Daily Dot: The Internet is crashing the TPP’s party

Internet activists got all up in TPP negotiators' faces yesterday. Article by Dell Cameron for The Daily Dot Fed up with secret meetings that will decide the future of trade for more than a dozen nations, a number of protesters swarmed a congressional hearing on the TPP Tuesday morning.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal between the U.S. and 13 other nations along the Pacific Rim, would standardize trade relations in a number of different fields. Like any major international trade deal, it’s negotiated in secret, so, save a few very high profile leaks from WikiLeaks, practically no one save negotiating countries’ trade representatives, a handful of elected officials, and lobbyists have seen its working text.

Outrage against that secrecy hit a new high when activists crashed an Senate Finance Committee hearing for several minutes Tuesday morning. It began during a speech from U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, the U.S.’s highest official charged with negotiating the deal. Margaret Flowers, a member of Physicians for a National Healthcare plan and a longstandingTPP critic, burst in carrying a sign reading “Trading away our future,” and shouting “we know the Trans-Pacific Partnership is negotiated in secret!”

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