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.

What do you get when you round up an enthusiastic group of digital rights experts, online innovators and advocates of Net Freedom – all with the purpose of taking any and all questions from members of the Internet community? If yesterday’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit is to be any indication, this arrangement of opinions creates an engaging, provoking and open-ended conversation. It was a discussion that worked to unite the Internet Freedom movement and invoke action to be taken against the counter-intuitive Internet restrictions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Along with OpenMedia.ca’s Steve Anderson and Reilly Yeo answering questions from the Reddit community, we were joined by our StopTheTrap.net coalition partners at EFF, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontiers Australia, Public Citizen and InternetNZ.

While Canada has been formally included as a negotiating party in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, more information from secretive texts and clauses is beginning to surface. We've talked about how the TPP will restrict Internet access, criminalize and fine your actions online and collect your private data – but now it's been suggested that Canadian content rules could become overwritten to serve the corporate interests of Hollywood lobbyists. Professor Michael Geist will be joining our ongoing Reddit discussion surrounding the TPP this afternoon until 7PM EST – we invite you to stop by and share your ideas with how to reach more Canadians with the crucial StopTheTrap.net campaign.

We're on Reddit today from 9AM - 7PM EST talking about Internet freedom, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and what comes next for our StopTheTrap.net campaign. Throughout the day, we'll be joined by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Professor Michael Geist and various digital rights experts from Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, InternetNZ, Electronic Frontiers Australia, Public Citizen and more. See here for a full list of participants and a session schedule. Join in the conversation and share your ideas on how we can reach more people with the crucial StopTheTrap.net campaign.

As a post-partisan organization, we celebrate when any of our political parties take action to stand up for Internet freedom. The Green Parties of Canada, New Zealand and Australia are uniting in speaking out against the restricting Internet provisions within the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. It's a statement that we hope to see become a continued dialogue for our government representatives. Help speak out and spread the word at StopTheTrap.net. Let's ensure that governments worldwide are aware that we don't trust our Internet's future being signed away to a group of lobbyists and corporations. Statement from Green Party of Canada: The Green Party of Canada spoke out against the TPP’s Internet trap through a firm statement calling the TPP the “end of a free Internet”. We issued the statement with Green Parties of New Zealand, and Australia.