Without WikiLeaks, is there anyone able and willing to find out for us what's in the ominous, secret Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement?

Note: The amount is being continually updated. This above is as of about 4pm this afternoon EDT. As of 8:50pm EDT the number was $7856.

WikiLeaks: We've got a job for you

At this very moment, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) -- a trade agreement that could affect the health and welfare of billions of people worldwide--is being negotiated behind closed doors. While 600 corporate lobbyists have access to the text, the press, the public, and even members of the US Congress are being kept in the dark.

But we don't have to stand meekly by as corporate cronies decide our futures. Concerned citizens from around the world are pooling together their resources as a reward to WikiLeaks if it makes the negotiating text of the TPP public. Our pledge, as individuals, is to donate this money to WikiLeaks should it leak the document we seek.

As WikiLeaks likes to say, information wants to be free. The negotiating text for the TPP wants to be free. Someone just needs to release it.

-- reward offer posted by Just Foreign Policy

by Ken

Last night, updating the situation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, resisting extradition to Sweden for questioning about two alleged sexual assaults, I wrote about his utterly plausible apprehension that this extradition is designed to be the first leg of a de facto rendition to the U.S. "and a kangaroo court all set to silence him and make him pay for the embarrassment he has caused the ruling classes."

(I think it's important to recall Assange's repeated insistence that he isn't dodging the Swedes' desire to talk to him about the charges, of which he continues to maintain his innocence. He has said all along that he would readily make himself available provided he had assurance against such stealth scenarios from the governments of Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.)

Those governments -- obviously most particularly our own -- remain in a spluttering state of rage about the holes WikiLeaks has punched in the cherished curtain of secrecy which is clearly designed more to protect them from exposure and ridicule than to protect any nation's legitimate security. Goodness knows our government has done everything it can to cripple WikiLeaks, not only pressing the harassment of Assange but pressuring financial institutions to deprive the organization of all possible sources of funding.

I think our colleague Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, has come up with a splendid example of the kind of situation for which an up-and-running WikiLeaks should be tailor-made to penetrate an international wall of secrecy. In a Daily Kos post today, "Let's Help #WikiLeaks Liberate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiating Text," he writes:

On September 6, negotiators will go to Leesburg, Virginia, for the latest round of secretive talks on the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" agreement. This proposed agreement threatens access to essential medicines in developing countries, threatens environmental regulations, and threatens internet freedom. Even Members of Congress and their staff have been blocked from seeing the draft text, while corporate representatives have been allowed to see it.

Americans - and citizens of the other countries that would be covered by the agreement - have a right to see what our governments are proposing to do. Parts of the draft negotiating text have been leaked. But don't we have a right to see the whole text before the agreement is signed? After the agreement is signed, if there's anything in it we don't like, we'll be told that it's too late to change it.

When the elites are busily reconfiguring the future for their convenience, they like privacy. I hope everyone recalls the antics of the Catfood Commission for deficit hawkery when a couple of intrepid journalists managed to track them down during meetings whose very occurrence was supposed to be top secret. Their august selves weren't used to being accountable to, well, the American people -- whose future they felt entitled to jury-rig in secret.

I don't know whether WikiLeaks has, or has access to, inside information the TPP partners, but in it Robert Naiman seems to me to have found a splendid example of the kind of thing for which it should be so well suited. As he explains in his Daily Kos post:

On September 6, negotiators will go to Leesburg, Virginia, for the latest round of secretive talks on the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" agreement. This proposed agreement threatens access to essential medicines in developing countries, threatens environmental regulations, and threatens internet freedom. Even Members of Congress and their staff have been blocked from seeing the draft text, while corporate representatives have been allowed to see it.

Americans - and citizens of the other countries that would be covered by the agreement - have a right to see what our governments are proposing to do. Parts of the draft negotiating text have been leaked. But don't we have a right to see the whole text before the agreement is signed? After the agreement is signed, if there's anything in it we don't like, we'll be told that it's too late to change it.

In announcing Just Foreign Policy's incentive to WikiLeaks to provide information about TPP, Naiman explains:

If WikiLeaks publishes the TPP negotiating text, it will show that WikiLeaks is still relevant to citizen demands for government transparency, that publishing U.S. diplomatic cables wasn't the end of WikiLeaks' contribution to public knowledge of government misdeeds. And it will show that the WikiLeaks campaign for government transparency isn't just about issues related to war, but extends to every area where secretive government action threatens the public interest. . . .

Protecting Julian Assange's civil liberties is crucial, because it's a test case for all future whistleblowers. But it's also crucial to protect and sustain WikiLeaks, for exactly the same reason: the U.S. government and its allies are trying to set a precedent of successful intimidation, to deter future whistleblowers. We cannot allow this precedent to stand.

The page where you can become part of the crowd sourcing the crowd-sourced reward has an FAQ that I think is worth our attention:

FAQ

1. What is the TPP?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a multilateral "free trade" agreement for the Asia-Pacific region which some have taken to referring to as "NAFTA on steroids." The agreement was originally between just three nations -- Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore -- with a fourth, Brunei, joining shortly after. Today, seven additional countries are in negotiations to join the agreement: Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Eventually, every Pacific-rim nation could be included, making it possible for this trade agreement to affect the lives of billions of people.

2. What's so bad about the TPP?

The TPP negotiations have taken place under an unprecedented shrowd of secrecy, denying all but a very few any input into the terms of the agreement. The chapters that have been leaked are quite disturbing, revealing plans that would threaten public health, the environment, internet freedom, and the general well-being of perhaps billions of people. Here's a little taste of what the agreement would include: foreign investor protections that would help corporations offshore jobs, powers that allow multinational corporations to challenge domestic regulations before international tribunals, a strengthening of patent and intellectual property rules which would, among other things, raise the price of life-saving medicines in third world countries, and the ability for Wall Street to roll back safeguards meant to restore financial stability worldwide.

3. Haven't parts of the TPP been leaked?

Yes, some chapters of the TPP have been leaked to the public, but we want to see the whole text. We--the people who will be affected by this agreement -- have the right to know what our governments are proposing.

4. Why WikiLeaks?

We're pushing WikiLeaks to do this because, if they do publish the TPP, it will show that WikiLeaks is still relevant to citizen demands for government transparency, that releasing US diplomatic cables wasn't the end of WikiLeaks' contribution to public knowledge of government misdeeds. And we want this because it will show that the WikiLeaks campaign for government transparency isn't just about national security issues.

Another reason for offering the reward to WikiLeaks is to shield the leaker against any claim that they leaked the document for personal gain. It will be clear that the leaker leaked the text to promote the public interest.

5. Why crowdsource the reward?

We didn't want to ask one rich person or a couple to put up the money for the reward because it's not just one or a few people who have an interest in the TPP -- we all do. By asking people from all walks of life to contribute what they can, we help promote the idea we are all invested in the outcome of these negotiations.

6. How does the pledge thing work?
What happens if WikiLeaks publishes the TPP?

When you make a pledge, all you are doing is promising to make a donation at a later date. No payment information is required. If WikiLeaks should publish the TPP text, we will send you an email encouraging you to fulfill your pledge, along with information about how to make a donation to WikiLeaks.

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