TPP details definitely need to be in the public, but I'm surprised WikiLeaks is offering a bounty. Have they done this before? Not that I can recall. And I would think offering money would change the tone of prosecuting the "whistle-blower". It'd be hard to claim that you are a whistle-blower when you are receiving money- that seems a lot more like standard espionage to me.
An individual holds information that is in the public good to be released.
Said individual is threatened with significant harm by states if the information is released.
Only those with tremendous conscious, like Snowden or Manning, step up in the face of odds like that.
Financial compensation shifts the balance to make dangerous humanitarian disclosures more self-interested. It means that more information that should be public becomes public.
I remember when the music/movie industry argued that it was perfectly legal to pay informers, who then just happen to gain access to private servers owned by release groups. Several complains was sent in to the police and nothing came out of it, so I would assume, being that the law treats everyone equal, that this is equally legal.
I'm more concerned about the crowdsourcing of it. How would that work if "they" decide to come after anyone who leaks it. Does putting in a few bucks mean you can be criminally charged if that cash leads to a bounty that leads to a leak?
I'm all for government transparency. But this seems like an unwise mechanism to achieve it.
Agree with this. Money taints the appearance of neutrality. They are no longer a neutral medium but rather an information marketplace. It's no longer based on moral guidance but monetary and economic guidance.
I had the same reaction at first, but are there any laws stating that the details can't be disclosed? Meaning - is this paying someone to breach a contract or something worse?
TPP details definitely need to be in the public...
Details? Why? Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this), but why force negotiators making difficult tradeoffs to hash them out in the open?
IANAL but I don't think whistleblower protections would ever apply to leaking a confidential document to wikileaks regardless of whether you're paid or not.
It's a publicity stunt. The goal is to raise awareness for the shady nature of this trade deal, and hopefully get someone to step up and release the rest of the documents. So far it's been going well - this article was written the Washington Post, and it raises awareness of TPP. What remains to be seen is whether someone will step up.
I agree that it's a publicity stunt. Most of the agreement will be totally boring to HN type folks--pages and pages of fine-grained calibration of relative tariffs on agricultural products, etc.
The most controversion provisions are probably already known (ISDS, which has been a standard part of trade deals for years), or leaked (the IP chapter).
That said, I'll be interested to see the language on cross-border data flows. One of the reported provisions is that signatories to the TPP will have to treat data from all signatories equally (i.e. no nation-based filtering). Another is that signatories will not be able to require tech companies to house their servers locally to provide services locally. Those both sound like they would be welcomed by tech companies.
Maybe I'm wrong (and please correct me if I am) but I thought the agreement was being done in secret until it's completed at which point it will go to the legislature of all of the nations involved. Since it's being "fast-tracked" that means congress can't add or remove things from the bill but can vote on it and it will be fully accessible publicly.
They certainly shouldn't be doing the writing of this thing in secret and we should be able to comment on it now but it will be fully available before being voted on so $100,000 seems a bit much to getting it a few months early. Again, as far as I understand everything so please correct me if I'm wrong.
>"fast track" Trade Promotion Authority. This would require the United States Congress to introduce and vote on an administration-authored bill for implementing the TPP with minimal debate and no amendments, with the entire process taking no more than 90 days. Fast-track legislation was introduced in Congress in mid-April 2015. (Wikipedia)
So 90 days for minimal debate and no amendments - sounds like true democracy in action to me.
There are plenty of reasons why virtually all international negotiations are conducted in secret. For one tiny example, imagine the effect on the markets and perhaps worse the effect of markets on the negotiations.
If the process were made transparent then the negotiations would simply take place somewhere else.
Just remember, when you see a "public negotiation" of a treaty of some kind, that the actual negotiations took place well in advance of any announcements and in complete secrecy.
Do you think nuclear arms control treaties are negotiated in public? Which do you think is more important -- negotiations that could result in the end of the world, or negotiations over tariff policy?
For me adding money taints the leaking process. Now its not whether someone has moral qualms with something they ate witness to but rather, is there potential for personal gain in revealing something.
I think WikiLeaks is setting a poor precedent with this and framing it as "donors" rather than WikiLeaks itself paying is quintessentially disingenuous.
