worse?

An individual holds information that is in the public good to be released.

Said individual is threatened with significant harm by states if the information is released.

Only those with tremendous conscious, like Snowden or Manning, step up in the face of odds like that.

Financial compensation shifts the balance to make dangerous humanitarian disclosures more self-interested. It means that more information that should be public becomes public.

What's wrong with that?

What's wrong with that?

In the past, Wikileaks has not been the moral arbiter. If a whistleblower decides that exposing information is in the public interest, that is on them, Wikileaks provides a medium.

Here, whether or not information should remain secret, there is an incentive to expose it. Wikileaks has decided what deserves to be public -- it's irrelevant if I, personally, agree with that judgment when I say: this makes me question Wikileaks as a trusted medium.

If this is the first thing that has made you question Wikileaks as a trusted medium then you have not been paying attention.

I have not been paying attention, would you care to enlighten me?

After months of talking up the BofA files, "oops, they're all gone."

Oh wow. What do people supposed happened?

It's open to interpretation whether you want to blame this on "Wikileaks" or question their integrity over it.

But it should be acknowledged that Daniel Domscheit-Berg 'stole' 5GB of Bank of America documents from Wikileaks servers as well as their submission system, which he used to launch openleaks.

So you can definitely question their internal security, but it should not be presented as an affirmative decision on the part of the organization.

Please give sources for this statement.

I very much agree with you. It should be up to the person who has the information to decide whether it should be made public or not. Morally speaking, it could cause outage and even war, who knows.. but it should be up to that person to decide. Monetary incentives dilute the idea of moral responsibility and also gives some people an opportunity to shout : "Oh! They did it for the money". What next .. will the information be put on auction !!

it's still up to the person though. It's an incentive not an imperative.

I wouldn't even call it an incentive, it's more the balancing out of a strong negative incentive that already exists.

Considering that Wikileaks exists to make conspiracies harder/smaller I think this totally fits with their purpose. The only question being why it applies to this, but not to other leaks.

While i agree that this is unusually activist of wikileaks, i have a hard time arguing this move as worse than the status quo. I would rather see governments be actively transparent than actively secretive.

Thought experiment: if governments knew that any decision made had a chance of becoming public, would their behavior shift for the better?

Well, isn't the bounty is crowdfunded? So it's the public asking for this, via WikiLeaks. The press value of this move puts the issue in the media spotlight which also good for the issue in public favour, WikiLeaks using it's name makes more sense from a media perspective as opposed to "some random assortment of people".

Really, the TPP should be public, shouldn't we be questioning the trust of the Governments?

I agree with you on pretty much everything. However, I think it's worth noting that Wikileaks isn't actually the one paying $100,000, in that way the title is misleading IMO. What Wikileaks is doing is holding a funding goal of $100,000, with the funding currently around $35,000. So, while it was Wikileaks' idea, ultimately it's the general public (Or, at-least, a few people who would like this to be leaked) who are offering this money as a bounty. So I wouldn't consider it exactly the same as Wikileaks just flat-out offering $100,000 - This bounty won't happen unless there are a decent amount of people which support this decision and fund it. It still does change the dynamic like you've said though.

Organizing and coordinating a fundraising goal isn't all that different than giving it yourself. Wikileaks already subsists substantially off of donations.

Not true. They usually redact information they find unsuited for public release.

> this makes me question Wikileaks as a trusted medium.

Aren't you overreacting? There are many possibilities why Wikileaks needs the money.

For one it might be that they had to pay the informant to get the information. Also they probably don't get their infrastructure (including legal) for free.

Last but not least I have to ask you this: Do you equally question every medium that charges for its services? I mean sure, the New York Times and Washington Post uses a different business model, but they charge nonetheless.

Edit: I also have to say that I doubt, Wikileaks wouldn't leak the data in any case.

Do the Times and Post pay their government sources?

What makes you think they never did? Maybe its are rare thing to do in the US, but with foreign governments, especially those where corruption is rampant I'd imagine this is nothing unheard of.

By the way, TPP is circulating within many governments. For example it could have been leaked by a Vietnamese government official.

> Only those with tremendous conscientious, like Snowden or Manning, step up in the face of odds like that.

Good. Look how beneficial Snowden's leaks have been to the cause of civil liberties in the past two years, and because he went Hong Kong and Moscow, many think he MUST be a traitor.

Now imagine if Snowden said "Eh, I wouldn't have done it, but $100,000 was nice."

> Financial compensation shifts the balance to make conscientious disclosure more self-interested.

That's bad; now you've eroded the moral grounds. Even offering legal funds up to $100k would be more ethical than cash payouts.

On the other hand, it's in my personal interest for to have someone supply my favorite activists with details of that agreement, which is why I pledged. We are talking about a possibility of giving immense control over governments to for-profit corporations that don't lose time pondering morality. And paying out? Someone who leaks TPP will need some protection and 100k is barely enough to move somewhere safe.

God damn it I just want to see that document, I want to know whether I have to watch my food for 31 oestrogenic insecticides that decrease my kid's fertility(1). Why do I have to f-ing pay some outlaw(!) to get information that concerns me! It pisses me off to no end. If raising this 100.000 is the only way, then so be it! (1 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/eu-droppe...)

It will be fully public for 60 days before Congress votes on it.

"Fully public", for 60 whole days! I can't wait, also, "Beware of the Leopard."

The content of the leak is the important bit. The whole idea that we should care about the moral standing of the leaker is a distraction created by personality-obsessed media and agenda-driven government PR.

There isn't a (proven) financial incentive for Snowden, yet he's classified as a traitor anyway. Even here on Hacker News, a community of people with an intelligence over average, I've seen opinions that Snowden seeking asylum in Russia is fishy, in spite of the fact that he had no other option. Here we have Snowden living the life of a refugee and being hunted by the most competent intelligence agencies on earth, probably for the rest of his life and we are still discussing ulterior motives, even here on HN.

