27 December 2013

TAFTA/TTIP: European Commission Tells Us to "Get the Facts"; Here They Are

Readers with long memories may recall in the dim and distant past that at one time "Get the Facts" was a favourite war-cry of Microsoft when attacking GNU/Linux and free software.  Of course the "facts" were anything but, and I spent quite some time debunking them.  Significantly, once the claims had been debunked often enough, and by enough people, the campaign went away, and was never heard of again.

Rather interestingly, the European Commission now seems intent on recapitulating that saga and its fate.  I've noticed several times recently it has invoked the "facts", and I've tried to show why its idea of facts leaves much to be desired.  So far, most of my columns about TAFTA/TTIP have been over on Computerworld UK, under the rubric "TTIP Update."  There also a fair few on Techdirt.  Here I'd like to address a rather interesting addition to the "Get the Facts" collection that doesn't really sit well in either publication, since it's in German.

It comes in response to an epetition from campact.de, that is currently storming away (at the time of writing it has nearly 300,000 signatures.)  Evidently worried by that momentum, the European Commission has issued another of its point-by-point commentaries.  I will repay the compliment by rebutting its rebuttals.  I'll use the original German, but you can use a Google Translate version if you wish.

Campact behauptet, dass TTIP es ausländischen Unternehmen zukünftig ermögliche, Gesetze in Europa auszuhöhlen. Falsch

Ein bereits bestehendes Gesetz kann nicht durch ein Handelsabkommen "ausgehöhlt" werden. So kann beispielsweise ein bestehendes Verbot von Fracking oder von Chlorhühnerfleisch nicht in Frage gestellt werden. Das einzige, was das Abkommen unterstreicht – und das ist auch im Interesse der EU – ist ein Diskriminierungsverbot. Das heißt: Was für Inländer gilt, muss auch für Ausländer gelten. Dies ist besonders wichtig bei Investitionen, die entscheidend für wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und die Schaffung von Arbeitsplätzen sind. Hier brauchen wir Stabilität und Sicherheit, auch für europäischen Investitionen im Ausland. Allerdings heißt Investitionsschutz nicht, den Unternehmen unbegrenzte Rechte einzugestehen, oder die Möglichkeit zu geben, jedwede nationale Gesetzgebung in Frage zu stellen. Investitionsschutzklauseln dürfen nur in sehr begrenzten Bereichen eingesetzt werden, z.B. wenn gegenüber inländischen Firmen diskriminiert wird oder wenn eine Firma im Ausland ohne Entschädigung enteignet wird.

Well, it's true that a trade agreement can't change laws directly.  But it can have a chilling effect, as occurred in Canada.  When NAFTA was brought in, practically every proposed law to protect the environment was dropped when threats were received from US companies that they would use investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), available under NAFTA, to sue the Canadian government.  That's a real hollowing out of laws not just in the future, but also in the present, since governments will be unwilling to run the risk of getting sued if they apply them rigorously.

The Commission also claims that ISDS is particularly important for investment; but here's what its own site says on the subject:

Total US investment in the EU is three times higher than in all of Asia.

EU investment in the US is around eight times the amount of EU investment in India and China together.

EU and US investments are the real driver of the transatlantic relationship, contributing to growth and jobs on both sidesof the Atlantic. It is estimated that a third of the trade across the Atlantic actually consists of intra-company transfers.

That's all without ISDS: so why bring it in?


Campact behauptet, dass TTIP zu Privatisierungen im Bereich Wasserversorgung, Gesundheit und Bildung führe. Falsch.

Das TTIP-Abkommen hat nichts mit verordneten Privatisierungen zu tun – das wird von den Regierungen alleine beschlossen. Kein Freihandelsabkommen verpflichtet Mitgliedsstaaten zur Liberalisierung oder Privatisierung der Wasserversorgung oder anderer öffentlicher Dienstleistungen, z.B. des öffentlichen Gesundheitswesens, des öffentlichen Verkehrswesens oder des Bildungswesens.

Again, that misses the point, probably wilfully.  This is not about formally forcing these privatisations: but that will be the effect of ISDS, since governments will find themselves sued for billions of Euros if they don't allow commons to be privatised, since that would reduce expectations of future profits - a big no-no under ISDS.

Campact behauptet, dass TTIP die Tore für Fracking, Chlorhühnchen oder Genfood öffne. Falsch.

Fracking, Chlorhühnchen und Genfood sind in der EU verboten oder streng reguliert. Das wird auch ein Freihandelsabkommen nicht ändern. Nur Regierungen oder Parlamente können entscheiden, Gesetzgebung zu ändern. Die Europäische Union wird unsere hohen EU-Standards nicht zur Verhandlung stellen

Even if that's true - and since the negotiations are completely secret, we have no way of telling until it's too late - it's already become clear how cholorinated chickens and GMOs will be brought to Europe: the institution of a transatlantic Regulatory Council.  As I've already discussed at length elsewhere, this body will not only be able to veto new regulations unless they favour transatlantic trade, but they will be able to suggest to both EU and US lawmakers *directly* what new laws should be brought in - for example, those mandating that EU supermarkets must accept chickens washed in chlorine, or beef pumped up with growth hormones.

