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<div class="row clearfix"> [Intellectual property rights are being
discussed in the TPP, the secrecy of the negotiations is causing
lots of concern... government for the 1% by the 1%, a truth
increaslingly self-evident?]<br>
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<h1 class="title-news"> Elizabeth Warren Free Trade Letter Calls For
Trans-Pacific Partnership Transparency </h1>
<div class="comments_datetime_new border_none relative v05"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entryByline"}}">
<p> <span class="posted-and-updated"> Posted: <span
itemprop="datePublished">06/13/2013 7:45 am EDT</span> | Updated:
<span itemprop="dateModified">06/13/2013 11:08 am EDT</span> </span>
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<p>WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday sent a
letter to President Barack Obama's nominee to head U.S. trade
negotiations, expressing concerns about the administration's lack
of transparency in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade
deal being negotiated largely in secret. </p>
<p>Labor unions, public health advocates and environmental groups
have long decried so-called free trade policies for undermining
important regulations in the pursuit of corporate profits. The
letter signals that Warren's tough stance on bank regulation
extends to other major consumer and public interest matters.</p>
<p>What the public does know about the TPP has been learned through
<a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/obama-trade-document-leak_n_1592593.html"
target="_hplink">leaked documents</a>. According to those
documents, the Obama administration is seeking to grant
corporations the ability to directly challenge regulations in
countries involved in the talks -- a political power that was
typically reserved for sovereign nations until the 1990s. Obama
opposed such policies as a presidential candidate in 2008. The
leaked intellectual property chapter of the deal includes
provisions that would increase the costs of life-saving medicines
in poor countries.</p>
<p>Warren's letter does not take issue with specific terms of the
negotiations, but rather the secrecy surrounding the process.
Members of Congress have been allowed to see TPP negotiation
texts. Some have said they <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/obama-trade-deal-democrat_n_1578827.html"
target="_hplink">were insulted</a> by the complex administrative
procedures the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, or USTR,
imposed to actually access the texts -- barriers not imposed on
unelected corporate advisers. </p>
<p>Members of official "Trade Advisory Committees" stacked with
corporate officials have been given access to the texts. But on
June 6, Labor Advisory Committee Chairman R. Thomas Buffenbarger
wrote a letter to acting U.S. Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro
objecting to the "severe restrictions" that her agency had placed
on information available to advocates for working people.</p>
<p>In her letter, Warren asked current White House official Michael
Froman, who Obama has nominated to be the next head of USTR,
whether he would make a copy of the negotiation text available to
the public. She also asked for a full accounting of all
information that has been made available to each official advisory
committee.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has been negotiating the Trans-Pacific
Partnership for several years, and Obama said at his 2013 <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/12/state-of-the-union-obama-trade_n_2673259.html"
target="_hplink">State of the Union</a> address that he hopes to
have the deal approved by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Read the full text of Warren's letter <a
href="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/EWFromanLetter.pdf"
target="_hplink">here</a>.</p>
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