So what difference would a $100,000 incentive would make in the public opinion? Mostly none. But to the whistleblower, it doesn't make one rich, but it can be enough to escape a country and seek asylum somewhere.

"Even here on Hacker News, a community of people with an intelligence over average..." Really? intelligent in which topic? You are really demeaning others. Just because you are super techie/coder doesn't make you intelligent in other issues.

I was referring to IQ and while I personally never agreed to its validity, I use it anyway because a lot of people do, but let me change that statement ... it's undeniable that here on HN we've got a large concentration of people very familiar with mathematical logic, relational algebra, discrete maths, the good stuff, so we should be able to detect the truthiness of certain statements when facts are involved, since that's what most of us do in our daily jobs, whereas other people rely more on instinct and feelings which can cloud their judgement. Therefore I found it odd to see people on HN classifying the acts of Snowden to be of a bad nature, without hearing arguments more solid than his asylum in Russia. Of course, everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

The problem is that there is no clear definition of "the public good".

The current system isn't perfect, but it's more empowering to the common person than incentivizing anyone who has access to any information to sell it to the highest bidder, or to make unilateral decisions that affect everyone in society. At least I get to vote for someone I trust to make the right decisions.

There are plenty of people, especially in red states, who have complete faith in elected and appointed officials to decide what information should be public and what should be private. The personal beliefs of any given government employee aren't any more valid than anyone else's. I don't want to live in a society where any one person gets to decide what's in the public good and what isn't.

If you think the system should be changed so that anyone who has access to classified information can make it public on a whim, then vote for people who will implement that as policy. I don't agree with that idea, but it's a valid political belief and it's at least worthy of debate. But it isn't up to me, you or any other individual to make the final decision. Everyone should get a vote.

How can we vote on something that the government says we aren't allowed to see?

The vote happens after you're allowed to see it.

No, they have to pass it so that you can find out what's in it! </sarcasm>

You're allowed to see it only after the President has agreed to the terms, and works are greasing the wheels of Congress to update the laws.

That's lovely and all, but the game is rigged. Vote? lol.

Do you want to live in a society where business interests collude with governments behind closed doors to decide what's in the "public" good? Because that's the one we live in.

The balance of power is just amazingly asymmetrical. The status quo is a machine that exists only to preserve itself, not for the public good. How can you honestly believe that it's in our best interests for this deal to remain private? Anyone who would leak it isn't "decid[ing] what's in the public good" at least in terms of actual policy, they're literally just letting the public be aware of what's going on with new policies that affect them (and this is not sensitive military information that might "threaten our national security" if released, so that argument is out).

From the article: "Proponents argue its a debate so fragile that airing the specifics publicly would thwart progress. They say the chapters already published by WikiLeaks, ones on the environment and intellectual property, strained talks by inflaming interest groups."

What the fuck? This is not democracy. "Well you know a bunch of people would probably be unhappy about this massive global policy we're enacting so let's just not tell them about it."

I'm sorry for the rhetoric but this kind of stuff...that society you don't want to live in - I feel like we're already there. It's not one person deciding but it's a group of people and they are continually fucking over everyone else for their own interests. We could do so much better.

> What the fuck? This is not democracy. "Well you know a bunch of people would probably be unhappy about this massive global policy we're enacting so let's just not tell them about it."

That reminds me of this quote found on a Metafilter discussion (http://www.metafilter.com/150141/Its-not-paranoia-if-they-ar...) about the FBI's use of fake companies to hide its operation of a 'civilian air force':

> The FBI asked the AP not to disclose the names of the fake companies it uncovered, saying that would saddle taxpayers with the expense of creating new cover companies to shield the government's involvement ….

EDIT: To be clear, the quote comes not from Metafilter itself, but from the article being discussed on Metafilter. However, I think that the discussion itself is worth reading, particularly for comments by jjwiseman, who was involved in related research (http://www.metafilter.com/150141/Its-not-paranoia-if-they-ar...).

One of the problems with this trade deal is that most of our representatives -- the people who are supposed to write legislation -- aren't even allowed to know any more about it than we are. Not only that, the text will stay secret for two years after it has been ratified.

> the decision to keep the text of TPP secret was itself classified as secret

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/first-congress-member...

There's nothing in your link to suggest the treaty will remain secret even after ratification.

Your information is out of date.

According to http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/obama-trade-legis... an agreement has been reached between the administration and Congress which requires, among other things, that,

The bill would make any final trade agreement open to public comment for 60 days before the president signs it, and up to four months before Congress votes. If the agreement, negotiated by the United States trade representative, fails to meet the objectives laid out by Congress — on labor, environmental and human rights standards — a 60-vote majority in the Senate could shut off “fast-track” trade rules and open the deal to amendment.

Of course Congress and the administration do not have a history of being particularly responsive to the public. But it does seem that everyone will be able to know what was agreed on before it is signed into law.

>Only those with tremendous conscious, like Snowden or Manning, step up in the face of odds like that.

It's unfair to group Snowden and Manning together. Snowden made a very serious, calculated ethical decision to release specific documentation that he felt needed to be in the public forum as reliable, confirmed information of governmental surveillance activity (not speculation or navel-gazing). Manning dumped as much confidential data as he could download because he didn't like the Army anymore.

Snowden was motivated by "tremendous conscience" and Manning was motivated by petty revenge.

> Snowden was motivated by "tremendous conscience" and Manning was motivated by petty revenge.

I put it to you that Snowden remained a free(ish) man who was able to communicate his story with the world whilst Manning was locked in isolation and was unable to make public appearances or give interviews. Therefore the 'message' (as the PR people think of it) during the critical time period following leaks and naming of the whistle-blower was controlled by the US government.

I put it to you that this may have influenced your and my and others opinions of them both.