There are many reasons favouring disclosure of this information, but is offering to buy the information really the best approach here?
The public officials who possess the information are likely bound by legal duties not to disclose it to those not entitled to see it. If an official chooses to leak confidential information in the public interest, that may be one thing, but selling confidential information for personal financial gain is corrupt conduct.
To be fair to WikiLeaks, they describe the money as a "reward" for turning over the missing chapters, and do not overtly say they are looking to buy, but it seems to come awfully close to offering a financial inducement to break the law. The only people who have the information are those who are bound not to reveal it or who should never have had it in the first place.
All this "break the law" stuff like the rule of law is still a player in any of this. Clapper says it is and everyone pisses themselves laughing. Holder says it is and yeah, same deal. The people vs $25,000 so the police can keep it with no charges laid. Patraeus wasn't economically uninvolved with the sales of his hagiography where he did all that leaking but they had an inconsequential show-trial where he got off with nothing for him - let that be a lesson. And how do we know he did that? His email was illegally hacked, without a warrant by the FBI - who's building is still named after J. Edgar Hoover who was as criminal as anyone has ever been (Aside from being a cross dresser who liked to bash homosexuals for fun and his attempts to get Martin Luther King to commit suicide through blackmail and harassment. Yeah really, you can't make this stuff up).
Or we can explicitly hold up an Australian hacker with an idea, the ability to hack that idea together and have total commitment to that idea for which he required nobody's blessing, approval nor government funding to a much higher standard than public servants, hired to serve the public, who have very clearly been engaged in criminal conspiracy. Ok it's fair to do so but we need to say that out loud every time if we're doing that. Once the standard is set it has to be the same for all or the rule of law is rather a moot point.
Should there be a law at all that compels people to keep this kind of thing secret? Is such a law constitutional? You have free speech but this is equivalent to yelling fire in a crowded theatre? Really? Because people might be worried about what is happening in the democratic process and want to be informed so they can act accordingly? That's a big call.
The New York Times and the Washington Post publish one hell of a lot of "official leaks" from people who are essentially paid to do that leaking to spin the story. It's their job. Or so "someone familiar with the matter" told them.
Should journalists and their employers get all the proceeds when the source takes rather more risk. To be honest I don't care whether Snowden is an altruist (although he clearly is) I'd pay the goddamn devil to get that information out so we all know it and can slowly, piece by piece, reform that post-terrorist-attack blindspot that has become an utter disgrace. Would you rather not know?
The purpose of a trade deal is to lower protectionism. Like corn subsidies. Corn subsidies are a blatant manifestation of American protectionism. Imagine U.S. trade negotiators trying to cut corn subsidies in exchange for something. The same forces that created the subsidies – a motivated minority mobilising against a dis-interested, harmed majority – will defeat any attempt to kill them. Repeat this process by interest groups across every country and you may see why Doha failed.
Secrecy is annoying, and our present government gives us reason to distrust it. But if you believe in free trade and are realistic about how negotiations (and interest groups) work, you understand why they must be secret.
But apparently they aren't secret from the interest groups where such interest groups donate large sums to political parties. See copyright extensions that we know are coming in this.
"Believe in free trade.." Fry and Laurie made me laugh about that line back in the day. YMMV.
If you believe in free trade you know that there are massive gains to be had from abolishing rubbish like corn subsidies period. Just do it, it's a win for any domestic economy. If you don't "believe in free trade" then you need this secret nonsense to pretend to abolish it then not actually do it. Again.
Hilarious twist option Obama gives WikiLeaks and everyone else the trade deal details, and claims the 100k. He could then just put it back into the government where 100k will not even be noticed, donate to some charity in some sort of PR stunt, or whatever as I am sure there are both better and more entertaining options.
Would be funny, but I doubt Obama has access or much of a say in the matter, and he himself would get arrested and sued for leaking secrets - the president is not above the law.
Crowdsourcing funds for lobbying is essentially what advocacy nonprofits do, like the Sierra Club, ACLU, EFF, Heritage Action, NRA, etc.
Edit to add: But lobbying is not bribery because lobbying money is never given to elected officials. Lobbying expenditures pay for things like salaries, research, events, mailers, ad campaigns, websites, etc.
