Last night in President Obama’s State of the Union address, he called on Congress to pass the “Fast Track” Trade Promotion Authority bill that would limit the ability of Congress and the public to meaningfully debate trade agreements like the extreme Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), which threatens the freedom, openness, and affordability of the Internet.
Today is a huge day of action and we need everyone to participate. reddit, Imgur, and BoingBoing are running ads to help drive calls, and 80+ groups are mobilizing their members to speak out.
We can really melt phones today, people, if we go all out — if you’ve ever wanted to take action, today is the day. If everyone reading this makes one phone call, this bill will be dead by tomorrow, just like with SOPA.
The TPP is a back-door way to secretly enact Internet regulations that benefit corporate interests instead of the public. Based on the leaked IP chapter from WikiLeaks, the TPP would ban phone unlocking (even though Obama says he supports it), force U.S. copyright policy on other countries without expanding protections for free speech, harshen penalties on whistleblowers, decrease access to medicines, and stifle innovation.
Last night the White House parroted the rhetoric of the lobbyists who have been pushing for the TPP. The President went so far as to say that “Fast Track” authority would “protect our workers, [and] protect our environment.” Whether or not those are your issues, it’s hard to take the President’s claim seriously when nearly every labor and environmental organization in the U.S. vehemently opposes Fast Track for the TPP.
No one knows exactly what’s in the TPP (except government bureaucrats, lobbyists from the MPAA, and other such unsavory characters) — although from leaked texts we know that, if ratified in its current form, it spells out the same kind of dark Internet future that we swore we’d never allow when we defeated SOPA and ACTA.
Today over 80 organizations are banding together to drive phone calls to DC to demand that our lawmakers vote NO on the Camp-Baucus Fast Track bill and give Congress time to debate and amend trade agreements that affect all of us.
This vote will be really, really close so every call counts. Will you add your voice? It only takes a minute.
Now that President Obama is doubling down on pressuring Congress to pass Fast Track, these next few days will be incredibly important.
Sound bad? We can stop it, but we have to act today: http://StopFastTrack.com
( Via Fight For The Future)
President Barack Obama gave his second State of the Union address for his second term. (Getty)