That's definitely a valid point.

From someone in Europe who don't follow mainline news, there was never any issues with what Manning did, at least not from me and the people i talked to. The amount of war crimes that were and are committed by individuals in the military and are covered up and almost encouraged are worse then a few undercover personnel in danger and some failed missions. I actually see that as a good outcome, if that actually happened.

That this trade agreement is classified as secret, is just a huge joke. I understand why they are trying to do so... The idea that Corp. Lawyer A is in a lawsuit today against Corp. Lawyer B, and with Corp. Lawyer C acting as judge (who yesterday was in a suit against Corp. Lawyer A).

Who even thinks of this?????? Was this a bet by a few drunk 0.1% guys to see if we are stupid enough to let it pass? Im amazed at the audacity of even trying to claim that this is even reasonable or needed. And that is just the process... With these rules, you could basically eliminate ANY worker rights, ANY nature protection law, and ANY laws that are created to keep corporations in check.

Its scary thinking of what legal BS could be added to these laws that we are not even allowed to see until 2 years after it has been completed.

also *she

Why are you a liar? Ignorance or malevolence? Or are you willingly a propaganda sock-puppet?

Because if you aren't, you have a duty to educate yourself before you speak about things of this importance.

[Re: Downvotes] - Is being called out upsetting? Imagine someone being put in jail by your lies. That's a lot more upsetting.

[Re: Re: Downvotes] - Seriously. This isn't Uber vs Lyft, this is knowingly repeating false information to justify keeping someone in jail for treason. That's just steps under lying about someone to drum up support to get them killed. Does asking if a sock-puppet is a sock-puppet hurt HN more than allowing sock-puppets like that to use HN as a platform for hate? If it was Russia's propaganda machine, or a beloved hero like Nelson Mandela, we'd react strongly, but when it's our propaganda machine we give it a pass.

  > http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/01/bradley-manning-wikileaks
  ...
  A dispute had arisen concerning 15 Iraqi detainees held by the national
  Iraqi police force on the grounds that they had been printing "anti-Iraqi
  literature".
  
  The police were refusing to work with the US forces over the matter,
  and Manning's job was to investigate and find out who the "bad guys"
  were. He got hold of the leaflet that the detained men were distributing
  and had it translated into English. He was astonished to find that it
  was in fact a scholarly critique against the Iraqi prime minister,
  Nouri al-Maliki, that tracked the corruption rife within his cabinet.
  
  "I immediately took that information and ran to the officer to explain
  what was going on," Manning later explained. "He didn't want to hear
  any of it … he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist
  the [Iraqi] police in finding MORE detainees."
  ...

The USA was cooperating in arresting innocent Iraqi civilians (and subjecting them to brutal torture when arrested). This is illegal. Under civilian and military law, illegal orders must be refused and reported. Manning had a legal duty to report the illegal orders. If Manning had not reported this, it would be a crime. Being told to ignore it doesn't change that.

If you're pissed off about criminals ruining the reputation and effectiveness of the USA Armed Forces, and you should be, you need to be mad at the officers and soldiers and leaders who committed the crimes not the messenger who told you about it.

That doesn't seem to contradict anything I said. He was mad at the Army, so leaked a bunch of classified documents. To any extent which his leaks treat Iraqi police and/or U.S. forces detaining political prisoners, it is incidental -- the document dump was not discriminatory. Manning is not a whistleblower over events of illegal detention.

We already know that this wasn't Manning's motive for leaking docs anyway; he was mad that the Army did not respect his desires to live as a transsexual and that it disciplined him for tardiness and other job failures.

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/bradley-manning...

> That doesn't seem to contradict anything I said.

It literally contradicts everything you said. Manning would be a criminal, by our existing laws, for not reporting the abuses.

The attempt to report war crimes was ignored before the leaks. He tried, and was rebuffed, but his responsibility didn't end there.

> He was mad at the Army.

Irrelevant. Manning had a legal duty to - more than just refuse the orders - make sure the illegal actions stopped.

Besides, can you imagine a mobster using this defense? "Sure, I kill people, but Bugsy only told you because he was angry I cut him out of some of the payment. If Bugsy wasn't a little bitch you never would have caught me." We'd laugh because it's irrelevant; a crime is a crime and an illegal order is an illegal order.

  > [link]
  "... Manning flipped a table during counseling ..."

Oh my god! Small emotional outburst cancels importance of illegal conspiracy.

I'm so sorry for the counsellor who had to witness that. It must be almost as traumatic as having your parents taken away and tortured or killed because of politically motivated false arrest. /s

You're only talking about the messenger to distract from the message. What are you afraid of? What are you covering up for?

Your tone is overly personal and counter-productive.

The other poster's words contribute to putting a hero in jail for treason. Mine might not be productive because they're accusatory. I'll take that chance considering the stakes.

How counter-productive would you feel this was if it was your family unlawfully detained?

And, if you'll note, their words are personal. They attack and denigrate Manning specifically and by name, despite evidence. I only refer to them in the abstract because I'm referring to anyone who feels or says what they do. This is important - their words follow Manning forever, mine are only here in this thread, only attached to their hate speech. If they walk away from the lies, they walk away from my judgements.

We shouldn't pretend that willful ignorance is a justifiable opinion that deserves respect - lies are lies, and these ones specifically are calculated to put an innocent in prison.

> I'll take that chance considering the stakes.

Seriously? You're commenting on an internet forum. There are no "stakes." There is no reason not to be civil.

> You're commenting on an internet forum. There are no "stakes."

Whoosh. At risk is ... some incivility. Maybe. And we're already there because of the slanderer.

Attacking someone like that is cyber-bullying. To keep wrongly harassing someone with lasting, hurtful, and harmful messages.

The reason not to be civil and/or ignore the troll is precisely that it doesn't work. Calling them on it builds a culture of challenging lies - making it safer (and more polite) for everyone in the future.

