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whether TPP or NMI, the aim/idea is the same - more power to the
powerful.... the newsletter below should warn us about where the
biggest dangers lie ... <br>
Guru<br>
<br>
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<td>Other News - How the Trade in Services Agreement Lets
Big Brother Go Global</td>
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<td>Mon, 29 Dec 2014 17:59:40 -0000</td>
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<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
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<td>english <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
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<div><strong>How the Trade in Services Agreement
Lets Big Brother Go Global</strong></div>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div><font size="2"><strong><em>By Don Quijones* -
Naked Capitalism</em></strong> </font></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Much has been written, at least in the
alternative media, about the Trans Pacific
Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP), two multilateral
trade treaties being negotiated between the
representatives of dozens of national governments
and armies of corporate lawyers and lobbyists (on
which you can read more here, here and here).
However, much less is known about the decidedly
more secretive Trade in Services Act (TiSA), which
involves more countries than either of the other
two.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>At least until now, that is. Thanks to a leaked
document jointly published by the Associated
Whistleblowing Press and Filtrala, the potential
ramifications of the treaty being hashed out
behind hermetically sealed doors in Geneva are
finally seeping out into the public arena.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If signed, the treaty would affect all services
ranging from electronic transactions and data
flow, to veterinary and architecture services. It
would almost certainly open the floodgates to the
final wave of privatization of public services,
including the provision of healthcare, education
and water. Meanwhile, already privatized companies
would be prevented from a re-transfer to the
public sector by a so-called barring âratchet
clauseâ â even if the privatization failed.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>More worrisome still, the proposal stipulates
that no participating state can stop the use,
storage and exchange of personal data relating to
their territorial base. Hereâs more from Rosa
Pavanelli, general secretary of Public Services
International (PSI):</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The leaked documents confirm our worst fears
that TiSA is being used to further the interests
of some of the largest corporations on earth (â¦)
Negotiation of unrestricted data movement,
internet neutrality and how electronic signatures
can be used strike at the heart of individualsâ
rights. Governments must come clean about what
they are negotiating in these secret trade deals.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Fat chance of that, especially in light of the
fact that the text is designed to be almost
impossible to repeal, and is to be âconsidered
confidentialâ for five years after being signed.
What that effectively means is that the U.S.
approach to data protection (read: virtually
non-existent) could very soon become the norm
across 50 countries spanning the breadth and depth
of the industrial world.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong><font size="2">Big Brother Goes Global</font></strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>The main players in the top-secret negotiations
are the United States and all 28 members of the
European Union. However, the broad scope of the
treaty also includes Australia, Canada, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel,
Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway,
Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea,
Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey. Combined they
represent almost 70 percent of all trade in
services worldwide.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>An explicit goal of the TiSA negotiations is to
overcome the exceptions in GATS that protect
certain non-tariff trade barriers, such as data
protection. For example, the draft Financial
Services Annex of TiSA, published by Wikileaks in
June 2014, would allow financial institutions,
such as banks, the free transfer of data,
including personal data, from one country to
another. As Ralf Bendrath, a senior policy advisor
to the MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht, writes in State
Watch, this would constitute a radical carve-out
from current European data protection rules:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The transfer and analysis of financial data
from EU to US authorities for the US âTerrorist
Finance Tracking Programmeâ (TFTP) has already
shaken EU-US relations in the past and led the
European Parliament to veto a first TFTP agreement
in 2010. With the draft text of the TiSA leak, all
floodgates would be opened.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The weakening of EU data protection rules
through TiSA goes further than âonlyâ the
financial sector. According to sources close to
the negotiations, a draft of the TiSA
âElectronic Commerce and Telecommunications
Services Annexâ contains provisions that would
ban any restrictions on cross-border information
flows and localization requirements for ICT
service providers. A provision proposed by US
negotiators would rule out any conditions for the
transfer of personal data to third countries that
are currently in place in EU data protection law.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Given Edward Snowdenâs startling revelations
of the scale and scope of NSA snooping on European
citizens, companies and political leaders â much
of it facilitated by its junior surveillance
partner, the UKâs General Communications
Headquarters (GCHQ) â the prospect of completely
unhindered cross-border information and data flows
should set off alarm bells across the old
continent. Unfortunately that isnât the case,
for the simple reason that most people are
blissfully unaware of it, thanks in large part to
the near-complete absence of mainstream coverage
and public debate on the issue.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong><font size="2">The End of Privacy As We
Know It?</font></strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>As for the EU, divining its real intentions
concerning data protection is an almost impossible
task. Publicly it is in favor of strengthening
data protections. There have even been proposals
to introduce changes to the routing of internet
data packets, so that they take a certain path and
remain within the EU. In the European Parliament
an amendment was tabled by the Green Party to
encrypt all Internet traffic from end to end and
was adopted as part of a compromise on the
committee vote in February.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>As regards national security, the Council of
Europe ministers responsible for media and
information society stated in November 2013 that:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Any data collection or surveillance for the
purpose of protection of national security must be
done in compliance with existing human rights and
rule of law requirements, including Article 8 of
the European Convention on Human Rights. Given the
growing technological capabilities for electronic
mass surveillance and the resulting concerns, we
emphasise that there must be adequate and
effective guarantees against abuse which may
undermine or even destroy democracy.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In private, however, EU trade negotiators â
that is, the people with real power â are coming
under intense U.S. pressure to sign away virtually
all European data protection rights. As Bendrath
notes, U.S. lobbying efforts, through groups such
as the Orwellian-named âCoalition for Privacy
and Free Tradeâ, have been pushing for
âinteroperabilityâ between European and
American rules on both sides of the Atlantic. That
basically means a mutual recognition on the
respective rules on both sides of the Atlantic.
The only catch: in the United States there are
currently no comprehensive data protection laws in
place.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If the U.S. negotiators get their way â and
letâs face it, when it comes to its dealings
with its so-called âallies,â Washington
invariably does â multinational corporations
will have carte blanche to pry into just about
every facet of the working and personal lives of
the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the
worldâs 200-or-so nations. Such a prospect
should worry us all: exploitation of big data
serves today to shape our consumption; it can
reveal our whereabouts at all times, our conduct,
preferences, feelings or even our most intimate
thoughts. If TiSA is signed in its current form
â and we will not know what that form is until
at least five years down the line â that data
will be freely bought and sold on the open market
place without our knowledge; companies and
governments will be able to store it for as long
as they desire and use it for just about any
purpose.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Perhaps the most perverse irony is that while
the corporations and their servants in our elected
(or in the case of the EU, unelected) governments
seek to turn our lives into a vast open book of
actionable or monetizable data, their own actions
are increasingly being conducted behind an
impenetrable blanket of darkness and secrecy. And
as John F Kennedy once said during a little known
speech on the grave threat posed by the Soviet
Union, âthe very word âsecrecyâ is repugnant
in a free and open society.â By Don Quijones</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong><em><font size="1">*A freelance writer
and translator based in Barcelona, Spain,
and editor at Wolf Street, where this
article was originally published</font></em></strong></div>
<div><strong><em></em></strong> </div>
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