Don't Let the Senate Fast Track TPP

While Hollywood has had easy access to view and comment on draft texts—so it can get the provisions it wants—our own lawmakers have been mostly left out. And now Congress wants to give the President power to push these anti-user trade bills through.

The Senate could make this undemocratic process even worse.

The House, after a complicated back-and-forth, just passed a bill to hand over their own constitutional authority to debate and modify trade law. The process is called Fast Track, or Trade Promotion Authority. It creates special rules that empower the White House to negotiate and sign trade agreements without Congressional oversight. Lawmakers won’t be able to analyze and change their provisions, and have a very limited time for an up or down, Yes or No vote to ratify the entire treaty. That means Internet and copyright provisions, buried in omnibus treaties, will get almost no oversight.

Tell your senator to stand up for your digital rights and preserve our constitutional checks and balances in government.

The United States Trade Rep is in the midst of negotiating two major trade agreements: the TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the EU-U.S. trade agreement. Both TPP and TTIP are multinational trade deals that will carry copyright and digital privacy provisions that threaten millions of users’ rights. Trade agreements carry these harmful provisions because the US Trade Rep has negotiated them with no credible public consultation. Instead, these agreements uphold the one-sided concerns of corporate interests who have little concern for how these policies will impact the Internet and our digital rights.

It's up to the Senate to stop this undemocratic process from going forward.