I'm objecting only to the assertion that Manning acted out of "tremendous conscience". The evidence clearly shows that this is false. I didn't say anything about the content he leaked (other than it doesn't pertain to the "crime" you're claiming he was "attempting to report"), whether he deserved his sentence, whether this is a valid legal defense, or anything else you're talking about here. Manning dumped docs not out of "tremendous conscience", but immature rage. That's a settled fact of record, and that's all my comment was meant to point out.

> The evidence clearly shows [...]

No, your source shows nothing of the sort. It doesn't even purport to address the issue of causality. There's nothing more than conjecture (anywhere) as to what the straw that broke Manning's conscience was, and it's irrelevant because it's just the straw. It's focusing on the messenger not the criminal.

What we do know is that Manning tried to report war crimes, first to a commander and then to the media, and was unable to be heard and stop the crimes. This didn't end the duty to report them, it just exhausted the "proper" channels.

> That's a settled fact of record, and that's all my comment was meant to point out.

Your comment was meant to be the same baseless slander that all other baseless, factless, slander-filled posts are. There are sources that directly contradict you and yet you choose to continue. Your posts are part of a campaign of lies to destroy the life of an innocent - if not a hero.

he leaked Collateral Murder because he didn't like the Army ?

I don't know... $100,000 to change your identity, suddenly it sounds like a small fee.

That depends on whether the whistleblower's identity is published. If Snowden hadn't gone missing, enough people had the same access as he did, and there wasn't a log of who accessed what documents in place (or it was removed), he could've remained anonymous too.

I'm more concerned about the crowdsourcing of it. How would that work if "they" decide to come after anyone who leaks it. Does putting in a few bucks mean you can be criminally charged if that cash leads to a bounty that leads to a leak?

I'm all for government transparency. But this seems like an unwise mechanism to achieve it.

I guess that's the reason why they are accepting bitcoin.

If they were also offering Bitcoin to the person who discloses the information, that person could remain anonymous while still benefiting from the bounty.

This is an "assassination market", but for information. I'm very intrigued by this concept.

I would guess it would be very difficult for the leaker to remain anonymous to the government. I'm sure they have careful revisioning and at least some compartmentalization, so I think whoever blows the whistle has to do it with the assumption of it becoming public (and it may be in the interest of their safety to follow the Snowden route).

I'm not sure, there are too many governments and agencies involved in the negotiations. It could even be a computer engineer that has nothing to do with the negotiations.

To me "crowdsourcing" it sounds like a convenient way of intelligence-for-hire PLUS the ability for the buyers to remain hidden among the crowd.

Agree with this. Money taints the appearance of neutrality. They are no longer a neutral medium but rather an information marketplace. It's no longer based on moral guidance but monetary and economic guidance.

It's a publicity stunt. The goal is to raise awareness for the shady nature of this trade deal, and hopefully get someone to step up and release the rest of the documents. So far it's been going well - this article was written the Washington Post, and it raises awareness of TPP. What remains to be seen is whether someone will step up.

I agree that it's a publicity stunt. Most of the agreement will be totally boring to HN type folks--pages and pages of fine-grained calibration of relative tariffs on agricultural products, etc.

The most controversion provisions are probably already known (ISDS, which has been a standard part of trade deals for years), or leaked (the IP chapter).

That said, I'll be interested to see the language on cross-border data flows. One of the reported provisions is that signatories to the TPP will have to treat data from all signatories equally (i.e. no nation-based filtering). Another is that signatories will not be able to require tech companies to house their servers locally to provide services locally. Those both sound like they would be welcomed by tech companies.

Maybe I'm wrong (and please correct me if I am) but I thought the agreement was being done in secret until it's completed at which point it will go to the legislature of all of the nations involved. Since it's being "fast-tracked" that means congress can't add or remove things from the bill but can vote on it and it will be fully accessible publicly.

They certainly shouldn't be doing the writing of this thing in secret and we should be able to comment on it now but it will be fully available before being voted on so $100,000 seems a bit much to getting it a few months early. Again, as far as I understand everything so please correct me if I'm wrong.

There are plenty of reasons why virtually all international negotiations are conducted in secret. For one tiny example, imagine the effect on the markets and perhaps worse the effect of markets on the negotiations.

If the process were made transparent then the negotiations would simply take place somewhere else.

Just remember, when you see a "public negotiation" of a treaty of some kind, that the actual negotiations took place well in advance of any announcements and in complete secrecy.

Do you think nuclear arms control treaties are negotiated in public? Which do you think is more important -- negotiations that could result in the end of the world, or negotiations over tariff policy?

But the market's largest participants already know what's going into the negotiations. They're privy to the draft texts of the deal and are the executive's primary 'consultants'. They know as much as, if not more than, our actual elected Representatives.

So I'm not sure what you mean by 'imagine the effect on the markets' or 'the effect of the markets on negotiations'. The market's most powerful players are already guiding the legislation. The only people that seemingly aren't allowed to directly guide the agreement are a country's citizens and its smaller market players, neither of whom are allowed a seat at the table.

The pessimist/realist in me suspects the final text will directly reflect this lopsided representation, such that the most powerful will become even more powerful and the least powerful will continue their decline.

You're better-informed that I am. I see from the NY Times:

> There is one exception to this wall of secrecy: a group of some 600 trade “advisers,” dominated by representatives of big businesses, who enjoy privileged access to draft texts and negotiators.

So yes, my arguments are completely wrong. I still believe that the core of any high stakes negotiation is secrecy while the actual horse-trading is taking place, but this is just stupid, and seems like bad politics too.

Unfortunately it seems the r/politics parroting of the "The TPP is secret so it must be bad" meme has also infected this site.

Here is a great summary of why treaties are negotiated the way they are: http://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/35mers/...

