{"id":5065,"date":"2014-03-21T14:59:17","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T18:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizenstrade.org\/ctc\/?p=5065"},"modified":"2014-03-21T15:03:19","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T19:03:19","slug":"fast-tracks-outdated-floppy-disk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.citizenstrade.org\/ctc\/blog\/2014\/03\/21\/fast-tracks-outdated-floppy-disk\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast Track’s as Outdated as a Floppy Disk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FastTrackIsAFlop\"<\/a>Fair trade advocates delivered over 10,000 petition signatures adhered to old-fashioned 5.25\u2033 floppy disks to Senator Ron Wyden\u2019s offices throughout Oregon this March.<\/p>\n

The petition, spearheaded by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign (ORFTC) and Fight for the Future, urges the Senator to oppose the renewal of 1970s-era \u201cFast Track\u201d legislation, which would rubber-stamp trade pacts that threaten Oregon high-tech jobs, digital privacy and freedom on the Internet. \u00a0Senator Wyden recently became chair of the powerful U.S. Senate Finance Committee and will determine whether or not the expired Fast Track process is resurrected.<\/p>\n

\u201cFast Track is an outdated and inappropriate way to negotiate and approve 21st Century trade agreements,\u201d said ORFTC director Elizabeth Swager. “It would enable trade negotiators to keep their proposals hidden from the American public until after negotiations have concluded, pacts are signed and amendments are prohibited. \u00a0Our floppy disk petition urges Senator Wyden to recognize that Fast Track is obsolete in this day and age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast Track was first created during the Nixon administration, when trade agreements primarily covered tariffs, quotas and customs practices. \u00a0Today\u2019s trade and investment pacts, like the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), also cover labor rights, Internet protocols, environmental protections, energy policy, consumer safety, medicine patents, government procurement, financial regulations and more. \u00a0Advocates argue that allowing these far-reaching pacts to circumvent ordinary Congressional review, amendment and debate procedures is undemocratic, especially given that the Obama administration has refused to make its trade proposals available for public scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternet businesses and consumer advocates have warned that proposed trade agreements could adversely affect innovation on the Internet,\u201d said Nick Caleb, a professor at Concordia University and former technology policy advisor for Vandana Shiva\u2019s NGO The Research Foundation for Science, Technology, & Ecology. \u201cFast Track would close those pacts off to improvements, preventing the public from commenting on specific proposals until it\u2019s too late to make any changes. \u00a0That\u2019s an antiquated way to make public policy and it\u2019s ill-suited for our modern economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitch Besser, an unemployed, trade-displaced software engineer with a Masters Degree in Software Development and over two decades of experience in the field, said, \u201cCompanies want to push trade policy that gives them the greatest amount of freedom to search globally for the cheapest labor. While at the same time, workers are not free to search globally for the highest wages. As long as our elected officials keep putting policies like Fast Track in place, that help facilitate jobs to be shipped to countries with low wages and abysmal labor standards, that\u2019s where the jobs are going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Senator Wyden sent\u00a0a letter<\/a>\u00a0to the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign and Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice, stating, \u201cU.S. trade negotiators should be required to \u2014 at a minimum \u2014 share with the public the proposals they are putting forward, as they put them forward, in negotiations. \u00a0Obama\u2019s trade negotiators cannot be allowed to shroud their goals in secret, because, after all, they are supposed to be negotiating on our behalf \u2014 on behalf of workers and everyone who simply seeks to make a decent income for an honest day\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Wyden has been outspoken about the need for greater public participation in trade policy-making, and with his new role as Senate Finance Chair, he\u2019s finally in a position to do something about it,\u201d said \u00a0Swager. \u201cThis petition encourages the Senator to stay true to his democratic principles and to stand up for ordinary Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between the delivery events that took place in Bend, Eugene, LaGrande, Medford, Portland and Salem, a total of 13,721 signatures were delivered on floppy disks.<\/p>\n

Ivan Boothe with Rootwork.org, a small start-up tech company in Portland, also delivered a letter<\/a> to Senator Wyden\u2019s staff from over 25 high-tech businesses and Internet freedom organizations urging his opposition to Fast Track. \u00a0The letter, signed by groups including reddit, DuckDuckGo, Automattic (WordPress.com), iFixit, Imgur, and CREDO Mobile, stated that \u201cThese highly secretive, supranational agreements are reported to include provisions that vastly expand on any reasonable definition of \u2018trade,\u2019 including provisions that impact patents, copyright, and privacy in ways that significantly constrain legitimate online activity and innovation,\u201d the companies write. The letter continues: \u201cOur industry, and the users that we serve, need to be at the table from the beginning,\u201d which has not been the case with TPP negotiations.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Pete Shaw for the photo. \u00a0Additional photos on the ORFTC Facebook page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fair trade advocates delivered over 10,000 petition signatures adhered to old-fashioned 5.25\u2033 floppy disks to Senator Ron Wyden\u2019s offices throughout Oregon this March. 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