Thanks to all of you who have joined us at OpenMedia in our campaigns, last Friday I had the opportunity to address some of the lead bureaucrats and lobbyists behind the threat to Internet freedom that is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). My goal was to bring the voices of Internet users to their attention and to demonstrate that citizens are watching en masse. I told these TPP decision-makers that citizens are not going to let them make our Internet more expensive, restricted, and surveilled just to protect Big Media’s outdated business model. I even went so far as to pass around an iPad that displayed a stream of your comments. I made sure it was clear: if lobbyists and bureaucrats are going to try to make new rules for the Internet behind closed doors, we’ll push back and bring open citizen participation to them. I’ll have a more detailed report-back shortly, but for now I’ve posted the script and slides of my presentation below. I hope you like it.

A secretive trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is again being negotiated this week in closed-door discussions – seeking to introduce invasive copyright legislation to everyday Internet use. Let the lobbyists and bureaucrats behind the TPP know that citizens worldwide rightfully deserve a seat at the table. Learn more about what's hidden within the TPP and speak out at StopTheTrap.net. Article by Geoff Cumming for The New Zealand Herald If you think opponents of the Trans Pacific Partnership are typically anti-free trade/anti-globalisation conspiracy theorists, consider these unlikely bedfellows: librarians, software exporters, researchers, book lovers, fans of DVDs, media creatives and people who download music. The negotiations for a trade deal covering 11 Pacific nations have managed to unite these apparently unconnected sectors in alarm. Most likely, they include you and me - everything and everyone is connected in the digital age. The United States' wish list for the agreement includes a tighter regulatory regime for intellectual property (chiefly copyright and patent laws), which interest groups say could tie them - and us - in a dense legal web, affecting everything from our use of the internet and access to music, books and films to the fast-growing software development sector.

The government has mistakenly sent us at OpenMedia a non-disclosure agreement intended for lobbyists involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is confirmation that this secretive and extreme agreement is being put in place on behalf of bureaucrats, not citizens. We're on the ground at the ongoing TPP negotiations, set to read out your comments to officials this Friday. Send in your messages at OpenTheTPP.net and help us speak out against the TPP's Internet trap. Article by Daniel Tencer for The Huffington Post The Harper government is creating a secret “consultation group,” likely comprised of lobbyists, who are getting inside information about Canada’s participation in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, observers allege. Advocacy group OpenMedia has obtained a non-disclosure agreement (see below) it says the federal government mistakenly sent to it, asking the recipient to keep secret the information it receives about negotiations on the controversial economic and trade agreement. “I think it confirms that lobbyists are being permitted to have access to information about the TPP that is otherwise kept secret from public interest groups and citizens in general,” OpenMedia executive director Steve Anderson told The Huffington Post Canada in an email.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is about to get a bit more crowded, with Canada formally joining as 'second-tier' negotiators at next month's talks. These closed-door meetings will include discussions that could censor, criminalize and apply fines to everyday Internet users. Let the lobbyists and bureaucrats behind the TPP know that citizens worldwide rightfully deserve a seat at the table. Send your message through OpenTheTPP.net – we'll be sharing what you have to say at next month's negotiations. Article by Maira Sutton for EFF.org The next round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement negotiations will take place from December 3-12 in Auckland, New Zealand, and it will be done with the same level of secrecy as the last 14 rounds. And like all of the previous rounds of talks, it will take place in a luxury venue, only this time in a high-end casino, that itself is embroiled in its own controversy over corrupt dealings.

Last week, negotiators and trade representatives behind the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement met in Virginia for another round of discussions. Once again, citizens of the pro-Internet community were left out of these secretive negotiations and public interest groups had their opportunities to speak out allocated in a series of 10-minute ‘stakeholder presentations’. These presentations came with heavy criticism from our on-the-ground partners, with Public Knowledge even comparing the setup to a ‘science fair’ where stakeholders would have to compete in drawing attention to their booths and EFF noting that TPP officials refused to even comment on provisions in leaked TPP documents. The lack of a clearly defined mandate for the presentations resulted in much confusion and less opportunity to engage with negotiators. A member of Public Knowledge had this to say: Often I saw negotiators and stakeholders watching from just outside the doorway of the rooms. Also, because the rooms were so close together and their doors were all open, the noise from other rooms or the hallway sometimes distracted from the presenters, who did not have microphones.