For me adding money taints the leaking process. Now its not whether someone has moral qualms with something they ate witness to but rather, is there potential for personal gain in revealing something.

I think WikiLeaks is setting a poor precedent with this and framing it as "donors" rather than WikiLeaks itself paying is quintessentially disingenuous.

They are planning to use the:

>"fast track" Trade Promotion Authority. This would require the United States Congress to introduce and vote on an administration-authored bill for implementing the TPP with minimal debate and no amendments, with the entire process taking no more than 90 days. Fast-track legislation was introduced in Congress in mid-April 2015. (Wikipedia)

So 90 days for minimal debate and no amendments - sounds like true democracy in action to me.

Yes. There are times you shouldn't amend and the Constitution expressly provides for the executive branch to do treaty negotiation, not Congress. Congresss can advise and consent, but there is no way I want that body trying to add a bunch of amendments to it. That's how we went without a budget for 5 years.

There are many reasons favouring disclosure of this information, but is offering to buy the information really the best approach here?

The public officials who possess the information are likely bound by legal duties not to disclose it to those not entitled to see it. If an official chooses to leak confidential information in the public interest, that may be one thing, but selling confidential information for personal financial gain is corrupt conduct.

To be fair to WikiLeaks, they describe the money as a "reward" for turning over the missing chapters, and do not overtly say they are looking to buy, but it seems to come awfully close to offering a financial inducement to break the law. The only people who have the information are those who are bound not to reveal it or who should never have had it in the first place.

The individual who leaks this information is doing so for the public good. Why not also allow them to be compensated for assuming that risk?

How do you know they're not leaking it for the cash?

Why do we care, so long as the leak is accurate and - therefore - public well-being is achieved?

Because the leak may not end up being really accurate; when the contribution is done for cash and not out of care for public well-being, then all bets are off.

You generally don't want to do this, because it perverts the incentives. When you offer cash for something that should be done out of some sense of morality, you turn it from a terminal value ("I do this because I want it to be done") into an instrumental value ("I don't care about this but I do it because I want the reward"). You'll start getting much more noise with the signal because of various "entrepreneurs" who smell the occasion for a quick buck. There's ton of psychological/sociological research which shows that people generally get funny in the head when you substitute social incentives for economic ones.

Break the law or break a contract? (honest question)

It could be either depending on the person and how they came into possession of the information. Government officials likely have statutory duties prohibiting the disclosure of confidential information learned during the course of their duties (hence possibility of corruption once you start offering money), while others who are not strictly government officials may have signed the equivalent of a binding NDA and be under a relevant contractual obligation.

A person who is neither an official nor a contractor but who nevertheless received the information knowing it was confidential and that it ought to be kept confidential might also be held by a court to be subject to an equitable obligation of confidence, which is different again.

All this "break the law" stuff like the rule of law is still a player in any of this. Clapper says it is and everyone pisses themselves laughing. Holder says it is and yeah, same deal. The people vs $25,000 so the police can keep it with no charges laid. Patraeus wasn't economically uninvolved with the sales of his hagiography where he did all that leaking but they had an inconsequential show-trial where he got off with nothing for him - let that be a lesson. And how do we know he did that? His email was illegally hacked, without a warrant by the FBI - who's building is still named after J. Edgar Hoover who was as criminal as anyone has ever been (Aside from being a cross dresser who liked to bash homosexuals for fun and his attempts to get Martin Luther King to commit suicide through blackmail and harassment. Yeah really, you can't make this stuff up).

Or we can explicitly hold up an Australian hacker with an idea, the ability to hack that idea together and have total commitment to that idea for which he required nobody's blessing, approval nor government funding to a much higher standard than public servants, hired to serve the public, who have very clearly been engaged in criminal conspiracy. Ok it's fair to do so but we need to say that out loud every time if we're doing that. Once the standard is set it has to be the same for all or the rule of law is rather a moot point.

Should there be a law at all that compels people to keep this kind of thing secret? Is such a law constitutional? You have free speech but this is equivalent to yelling fire in a crowded theatre? Really? Because people might be worried about what is happening in the democratic process and want to be informed so they can act accordingly? That's a big call.

The New York Times and the Washington Post publish one hell of a lot of "official leaks" from people who are essentially paid to do that leaking to spin the story. It's their job. Or so "someone familiar with the matter" told them.

Should journalists and their employers get all the proceeds when the source takes rather more risk. To be honest I don't care whether Snowden is an altruist (although he clearly is) I'd pay the goddamn devil to get that information out so we all know it and can slowly, piece by piece, reform that post-terrorist-attack blindspot that has become an utter disgrace. Would you rather not know?

The purpose of a trade deal is to lower protectionism. Like corn subsidies. Corn subsidies are a blatant manifestation of American protectionism. Imagine U.S. trade negotiators trying to cut corn subsidies in exchange for something. The same forces that created the subsidies – a motivated minority mobilising against a dis-interested, harmed majority – will defeat any attempt to kill them. Repeat this process by interest groups across every country and you may see why Doha failed.

Secrecy is annoying, and our present government gives us reason to distrust it. But if you believe in free trade and are realistic about how negotiations (and interest groups) work, you understand why they must be secret.

But apparently they aren't secret from the interest groups where such interest groups donate large sums to political parties. See copyright extensions that we know are coming in this.

"Believe in free trade.." Fry and Laurie made me laugh about that line back in the day. YMMV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcMwvf0iyWs

If you believe in free trade you know that there are massive gains to be had from abolishing rubbish like corn subsidies period. Just do it, it's a win for any domestic economy. If you don't "believe in free trade" then you need this secret nonsense to pretend to abolish it then not actually do it. Again.

Hilarious twist option Obama gives WikiLeaks and everyone else the trade deal details, and claims the 100k. He could then just put it back into the government where 100k will not even be noticed, donate to some charity in some sort of PR stunt, or whatever as I am sure there are both better and more entertaining options.