WikiLeaks is getting into the lobbying game, not a bribe, a lobby. You can't tell me companies don't do this same thing to politicians.
It would be something for someone to actually get prosecuted for releasing a bill/law that will affect us all. What message would that send?
When releasing a bill in Congress is illegal, I think we have seriously lost it. Bills throughout the process should be public at all times once our representatives are going over it for sure.
Good on them. I just pledged a small amount towards the $100k. I think the purpose of this is more a PR stunt to make more people aware that the governments that are supposed to serve us are trying to sign us up to a bunch of dubious stuff behind our backs than bribery. Indeed "Putting the public back into the public interest." as they put it on their site.
My first reaction is this goes too far but on second thought is this just the state of the world now? We are going to come out of the shadows and just be upfront about what we are doing? Is it a "The rich and the powerful lie, cheat, steal, bribe, corrupt, etc. Why shouldn't we?" situation?
I think money in politics is ruining the USA, is using money to fight back against these dirty politicians and lobbyists the only tool we have left?
The power and authority of the state emanates from the people, don't let your government convince you otherwise. If enough enough people woke this morning deciding their government was no longer legitimate those in power would be gone by night fall.
Since the rich and powerful have effectively diluted our most precious right, free speech (ask the relatives of the Yangtzee River tragedy about that) by having the Supreme Court make money equivalent to speech through Citizens United, I find it pretty funny to see the Obama administration's obsession with secrecy challenged via the same mechanism we use to fund video games and fanciful geek hardware.
Of course, the real joke is that there's plenty of money chasing the secrets of the TPP already--only not to show those secrets to the public, but just to corporations and governments that want to benefit from them. The only thing stopping that would be the civil (and criminal?) penalties that would face anyone who could spill the beans.
Leaving aside how important dissemination of this topic is. What is the plan? Raise a 100K from netizens, and then wire it to the whistleblower? Then what, they are hung for treason?
I want to trust Assange, but I kinda trust Obama too.
I agree that things could be better, but you can't always argue that secrecy is always against the interest of the public. Leader sometimes have to be able to have discretion when the want to take decisions, if not, some will just be able to anticipate those decisions, and it won't work.
It's true that mandatory secrecy is bad, but it can be difficult to have it everywhere. I'm really not an expert though, so I could be wrong. It's true that the US is trying to make strategic moves for its own interests, and it can be scary and dubious waters for US citizens, but it's the game of international relations.
I don't think you can always mix the debate on secrecy and healthy democracy. Maybe Obama has legitimate reasons to use secrecy. Although it's expected from wikileaks to make moves about it.
Anyway Washington is really not going to like it. At all.
Another thing to consider is as soon as the details are public, we will be assaulted by ad campaigns by various interest groups which this negatively effects telling us why it will ruin our lives. While the general Hacker News population may be too smart to be swayed from reason by these ads, ads like this exist because they work.
A portion of the public will be swayed by the plight of the American Pipe Layers Union or whoever is potentially going to lose a little bit of business as the ads, like others of their kind, will provide them with a partial picture of the deal and telling them why this is horrible, without providing enough context for them to come to a different conclusion.
Some portion of the public outcry when something like this becomes public will be due these special interest groups effectively buying the opinions of the public by telling them what to think in the same manner they usually do.
Technical question:
Are there any programs that try to roughly measure the shill factor in conversations? I.e. by taking statistics over all commenters, whether they ever submitted/commented before etc? Would be nice if HN would measure this in-house, since they have access to IP addresses.
Two reasons:
1- Offering money for someone to commit a crime. If somebody obtains the details illegally, Wikileaks would be liable for that.
2- Interfering with the executive branch's negotiation of a treaty is definitely illegal, though not necessarily always enforced. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_the...)
All that said, Wikileaks probably doesn't care. They already leaked a ton of US gov't classified data, so why would more indictments matter?
This type of whistleblowing should not just be for pharmaceuticals. It should apply to all government and commercial activities too. Publicity is the best disinfectant.
[+] [-] ohitsdom|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kauffj|10 years ago|reply
Said individual is threatened with significant harm by states if the information is released.