Campact behauptet, dass TTIP die Rechte von Internetnutzern einschränken werde. Falsch.

Sowohl die EU als auch die USA verfügen bereits über effiziente Vorschriften zum Schutz des Rechts des geistigen Eigentums, wenn auch der Weg zum Ziel gelegentlich unterschiedlich ist. TTIP soll den Handel zwischen der EU und den USA vereinfachen, ohne diese Vorschriften aufzuweichen. „ACTA durch die Hintertür“ wird es mit TTIP nicht geben.
Well, the protection of intellectual monopolies may be efficient, but that didn't stop the US and EU trying to ram through ACTA, did it? So what's to stop that now?  Claims that TAFTA/TTIP won't be ACTA through the backdoor ring a little hollow thanks to a recent leak that reveals what one of the EU's chief negotiators has to say on the subject of a "Christmas list of items" that lobbyists want in this area:

According to the negotiator, the most repeated request on the Christmas list was in "enforcement". Concerning this, companies had made requests to "improve and formalize" as well as for the authorities to "make statements". The Commission negotiator said that although joint 'enforcement statements' do not constitute "classical trade agreement language" -- a euphemism for things that do not belong in trade agreements -- the Commission still looks forward to "working in this area".

Sounds like ACTA through the back door to me...

Campact behauptet, dass TTIP undemokratisch sei und gewählte Politiker keine Einflussmöglichkeit hätten. Falsch.

Regierungen der Mitgliedstaaten, um sie vor, während und nach den Verhandlungsrunden „live“ über den Verhandlungsstand aufzuklären und deren Positionen zu einzubeziehen. Das Europäische Parlament wird ebenfalls regelmäßig über den Verhandlungsstand informiert, damit die Standpunkte und Interessen der demokratisch gewählten europäischen Abgeordneten in die Verhandlungen einfließen können. Am Ende sind es die EU-Mitgliedstaaten und das Europäische Parlament, die das letzte Wort über TTIP haben. 

So let's look at those claims.  It may well be that the Member States are kept informed - since they never pass on anything to their electorate, that hardly helps the public, say, who remain in the dark.  The European Parliament as a whole certainly isn't kept informed, even if one or two selected individuals are given information under embargo that they also cannot pass on.  And that "last word" that the European Parliament has over TTIP is all or nothing: as with ACTA, either it accepts the whole package, or it rejects the whole package.  That means it will be unable to remove the bad bits and keep the good bits.  By using emotional blackmail about the good bits, the European Commission will doubtless try to force through things like ISDS even though the European Parliament is increasingly alarmed about its dangers.

Worum soll es dann in diesem Handelsabkommen gehen?

Meistens verfolgen unsere Behörden auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks im Grunde das gleiche Ziel, wenn sie Standards und Zulassungsverfahren festlegen: Sie wollen Menschen vor Risiken für ihre Gesundheit schützen, für Sicherheit etwa am Arbeitsplatz sorgen, die Umwelt schützen oder die finanzielle Sicherheit einer Firma garantieren. Um dies zu erreichen, haben wir auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks aber häufig unterschiedliche regulatorische Strukturen und Traditionen. Daraus entstehen, obwohl das oft gar nicht beabsichtig ist, unterschiedliche Regelungen, die den Zugang zum anderen Markt oftmals erheblich erschweren. Schätzungen zufolge entsprechen aber allein diese bürokratischen Handelshürden einem Zoll von 10-20 Prozent.
Well, the aim may be the same, but the results are very different.  Here in Europe, we have the Precautionary Principle: that's not only absent in the US, but US industries have said many times that one of their *demands* for TAFTA/TTIP is that the Precautionary Principle should be dismantled.  Similarly, here in Europe we have the very strict REACH - Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals.  Again, US industries haves aid they want to get rid of this "barrier" to their profits.

Equally, nobody would suggest that social, employment or environmental standards in the US are anywhere near as stringent as those in the EU: the idea that they are somehow "equivalent" is ridiculous, and shows that the true intent of the European Commission is to water down EU standards to US levels.

Warum das alles? Die transatlantische Handels- und Investitionspartnerschaft könnte wie ein Konjunkturpaket wirken: Das Abkommen könnte der EU einen Wachstumsschub von 0,5 Prozent des Bruttoinlandsprodukts erbringen, das sind rund 120 Milliarden Euro, oder 500 Euro pro Haushalt – denn letztendlich bedeuten Kosteneinsparungen für Unternehmen auch preiswertere Produkte, mehr Qualität und Auswahl.