Would be funny, but I doubt Obama has access or much of a say in the matter, and he himself would get arrested and sued for leaking secrets - the president is not above the law.

> the [US] president is not above the law.

Except when it comes to extraordinary rendition and torture.

...or murdering US citizens, or making executive orders that ignore current precedent with regards to illegal immigration, or spending taxpayer money on lavish vacations for you and your family, or using non-profits for political fund raising, or a million other things these days. Just sayin'

When is an option labeled 'Hilarious twist option' ever a good option to actually do when pursuing serious issues in real life? I never suggested the president was above the law, I made a joke, and I thought I labeled it as such. Apparently not enough though, so here I go the post was a joke, an attempt at humor. I am aware it was probably not very funny, but everyone is so serious that I thought a little on topic humor might lighten things up.

Maybe Obama can't personally hand over the documents, but he almost certainly has the authority to authorize their release, which from a PR perspective is basically the same thing.

>the president is not above the law

Yeah, we've seen time and time again that everyone is treated equally in U.S. courts. Money or social standing have no influence whatsoever.

>> and he himself would get arrested and sued for leaking secrets - the president is not above the law

You must be new around here.

Executive branch officials leak classified information whenever it's convenient to them. As long as it's done with approval from higher up, there are no consequences. Even Petraeus received minimal consequences after sharing secrets with his mistress.

Maybe "law" is the wrong term, but considering this is an international treaty, there is not really a "higher up" with the authority to "approve" leaking this. (Unless you believe several of the nations involved are secretly governed by a higher body.) There would probably be fairly severe diplomatic consequences regardless how it leaked, and even worse if it was clearly a high-level official.

Perhaps I was a bit sloppy. I was referring specifically to prosecution. Of course there would be diplomatic problems, and a serious loss of credibility.

Credibility loss? It could get worse than the last 15 years?

The President has the sole legal authority to negotiate trade deals and therefore has the legal authority to unclassify their drafts if he chooses to. (He won't, of course.)

Except the President has the legal authority to declassify anything he chooses.

Information wants to be $100,000.

The actual original quote is: "Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive." The second half frequently gets forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free

Wait, so the quote actually means "information wants to be gratis", rather than "information wants to be libre"? I've been parsing it wrong this whole time.

Yeah, its actually about technology forcing prices to 0.

Yes, and I think that the distinction between "gratis" and "libre" is not actually that clear. When folks pirate movies they wave the banner of libre, but they are also getting their movie gratis.

What would a piece of information look like that is libre but not gratis? In the free software movement, the whole point is to permit end users to acquire and share the source code, which for software is the entire product. There's no mechanism to charge for things that anyone can share with anyone else.

Personally, I don't want movies to be gratis or libre, I just want the MPAA to stop clinging to its antiquated business model by hook or crook.

Something that is libre but not gratis looks like many things today, like websites, services, etc that don't change you directly. Patreon is a good example of such a business model.

> What would a piece of information look like that is libre but not gratis?

There are quite a few FOSS projects that cost money, Red Hat Enterprise Linux being the de facto textbook example.

RHEL is available for free under the name CentOS. Red Hat makes their revenue selling support, not information.

Why stop here... Let's crowdsource bribes, I mean lobby funds, for politicians and finally get some people's wishes through.

If there were a completely transparent market for bribes, I think that would be a far superior system to the one we have today.

> there were a completely transparent market for bribes,

There's a disruptive startup opportunity hiding in there. Think "Uber for bribes", where politicians can sign up as 'advisors' and people can pay for 'advice'.

Crowdsourcing funds for lobbying is essentially what advocacy nonprofits do, like the Sierra Club, ACLU, EFF, Heritage Action, NRA, etc.

Edit to add: But lobbying is not bribery because lobbying money is never given to elected officials. Lobbying expenditures pay for things like salaries, research, events, mailers, ad campaigns, websites, etc.

etc. including but not limited to fundraisers and otherwise raising money for political campaigns, "awards" for championing a certain issue, and of course having a third party pay for meals or other personal perks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States#...

WikiLeaks is getting into the lobbying game, not a bribe, a lobby. You can't tell me companies don't do this same thing to politicians.

It would be something for someone to actually get prosecuted for releasing a bill/law that will affect us all. What message would that send?

When releasing a bill in Congress is illegal, I think we have seriously lost it. Bills throughout the process should be public at all times once our representatives are going over it for sure.

Good on them. I just pledged a small amount towards the $100k. I think the purpose of this is more a PR stunt to make more people aware that the governments that are supposed to serve us are trying to sign us up to a bunch of dubious stuff behind our backs than bribery. Indeed "Putting the public back into the public interest." as they put it on their site.

https://wikileaks.org/pledge/

My first reaction is this goes too far but on second thought is this just the state of the world now? We are going to come out of the shadows and just be upfront about what we are doing? Is it a "The rich and the powerful lie, cheat, steal, bribe, corrupt, etc. Why shouldn't we?" situation?

I think money in politics is ruining the USA, is using money to fight back against these dirty politicians and lobbyists the only tool we have left?

The power and authority of the state emanates from the people, don't let your government convince you otherwise. If enough enough people woke this morning deciding their government was no longer legitimate those in power would be gone by night fall.

That is a little idealistic, don't you think? The Occupy movement got crushed by the police. It is in the state's best interest to prevent social movements from reaching critical mass. As such, they use their massive enforcement arms to nip the troublemakers in the bud.

Since the rich and powerful have effectively diluted our most precious right, free speech (ask the relatives of the Yangtzee River tragedy about that) by having the Supreme Court make money equivalent to speech through Citizens United, I find it pretty funny to see the Obama administration's obsession with secrecy challenged via the same mechanism we use to fund video games and fanciful geek hardware.

