Bits and pieces of every bad Internet policy we’ve ever defeated are being rolled into one massive, secret deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- and last week, legislators introduced a bill to Fast Track its negotiations. 


Help us flood Congress with calls and emails this Thursday demanding they oppose the TPP.

Dear Fight for the Future member,

If you’re not quite sure yet why the Trans-Pacific Partnership is so bad, read on below.  

If you already understand that it’s one of the gravest threats to the Internet we’ve faced, click here, join the Internet Vote, and help us make sure Congress gets flooded with calls and emails on Thursday demanding they oppose the TPP.

I want to apologize in advance for how long the rest of this email is -- it’s just that when it comes to the TPP, there’s no shortage of reasons we need to stop it.

The biggest problem with the Trans-Pacific Partnership is that there’s absolutely no public oversight. The only way we know what’s in the TPP right now is from leaks of specific chapters -- and if Fast Track passes, not only won’t we get more details about the TPP, Congress will have to give a single thumbs up or down to the entire thing.

That means we won’t be able to push for specific items to be removed from the deal -- we’ll be stuck with the whole thing, so as of right now the Trans-Pacific Partnership will do all of the following:

  • Force sites to remove allegedly infringing content from the web without a court order - scarily similar to SOPA.
  • Create harsh criminal penalties for journalists and whistleblowers. Any disclosure of information with "commercial value" would be criminalized -- and there would be absolutely no public interest of free speech exemption.
  • Punish Internet users who share copyrighted material, even without any personal gain. Here's the proposed punishment from the leaked text: "sentences of imprisonment as well as monetary fines sufficiently high to provide a deterrent to future acts of infringement." Again, that's potential prison time for sharing something without any personal gain.
  • Limit Fair Use to make copyright even more restrictive on creative innovation. Last week, WikiLeaks revealed a series of emails surrounding the TPP where the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) explicitly argued against including any fair use provisions. And it looks pretty clear that if the TPP passes, they'll have their way. That means remixes, sampling, and quoting of copyrighted material could become illegal outside the US.
  • Allow foreign corporations to sue the United States government if they think that our laws infringe on their profits. This is, quite simply, the most devastating part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It opens the door to undermining every good law we've ever passed to protect the Internet -- the only thing corporations have to do is prove they could make more money if those laws didn't exist.

In short, the TPP isn’t just bad — it’s zombie bad. It has parts of every misguided Internet policy we’ve killed over the last decade trying to become law by completely bypassing every part of our democratic process.

That’s why we’re calling Thursday the Internet Vote -- because putting a secret deal like the Trans-Pacific Partnership on a Fast Track is absurdly undemocratic. There’s no public oversight, and to us, that’s just not okay. The Internet Vote is the opposite of that -- a day to remind lawmakers that transparency and openness are how politics are supposed to work.

Click here to join the Internet Vote. Together, let’s use the power of the Web to demand transparency and give people everywhere a voice against censorship.

Here are a few ways you can help beyond signing up:

Thanks for standing up for an open Internet,

Fight for the Future



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