Forum Post: Action Alert - Trans Pacific Partnership - Save the Internet

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Action Alert: stop the Trans Pacific Partnership http://stopthetrap.net

Right now, industry lobbyists and bureaucrats are putting the final touches on an international trade agreement that could strip away many of our Internet freedoms and cast ordinary Internet users as criminals.

The deal is being pushed forward in a series of closed-door meetings away from the scrutiny of digital rights advocates and Internet users. We’ve stopped bad Internet policies like this before. Now it’s time to stop the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Don’t Let the TPP Trap You. Stop This Deal Today.

Free Press is partnering with our friends at OpenMedia.ca to alert users about this bad deal. If approved the TPP would:

• Criminalize some everyday Internet use.

• Force service providers to collect and hand over your private data without user protections.

• Give media conglomerates the power to fine you for Internet use, remove online content — including entire websites — and even terminate your Internet access!

To learn more about the TPP, visit stopthetrap.net.

OpenMedia.ca rightly calls the TPP an "Internet trap."1 If it passes, TPP could criminalize ordinary Internet actions — like linking to certain content or sites.

This is ridiculous. Governments around the world need to hear from Internet users like you before the TPP becomes the law of the Web:

Don’t let the TPP trap you.

Thank you,

Josh, Tim and the rest of the Free Press Action Fund team

1. "TPP: The Secretive Agreement That Could Criminalize Your Internet Use," Openmedia.ca, May 14, 2012: http://act.freepress.net/go/11910?t=6&akid=3829.10012074.9gAVli

The Free Press Action Fund is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. The Free Press Action Fund does not support or oppose any candidate for public office. Learn more at www.freepress.net.

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Imagine a world where you could be dragged to court and receive a large fine just for clicking on a link, where service providers would hand over information about your online activities without privacy safeguards, and where online content could be removed by big media conglomerates at will.

This scenario could become a reality before we know it. In just a few days, a group of 600 lobbyist “advisors” and un-elected trade representatives are scheming behind closed doors to decide how the Internet will be governed, including whether you could get fined for your Internet use. Instead of debating this openly, they’re meeting secretly to craft an Internet trap through an international agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In short, it appears that it will be big-media lobbyists—not citizens—who get to decide whether citizens will be fined as suspected copyright criminals. Please help us raise a loud call before it’s too late. Visit: http://stopthetrap.net

We know from leaked documents that industry lobbyists intend to blanket these new restrictions and laws around the world, without us having any say in the matter. How can they do this? Instead of an open, public process, they’ll use international tribunals to go around domestic judicial systems. And once the trap is set, there’s no going back.

Here are the details—the TPP’s Internet trap would:

1. Criminalize your everyday use of the Internet,

2. Force service providers to collect and hand over your private data without privacy safeguards, and

3. Give media conglomerates more power to fine you for Internet use, remove online content—including entire websites—and even terminate your access to the Internet.

The TPP is secretive, it’s extreme, and it will criminalize your daily use of the Internet. Don’t let Big Media lobbyists lure you into this Internet trap. Speak out now.

We deserve to know what will be blocked, and what we and our families will be fined for. If enough of us speak out now, we can prevent governments from slow-walking us into an Internet trap. Make your voice heard today: http://stopthetrap.net