Of course, the real joke is that there's plenty of money chasing the secrets of the TPP already--only not to show those secrets to the public, but just to corporations and governments that want to benefit from them. The only thing stopping that would be the civil (and criminal?) penalties that would face anyone who could spill the beans.

What does the Yangtzee River tragedy have to do with Citizens United?

What does the Yangtzee River tragedy have to do with free speech? Are you talking in China, or is something going on in the US connected with this?

Leaving aside how important dissemination of this topic is. What is the plan? Raise a 100K from netizens, and then wire it to the whistleblower? Then what, they are hung for treason?

That's either ballsy or desperate, or both.

I'd be interested to check the donors though.

I want to trust Assange, but I kinda trust Obama too.

I agree that things could be better, but you can't always argue that secrecy is always against the interest of the public. Leader sometimes have to be able to have discretion when the want to take decisions, if not, some will just be able to anticipate those decisions, and it won't work.

It's true that mandatory secrecy is bad, but it can be difficult to have it everywhere. I'm really not an expert though, so I could be wrong. It's true that the US is trying to make strategic moves for its own interests, and it can be scary and dubious waters for US citizens, but it's the game of international relations.

I don't think you can always mix the debate on secrecy and healthy democracy. Maybe Obama has legitimate reasons to use secrecy. Although it's expected from wikileaks to make moves about it.

Anyway Washington is really not going to like it. At all.

Another thing to consider is as soon as the details are public, we will be assaulted by ad campaigns by various interest groups which this negatively effects telling us why it will ruin our lives. While the general Hacker News population may be too smart to be swayed from reason by these ads, ads like this exist because they work.

A portion of the public will be swayed by the plight of the American Pipe Layers Union or whoever is potentially going to lose a little bit of business as the ads, like others of their kind, will provide them with a partial picture of the deal and telling them why this is horrible, without providing enough context for them to come to a different conclusion.

Some portion of the public outcry when something like this becomes public will be due these special interest groups effectively buying the opinions of the public by telling them what to think in the same manner they usually do.

I was under the impression that most of the Hacker News population needs no help in being set against the TPP...

I agree with you, but I do not agree with what seems to be the prevailing opinion here which I would summarize as "If you don't have information about something, that something is bad"

I realize I phrased this in what is probably an offensive way to many, and I apologize I didn't want to spend 20 minutes rewording it so I could figure out how to insult as few people as possible.

I agree it is better to have transparency but honestly, because not all actors (businesses, special interest groups, other countries) are guaranteed to act transparently, sometimes it is actually in the American public's best interest for some level of obfuscation. Is this one of those instances? Hell if I know. Transparency from only one party in an arrangement between many parties has costs as well as benefits is my point, costs which should be considered.

What?

Obfuscation is never in the best interests of a democracy. Democracy relies on the public being able to make informed decisions, and that ability is physically impossible when the relevant information is obfuscated.

Would you mind if I create a strawman of an edge case to test your devotion to the use of the word 'never'?

That is a fairly absolute word, and I tend to doubt you actually mean never.

Sure, go ahead and create a strawman if you think it helps you. It won't change the fact (not opinion, but fact) that the democratic process depends on transparency.

I agree that democracy depends on transparency, I don't know where you got the idea I thought otherwise. I just stated that sometimes, and I mean sometimes as in not all the time, it is in the best interest of the public to not have all the information.

Alright say there is a pretty decent leader who has a personal trait which would make them unelectable to the public, but really shouldn't in any reasonable situation effect their ability to lead and make decisions. Is it in the public's best interest to know about that trait prior to the election?

> Alright say there is a pretty decent leader who has a personal trait which would make them unelectable to the public, but really shouldn't in any reasonable situation effect their ability to lead and make decisions. Is it in the public's best interest to know about that trait prior to the election?

Yes. Elected officials are representatives of the people. If that personal trait really does make the candidate unelectable, it means that the public does not want someone with that trait representing them. It's therefore in their best interests to not elect that person, since said person is not an accurate/desirable representation of the public.

> but really shouldn't in any reasonable situation effect their ability to lead and make decisions

Then why would it make them unelectable?

>Then why would it make them unelectable?

Because enough of the public is bigoted and fearful of personal differences that through out history many traits such as Polio, being Catholic, being single, being black, being a woman, being gay, and being a transsexual have been and some continue to be big enough deal breakers to enough people that a candidate will not get elected if they openly have that trait, regardless of how preferable they are to the public's best interests.

People are stupid, and honestly if hiding the fact you have polio is the only way you can get elected and help the country you live in, then damn it you should hide the fact you have polio for the time being. And later when you do reveal you have polio maybe people will become a bit more accepting, and realize how little that really mattered.

What I am saying is that your pure transparency model would be great for a theoretical democracy where equality and rational thought actually existed, but for the world we have, the democracy we have, transparency isn't always best.

Summary of your position:

1. If the details are published, minority won't like it and will complain loudly.

2. Those vocal groups will sway people to oppose it

3. Opposition would destroy it

4. We should instead keep it secret and trust that the vocal minority groups will be fairly represented.

Personally, if opposition can destroy it, I think it should.

No, and you are really reading a shitload into what I wrote. I didn't actually state my position at all, just state events that will happen. The logical outcome of which I believe would be my position which is the following.

My position was that if the details are made public it won't matter if the trade deal is going to be a good deal or a bad deal for the American public currently. That is due to the fact that American bussiness interests will buy the view points of easily controlled people, twist them to the interests of their view points as they do in many (all?) elections and votes, and the deal will be changed to be categorically worse for the American People in general while being better for specific business interests. I do not think it will be destroyed, just made shittier.

All of that is rampant personal speculation. You are saying I am reading into your statements... but you are reading into what will happen way more so. Kettle calling the pot black is kind of lame.