What that fails to mention is that the 119 billion euro GDP uplift would only come in 2027, and is the *most optimistic* scenario, which assumes massive deregulation.  So it would not produce more quality, but US-style chlorine-washed chickens, hormone-injected beef and GMOs.

And the idea that every household would somehow magically receive 500 euros, as if from some TAFTA/TTIP Father Christmas, is just dishonest: even if this impossibly ambitiously deregulation were achieved, most of the GDP boost would go to the giant international companies, which would then doubtless offshore their profits, so you can forget about any "trickle-down" effect either.

Meanwhile, to pay for those boosted bottom lines, and billions in bonuses for corporate fat-cats, ordinary people would find their jobs disappearing overseas, their food quality lowered, and broader environmental degradation caused by widespread fracking and extractive industries indifferent to the damage they cause.  If anyone needs to get the facts, it's the European Commission.


24 November 2013

Towards a Post-H.264 World

In my post yesterday about Cisco making the code for its H264 codec available, I noted that the really important news was that Mozilla was working on Daala, a fully open next generation codec. One of the key people on the team doing that is Monty Montgomery, and he's written a really interesting blog post about the announcement and its background, which I recommend thoroughly (the discussion in the comments is also very illuminating):

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Cisco Open-Sourcing its Code - or Openwashing?

You know that open source has won when everybody wants to wrap themselves in a little bit of openness in order to enjoy the glow. That's good news - provided it represents a move to true open source and not fauxpen source. Which brings me to the following news:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Of Surveillance Debates and Open Clinical Data

Revelations about the staggering levels of online surveillance that are now routine in this country have been met with a stunning silence from the UK government. There's an important meeting tomorrow where three MPs from the main parties are trying to get some kind of debate going on this crucial issue. It would be helpful if you could ask your MP to participate. Here's what I've written:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Clinical Trials: Please Write to Health Minister

I first wrote about the importance of open clinical trials two years ago. More recently, I urged people to contact their MEPs for a crucial vote that was taking place in one of the committees in the European Parliament. The AllTrials site, which is coordinating the fight to obtain access to this vital public health information, now asks for help during another stage in the battle for open data:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Brazil Grapples with the Problem of Software Patents

Software patents have figured quite frequently on this blog, usually in terms of their deep problems, especially for free software. Although I've tended to write about what's happening in Europe and the US, the rest of the world is also beginning to experience the same issues as computers enter ever-more deeply into daily life there, and is similarly seeking to come up with solutions.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Mozilla on the Bridge of Khazad - or on the Fence?

Last week I explored at some length the curious reasons that Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave for supporting the proposal to add hooks for DRM into HTML5. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux Foundation Celebrates with a Quadruple Scotch

My last two posts about the Linux Foundation have been about how it is broadening its scope to embrace open projects well beyond the Linux kernel. For example, there was the OpenDaylight Project, and then the OpenBEL. Now we have this:

On Open Enterprise blog.

ISDS: ACTA by the Back Door?

As I noted in my last TTIP update, things are beginning to get moving again on this front. One reflection of the growing interesting in this important trade and investment agreement was the public discussion entitled "Internet, Trade and Democracy: Transatlantic Relations under the Shadow of Surveillance", held in Berlin, and organised by Internet & Society Collaboratory and the blogger project FutureChallenges.org of the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Tim Berners-Lee on Why HTML5 "Needs" DRM

A couple of week ago, I discussed the awful idea of adding DRM to the official HTML5 standard, and where that would lead us. More recently, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a piece about openness that included the following comment:

On Open Enterprise blog.

TTIP Update III

It's been fairly quiet on the TAFTA/TTIP front recently. That's largely because Europe shuts down for its summer hols during August, and has only just got going again. Unfortunately (for TAFTA/TTIP), the next round of negotiations has just been cancelled because the US administration was busy being, er, not busy. But as a consolation prize, we have a couple of documents from the European Commission on the subject of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), which by a happy coincidence was the subject of my previous TTIP Update.

On Open Enterprise blog.

US Free Trade Agreements Are Bad Not Just For The Economy, But For The Environment, Too

A couple of months ago, we reported on some interesting research into the reality of US trade agreements, in contrast to the rosy pictures always painted when they are being sold to the public by politicians. In particular, it turned out that far from boosting US exports and creating more jobs, both the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and KORUS, the free trade agreement with South Korea, actually did the opposite -- increasing the US trade deficit with those countries, and destroying hundreds of thousands of American jobs. 

On Techdirt.

