EFF: Fast Track passed. We need to prevent the TPP!

On Wednesday the U.S. Senate passed the Fast Track bill, which will give Obama the power to fast-track the secretive, internet-censoring Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now more than ever we need to speak out! Tell Trade Ministers not to censor the Internet at StoptheSecrecy.net Article by Maira Sutton for EFF

On Wednesday the U.S. Senate passed the Fast Track bill, which will give Obama the power to fast-track the secretive, internet-censoring Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now more than ever we need to speak out! Tell Trade Ministers not to censor the Internet at StoptheSecrecy.net

Article by Maira Sutton for EFF

The U.S. Senate has paved the way for the passage of Fast Track legislation, to give the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative almost unilateral power to negotiate and finalize secret anti-user trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Yesterday a “cloture” vote was held—this was a vote to end debate on Fast Track and break any possibility for a filibuster, and it passed by the minimum votes needed—60 to 37. Today, the Senate voted to pass the legislation itself. TPP proponents only needed 51 votes, a simple majority, to actually pass the bill, and they got it in a 60 to 38 vote. Following months and months of campaigning, Congress has ultimately caved to corporate demands to hand away its own constitutional mandate over trade, and the President is expected to the sign the bill into law as early as tonight or later this week.

Despite this defeat, our fight against undemocratic, corporate-driven trade agreements should not be counted as a failure.

This campaign has reaffirmed the power of Internet users to make lawmakers more accountable to the people. We effectively threw a wrench into the mechanics of Washington, proven yesterday by TPP supporters' razor thin victory in the Senate cloture vote, not to mention the series of stops and starts that delayed the passage of this bill for so many months. We put the White House on the defensive like never before, as President Obama scrambled to win enough support for his trade agenda to pass the bill. All of our calls, emails, tweets, and visits to our lawmakers made a big difference.

Even more stunning is how we have managed to delay the official TPP talks. During the recent kerfuffle over Fast Track, negotiations over TPP have effectively been stalled. The United States' trading partners were not willing to continue talks and concede to worse digital regulations as long as it seemed that the U.S. Congress had the opportunity to second-guess the agreed language later. Now that Fast Track will be passed, TPP negotiations will likely resume in the coming weeks.

- Read more at EFF