While I will acknowledge that it is possible parties won't place ads to try and persuade people to support their point of view, I personally would find it amazing considering how many ads are run on TV around any election or vote by special interest groups.

Also regardless of me being a hypocrite you were reading into it. Just because I do something something stupid doesn't mean you should.

While it doesn't make my hypocrisy better, the only assumptions I stated as anything other than personal opinion is that there will be ads by interested parties, and that most people are stupid. In the second post I made I expressed my view of the outcome, I clearly stated it as personal opinion. Your message however tried to state my personal opinion, and did so incorrectly.

Technical question: Are there any programs that try to roughly measure the shill factor in conversations? I.e. by taking statistics over all commenters, whether they ever submitted/commented before etc? Would be nice if HN would measure this in-house, since they have access to IP addresses.

This seems illegal. Any lawyers here?

Two reasons: 1- Offering money for someone to commit a crime. If somebody obtains the details illegally, Wikileaks would be liable for that. 2- Interfering with the executive branch's negotiation of a treaty is definitely illegal, though not necessarily always enforced. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_the...)

All that said, Wikileaks probably doesn't care. They already leaked a ton of US gov't classified data, so why would more indictments matter?

Because whistle-blowing for cash is much more defensible than doing it for conscience.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/04/news/johnson-and-johnson-whi...

This type of whistleblowing should not just be for pharmaceuticals. It should apply to all government and commercial activities too. Publicity is the best disinfectant.

How do they intend to transfer $100,000 to an anonymous source?

Bitcoin?

Does Bitcoin mixing work well enough to anonymize transfers of this size?

Cash?

Can someone explain why this needs to be a secret and why the Freedom of Information Act doesn't apply?

I hate to be overly facetious here, but $100k would pay for one hell of a funeral. At the very least it may be difficult to spend that money from a life in exile.

I agree that it should be made public - but the money would only serve to create a paper trail that you could be traced by.

Doesn't it increase the risk?

How is a person supposed to collect on this? I imagine it'd be difficult for a person to claim their $100k without immediately being outed. I guess Bitcoin might work, but even then, there's the problem of actually using it without someone noticing.

It would be great to make the TPP documents public, but this isn't the way. The leaker can rightly claimed to be in it for the money, and this will taint any further anti-TPP action based on the content of the leaked documents.

We need another Edward Snowden.

If governments aren't doing anything wrong, why are they hiding the TPP?

Most transparent presidential administration in history.....

Brave Move. Still not sure what the reactions by the U.S. government will be. behind the door agreements in politics are bad for everyone everywhere.

The classy thing to do would be to leak the trade deal, and tell WikiLeaks to donate the money to a GiveWell-recommended charity.

It's soooo not Obama's deal.

How so? He's pushing pretty hard for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/path-to-pacific-trade-d...

The decision to pivot to Asia started during the Bush years and through its inception had the backing of a wide number of individuals including Secretary Clinton. The actual discussions being had involve 11 other nations and hundreds of international corporations. The now "Rebalance" to Asia is an Obama term and the TPP negotiating position of the United States is informed by its national security interests to contain China - but it can hardly be called "President Obama's Deal".

The origins of the treaty trace back to 2002, and the US formally joined negotiations in January 2008. Later that year, Susan C. Schwab (an appointee under then President GWB) announced to the world that the US was entering in to negotiations to join it. It is entirely possible the treaty won't be ratified until the next President is in office (or never).

There are 12 countries that are actively involved in the negotiations, of which four signed on to the original TPSEP in 2005, and 8 were formally involved in negotiations before Obama ever entered the White House. What we know of the negotiations show that the US is looking for terms very different from the other nations, which at least creates a realistic possibility that much of what is in the treaty agreement is not what the US, let alone President Obama, would want. In the end, the negotiations are driven by apolitical business interests (which you can take as a positive or negative, I think a reasonable case can be made that it is neither).

No question he's been involved in negotiations, promoting it and in favour of it. His administration has obviously played a significant role in negotiations.

But this thing is way, way bigger than any President. The forces driving the negotiation cross at least a dozen nations and both the Republican & Democratic parties in the US. Suggesting it is Obama's deal is to completely misrepresent the scope and nature of the deal, the process by which it is structured, and creates a mythos of it being a part of a domestic partisan political agenda.

Maybe a PR stunt because people are starting to forget WikiLeaks?

If I were rich (which I'm not) I'd offer a higher bounty to black hats to shut down WikiLeaks until they get out of politics and back to exposing secrets for the public good.

"Exposing secrets for the public good" is inherently political.

The document is classified and supposed to be kept secret for four years after the entry into force of the TPP agreement or, if no agreement is reached, for four years from the close of the negotiations.

How do people put up with this craziness? You all are talking about the rule of law while your congress is going to pass something many of them can't read, can't read in full, can't read with the help of aids, and can't disclose, and can't disclose even after it becomes law.

That's not law, that's tyranny.

This adds a lot of weird uncertainty to the idea of Wikileaks, IMO. Where will the money be coming from (it's crowdsourced)? Where will it be going to?

Looks like croudsourced https://wikileaks.org/pledge/#rd-6

from: crowdsourced - article content

to: person who leaks - fairly obviously

Right, but who are the crowdsourcers? And who will be the person who leaks? Presumably we won't know either. Which is what is shady.

So not knowing is shady.

Except the person who leaks, if his/her identity is known, will be prosecuted for sharing trade secrets - and given there's trillion-dollar companies behind TTP, s/he will spend the rest of their life, if they are arrested, either in lawsuits, prison, or just disappearing. Snowden and Assange are both effectively banished from any country that has an extradition policy with the US, and even where they live now their location has to be kept secret - if they weren't as public figures as they are (and in Assange's case, locked up in an embassy), I'm sure they would've 'disappeared' a while ago, regardless of where they were hiding.

And you think that trying to give this person $100k will make it easier for them to remain anonymous?

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