Dutch Telcos Used Customer Metadata, Retained To Fight Terrorism, For Everyday Marketing Purposes

One of the ironies of European outrage over the global surveillance conducted by the NSA and GCHQ is that in the EU, communications metadata must be kept by law anyway, although not many people there realize it. That's a consequence of the Data Retention Directive, passed in 2006, which: 

On Techdirt.

DRM In HTML5: What Is Tim Berners-Lee Thinking?

Back in January, we reported on a truly stupid idea: making DRM an official aspect of HTML5. Things then went quiet, until a couple of weeks ago a post on a W3C mailing announced that the work was "in scope". An excellent post on the EFF's blog explains: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Plans To Launch Sputnik Again -- This Time As A Search Engine

Techdirt has been reporting for a while the efforts of the Russian government to bring the Internet there under control. It now seems that it is taking a new approach: as well as banning or criminalizing activities it doesn't like, it wants to compete with them directly. Specifically, it plans to fund a new Russian search engine, called "Sputnik", named after the first artificial satellite, put into space by the Russians in 1957. According to an article in the news magazine "Der Spiegel" (original in German), this is designed to address two problems at once. 

On Techdirt.

Key Internet Institutions Ditch US Leadership; Brazil To Host Global Summit To Draw Up New Governance Model

Here's a hugely important story that brings together three major threads. First, the continuing wrangling over the form that Internet governance should take. Second, the fact that NSA's massive surveillance operations around the world have included economic espionage. And third, Brazil's increasingly angry reaction to that spying. As a post from the Internet Governance Project explains

On Techdirt.

The Difference Between Plagiarism And Copyright Infringement

Plagiarism is a complex and emotive issue, as previous Techdirt posts on the subject have shown. Perhaps because of that complexity, people often seem confused about the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement. The palaeontologist Mike Taylor has put together a short post with this handy explanation of how it works in an academic context

On Techdirt.

Canadian-Based Company Sues Canada Under NAFTA, Saying That Fracking Ban Takes Away Its Expected Profits

We've written several posts about a growing awareness of the dangers of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which lets foreign companies sue entire countries for the alleged loss of future profits. One of the most egregious examples of ISDS concerns Canada, which is being sued by Eli Lilly & Co for $500 million after refusing to grant it a couple of pharma patents. Now The Huffington Post has details about another ISDS case involving Canada

On Techdirt.

Universities Struggle To License Their Patents, In Desperation Team Up With Patent Trolls

A few months back, we wrote about the University of California's plan to lock up even more knowledge in the form of patents, in the hope that this would bring in lots of cash. But as Techdirt has reported time and again over the years, patenting research does not bring in more money to fund further research, in fact it probably doesn't bring in any money at all, once you allow for the costs of running tech transfer offices. Moreover, there's evidence that making the results of research freely available is much better for the wider economy than trying to turn them into intellectual monopolies. 

On Techdirt.

Fighting To Free Knowledge Paid For By Taxpayers -- And Winning

One of the pioneers of open access is Michael Eisen, who helped found what has become the leading open access publisher, Public Library of Science, back in 2000. Since then, he's been a pugnacious defender of the public's right to read the research it has paid for, so perhaps it's no surprise that he decided to take direct action in the following case involving NASA

On Techdirt.

Canadian Scientists Call Countrywide Protests Against Government Censorship, Found Advocacy Group

Back in April, we noted that the Canadian government has been trying to muzzle various groups in the country, including librarians and scientists. It now seems that some scientists have had enough, as the Guardian reports: 

On Techdirt.

Misleading Figures Used To Puff Up Importance Of Intellectual Monopolies In Europe

We've noted before attempts to inflate the importance of copyright, patents and trademarks by including a bunch of other sectors that are only tangentially related to them when it comes to totting up their economic impact. For example, last year Mike wrote about a joint Department of Commerce/US Patent and Trademark Office "study" that included 2.5 million grocery store jobs in its definition of "IP-intensive" industries. 

On Techdirt.

Peruvian Congress Finalizes And Approves New Computer Crime Law In Secret Session, With No Public Discussion

Like many countries, Peru has been working on a law to deal with various kinds of crimes that involve computers and the Internet in some way. But as Access Now reports, this process has just been concluded in a pretty outrageous fashion, displaying deep contempt for the Peruvian people: 

On Techdirt.

China Sends Mixed Signals On Censorship

Last week we wrote about China's worrying new censorship approach, which threatens up to three years in prison for those spreading "false information" if their posts are viewed 5000 times, or forwarded 500 times. Improbable though that law is in its exactitude, it seems it has already been applied

On Techdirt.

New Encrypted Email Services Coming From Kim Dotcom's Mega And Newzbin

A month ago, we wrote about Kim Dotcom's plans to form his own political party in New Zealand. But that's not the only way that Dotcom is going on the attack against the system. Here's Vikram Kumar, the Chief Executive of Dotcom's "privacy company" Mega, on another bold move

On Techdirt.