Only those with tremendous conscious, like Snowden or Manning, step up in the face of odds like that.
Financial compensation shifts the balance to make dangerous humanitarian disclosures more self-interested. It means that more information that should be public becomes public.
What's wrong with that?
[+] [-] belorn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draugadrotten|10 years ago|reply
Will WikiLeaks still pay 100K for the information if it was obtained by killing someone?
[+] [-] codingdave|10 years ago|reply
I'm all for government transparency. But this seems like an unwise mechanism to achieve it.
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robotkilla|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twoodfin|10 years ago|reply
Details? Why? Obviously agreements will be public before they become law (nobody disputes this), but why force negotiators making difficult tradeoffs to hash them out in the open?
[+] [-] eli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrrr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oskarth|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
The most controversion provisions are probably already known (ISDS, which has been a standard part of trade deals for years), or leaked (the IP chapter).
That said, I'll be interested to see the language on cross-border data flows. One of the reported provisions is that signatories to the TPP will have to treat data from all signatories equally (i.e. no nation-based filtering). Another is that signatories will not be able to require tech companies to house their servers locally to provide services locally. Those both sound like they would be welcomed by tech companies.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|10 years ago|reply
They certainly shouldn't be doing the writing of this thing in secret and we should be able to comment on it now but it will be fully available before being voted on so $100,000 seems a bit much to getting it a few months early. Again, as far as I understand everything so please correct me if I'm wrong.
[+] [-] tim333|10 years ago|reply
>"fast track" Trade Promotion Authority. This would require the United States Congress to introduce and vote on an administration-authored bill for implementing the TPP with minimal debate and no amendments, with the entire process taking no more than 90 days. Fast-track legislation was introduced in Congress in mid-April 2015. (Wikipedia)
So 90 days for minimal debate and no amendments - sounds like true democracy in action to me.
[+] [-] Tloewald|10 years ago|reply
If the process were made transparent then the negotiations would simply take place somewhere else.
Just remember, when you see a "public negotiation" of a treaty of some kind, that the actual negotiations took place well in advance of any announcements and in complete secrecy.
Do you think nuclear arms control treaties are negotiated in public? Which do you think is more important -- negotiations that could result in the end of the world, or negotiations over tariff policy?
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
I think WikiLeaks is setting a poor precedent with this and framing it as "donors" rather than WikiLeaks itself paying is quintessentially disingenuous.
[+] [-] jamesk_au|10 years ago|reply
The public officials who possess the information are likely bound by legal duties not to disclose it to those not entitled to see it. If an official chooses to leak confidential information in the public interest, that may be one thing, but selling confidential information for personal financial gain is corrupt conduct.
To be fair to WikiLeaks, they describe the money as a "reward" for turning over the missing chapters, and do not overtly say they are looking to buy, but it seems to come awfully close to offering a financial inducement to break the law. The only people who have the information are those who are bound not to reveal it or who should never have had it in the first place.
[+] [-] harry8|10 years ago|reply
Or we can explicitly hold up an Australian hacker with an idea, the ability to hack that idea together and have total commitment to that idea for which he required nobody's blessing, approval nor government funding to a much higher standard than public servants, hired to serve the public, who have very clearly been engaged in criminal conspiracy. Ok it's fair to do so but we need to say that out loud every time if we're doing that. Once the standard is set it has to be the same for all or the rule of law is rather a moot point.
Should there be a law at all that compels people to keep this kind of thing secret? Is such a law constitutional? You have free speech but this is equivalent to yelling fire in a crowded theatre? Really? Because people might be worried about what is happening in the democratic process and want to be informed so they can act accordingly? That's a big call.
The New York Times and the Washington Post publish one hell of a lot of "official leaks" from people who are essentially paid to do that leaking to spin the story. It's their job. Or so "someone familiar with the matter" told them.
Should journalists and their employers get all the proceeds when the source takes rather more risk. To be honest I don't care whether Snowden is an altruist (although he clearly is) I'd pay the goddamn devil to get that information out so we all know it and can slowly, piece by piece, reform that post-terrorist-attack blindspot that has become an utter disgrace. Would you rather not know?
