The Trade Deals Being Negotiated Just Got Worse

In addition to the TPP and the TTIP, we now have the Trade In Services Agreement (TiSA), which looks to vitiate national privacy, net neutrality, and consumer protections:

The US is attempting to secure immunity from investigation for online security breaches by major US companies under negotiations between Washington and Brussels, according to leaked documents seen by the Guardian.

Such a deal would prevent US companies that were operating inside the EU from being prosecuted by regulators or law officers for data breaches or claims of negligence in the host country, forcing European governments to pursue cases in the US courts.

Public service unions said the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa) talks in Geneva revealed how the US planned to protect homegrown businesses from regulations that might hinder their expansion into sensitive areas such as government data handling and healthcare.

Rosa Pavanelli, general secretary of Public Services International (PSI), which represents 650 unions in 150 countries, said the leaked documents, obtained by the Associated Whistleblowing Press, confirmed her fears that “Tisa is being used to further the interests of some of the largest corporations on earth”.

She said: “It is now clear the US wants to use its trade agenda to remove restrictions to data being held or processed in other countries.”

The Association of Whistleblowing Press link is here, and an earlier Wikileaks leak is here.

Here is nickel tour of what it all means:

• Corporations to move any possibility liability to the most weakly regulated venue (“No Party may prevent a service supplier of another Party from transferring, accessing, processing or storing information, including personal information, within or outside the Party's territory, where such activity is carried out in connection with the conduct of the service supplier's business.”)
• It has a broad carve-out for  national security that is a censor's wet dream (“Nothing in [Articles X.1 - X.6] shall be construed to prevent any Party from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its own essential security interests.”)
• It would prohibit meaningful net neutrality regulation (“Each Party recognizes that consumers in its territory, subject to applicable laws, and regulations, should be able to: (a) access and use services and applications of their choice available on the Internet, subject to reasonable network management;”)

(emphasis mine)

The cynic in me understands why Obama came out in front of net neutrality regulation:  Once TiSA goes through, any FCC ruling is moot.

He gets to play at consumer protection while taking it all away with a fast track vote on the treaty.