[+] [-] kauffj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robotkilla|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|10 years ago|reply
Secrecy is annoying, and our present government gives us reason to distrust it. But if you believe in free trade and are realistic about how negotiations (and interest groups) work, you understand why they must be secret.
[+] [-] harry8|10 years ago|reply
"Believe in free trade.." Fry and Laurie made me laugh about that line back in the day. YMMV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcMwvf0iyWs
If you believe in free trade you know that there are massive gains to be had from abolishing rubbish like corn subsidies period. Just do it, it's a win for any domestic economy. If you don't "believe in free trade" then you need this secret nonsense to pretend to abolish it then not actually do it. Again.
[+] [-] genericuser|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kauffj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free
[+] [-] davotoula|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kauffj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|10 years ago|reply
Edit to add: But lobbying is not bribery because lobbying money is never given to elected officials. Lobbying expenditures pay for things like salaries, research, events, mailers, ad campaigns, websites, etc.
[+] [-] drawkbox|10 years ago|reply
It would be something for someone to actually get prosecuted for releasing a bill/law that will affect us all. What message would that send?
When releasing a bill in Congress is illegal, I think we have seriously lost it. Bills throughout the process should be public at all times once our representatives are going over it for sure.
[+] [-] tim333|10 years ago|reply
https://wikileaks.org/pledge/
[+] [-] joshstrange|10 years ago|reply
I think money in politics is ruining the USA, is using money to fight back against these dirty politicians and lobbyists the only tool we have left?
[+] [-] shit_parade2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billiam|10 years ago|reply
Of course, the real joke is that there's plenty of money chasing the secrets of the TPP already--only not to show those secrets to the public, but just to corporations and governments that want to benefit from them. The only thing stopping that would be the civil (and criminal?) penalties that would face anyone who could spill the beans.
[+] [-] aaardvark|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohitsdom|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonklaus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jokoon|10 years ago|reply
I'd be interested to check the donors though.
I want to trust Assange, but I kinda trust Obama too.
I agree that things could be better, but you can't always argue that secrecy is always against the interest of the public. Leader sometimes have to be able to have discretion when the want to take decisions, if not, some will just be able to anticipate those decisions, and it won't work.
It's true that mandatory secrecy is bad, but it can be difficult to have it everywhere. I'm really not an expert though, so I could be wrong. It's true that the US is trying to make strategic moves for its own interests, and it can be scary and dubious waters for US citizens, but it's the game of international relations.
I don't think you can always mix the debate on secrecy and healthy democracy. Maybe Obama has legitimate reasons to use secrecy. Although it's expected from wikileaks to make moves about it.
Anyway Washington is really not going to like it. At all.
[+] [-] genericuser|10 years ago|reply
A portion of the public will be swayed by the plight of the American Pipe Layers Union or whoever is potentially going to lose a little bit of business as the ads, like others of their kind, will provide them with a partial picture of the deal and telling them why this is horrible, without providing enough context for them to come to a different conclusion.
Some portion of the public outcry when something like this becomes public will be due these special interest groups effectively buying the opinions of the public by telling them what to think in the same manner they usually do.
[+] [-] 0xffff2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rilita|10 years ago|reply
1. If the details are published, minority won't like it and will complain loudly.
2. Those vocal groups will sway people to oppose it
3. Opposition would destroy it
4. We should instead keep it secret and trust that the vocal minority groups will be fairly represented.
Personally, if opposition can destroy it, I think it should.
[+] [-] singularity2001|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bernardom|10 years ago|reply
Two reasons: 1- Offering money for someone to commit a crime. If somebody obtains the details illegally, Wikileaks would be liable for that. 2- Interfering with the executive branch's negotiation of a treaty is definitely illegal, though not necessarily always enforced. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_the...)
All that said, Wikileaks probably doesn't care. They already leaked a ton of US gov't classified data, so why would more indictments matter?
[+] [-] moonbug|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaadu|10 years ago|reply
This type of whistleblowing should not just be for pharmaceuticals. It should apply to all government and commercial activities too. Publicity is the best disinfectant.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] andor|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vesinisa|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|10 years ago|reply