Category Archives: Tyranny

Privacy, Tyranny

Bruce Schneier: ‘I Think There’s a Second NSA Leaker’

Security expert says a new whistleblower has emerged, Greenwald agrees

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars: July 4, 2014

Security expert Bruce Schneier reacted to yesterday’s new revelations about the NSA by asserting that there’s probably a second leaker in addition to Edward Snowden.

As we highlighted yesterday, reporters who conducted an analysis of the NSA’s “deep packet inspection” rules discovered that the federal agency was placing people in an “extremists” database simply for searching for information about Tor and Tails, an anonymous browser and a privacy-friendly operating system.

Although the authors did not specify the source of the revelation (for obvious reasons), Schneier believes the information could have been provided by a new whistleblower.

“I do not believe that this came from the Snowden documents. I also don’t believe the TAO catalog came from the Snowden documents. I think there’s a second leaker out there,” wrote Schneier on his blog.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has worked closely with Edward Snowden in reporting on leaked NSA documents over the past year, appeared to agree with Schneier, tweeting, “Seems clear at this point.”

(read the full article at Infowars)

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Banksters, Geopolitics/War, Health/Environment, Privacy, Tyranny

Newly released FBI files on 9/11 CONFIRM GOVERNMENT COVER UP

Newly released FBI files on 9/11 Florida investigation reveal an “antagonist” from Jerusalem – Who is the government trying to protect?

Joshua Cook
Ben Swann : July 3, 2014

Thanks to the tireless effort of watchdog organization the Broward Bulldog and its Freedom of Information Act suit against the government, more information is being released about the Sarasota Saudis who moved suddenly out of their home, leaving behind clothing, jewelry and cars, about two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Benswann.com has followed this story for months now and on Monday, the FBI released 11 heavily censored pages, which also include information on an “antagonist” to the United States.

From an FBI report dated April 2002:

It says the Tampa FBI office “has determined that (blank) is an antagonist of the United States of America. (Blank) resides in Jerusalem. (Blank) allegedly has held regular and recurring meetings at his residence to denounce and criticize the United States of America and its policies. (Blank) is allegedly an international businessman with great wealth.”

In November 2001, (blank) visited the United States for the first time. He traveled to Sarasota, Florida, opened a bank account and made initial queries into the purchase of property in south central Florida. (Blank) intends to establish a Muslim compound in Central Florida. (Blank) revealed that (blank) is fearful of (blank) and fears that (blank) intends to begin offensive operations against the United States if he is able to purchase property and establish a Muslim compound in Central Florida.”

Unfortunately, those blanks won’t be uncensored until 2039, which makes you wonder who the government is trying to protect?

The Broward Bulldog sued in 2012 after being denied access to the FBI’s file on a once-secret investigation focusing on the Sarasota Saudis — Abdulaziz al-Hijji, his wife, Anoud, and her father  Esam Ghazzawi, an advisor to a Saudi prince.

The pages reveal  that the al-Hijjis had departed the U.S. in haste shortly before 9/11 and that “further investigation” had “revealed many connections” between them and persons associated with “attacks on 9/11/2001.” Even though, publicly the FBI has denied any connection.

Another interesting part of the documents include this story, which took place around Halloween, 2001:

Deputies were called after a man with a Tunisian passport was observed disposing of items in a dumpster behind a storage facility he had rented in Bradenton.

The man’s name is blanked out, but the report says authorities who searched the dumpster found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad, a map of the inside of an unnamed airport, a rudimentary last will and testament, a weight to fuel ratio calculation for a Cessna 172 aircraft, flight training information from the Flight Training Center in Venice [Fla.] and printed maps of Publix shopping centers in Tampa Bay.”

The Flight Training Center is where 9/11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in Shanksville, Pa, took flying lessons.

Read the documents here. The documents were located via court-ordered text searches using the names of the al-Hijjis and Ghazzawi. U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch is currently reviewing more than 80,000 pages of 9/11 records.

Miami First Amendment attorney Thomas Julin represents BrowardBulldog.org and said:

“This release suggests that the FBI has covered up information that is vitally important to public safety. It’s startling that after initially denying they had any documents they continue to find new documents as the weeks and months roll by. Each new batch suggests there are many, many more documents.”

(read the full article at Ben Swann)

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Privacy, Tyranny

Intelligence Agencies Conducted Broad Sweep Of Warrantless Searches On Americans

Matt Sledge
Huffington Post: Jul 1, 2014

The nation’s top intelligence agency revealed in a letter made public Monday that the NSA, CIA and FBI are engaging in a large number of warrantless searches of the content of Americans’ communications caught up in collection on foreign targets.

The letter, sent by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), also disclosed that there are large gaps in how the government tracks searches on Americans’ communications — and that the FBI simply does not track such searches at all.

Those revelations immediately raised an alarm for Wyden, who has begged the NSA for years to reveal how many “backdoor searches” it conducts, and on June 5 in Senate questioning pressed again for more detail.

“When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight,” Wyden said in a statement. “This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected.”

The intelligence agencies for years have resisted making public the details of such searches, conducted under a 2008 law meant to bring President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program under court review.

A provision of the law crafted then, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was meant to ensure that only foreigners would be targeted for NSA collection. But the agency collects both sides of communications sent abroad, meaning that the agency picks up the content of Americans’ communications “incidentally” collected. The Washington Post reported on Monday that the NSA considers 193 foreign countries — containing the vast majority of the earth’s population — to be valid foreign intelligence targets.

(read the full article at Huffington Post)

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Privacy, Tyranny

Canadian Court to the Entire World: No Links For You!

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ordered Google to remove entire domains from its search results—a decision that could have enormous global implications on free expression. This is the latest of several instances of courts exercising dangerous jurisdictional overreach, where they have applied local laws to remove content on the Internet. Not only did the Court order Google to delete the site from its search results on the Canadian “Google.ca” domain, it went even further by demanding it censor the domain worldwide by deleting every instance of the site from its global index.

The case, titled Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, involved a trade secret fight between two Canadian companies. One sued the other for allegedly stealing the designs of some of their products and selling them on their website. The plaintiff claimed that Google facilitated access to this illegitimate online vendor through its search platform. Initially, Google voluntarily took down specific URLs that directed users to those products and ads under the local Google.ca domains, but the Court decided that was not enough. The judge ultimately ruled that Google must delete the entire domain from its search results, including all other local domains such as “Google.go.uk” and even the main site “Google.com”.

Oddly, the judge in this case seemed unfazed by the wide-ranging implications of this order. Based upon the assumption that users would simply switch to other variants of the Google domain, she decided that for any blockage ruling “to be effective, even within Canada, Google must block search results on all of its websites” and that any other external impacts are a “separate issue.”

The decision is a massive overreach. The removal of the defendant’s entire domain from Google’s local Canadian sites would have already been excessive. Although it cannot be confirmed from official reports, this one could have carried other legitimate products unrelated to the plaintiff’s designs, or even hosted a blog or discussion forum with other users’ comments and submissions. For example, the U.S. seized and took down the hip-hop culture website, Dajaz1.com, due to some allegedly copyright infringing works that was shared on the platform even while most of the site’s pages contained lawful content. It’s not clear whether such considerations were made at all, and that is terrifying on its own.

But the court went even further, ordering Google—a company based outside its jurisdiction in California—to censor the site worldwide. If left unchallenged, this could leading to a slippery slope of ever more countries feeling empowered to mandate global online censorship. If a Turkish court were to find that a certain protest site was illegal, would intermediary services like Google be forced to remove all references of the domain name from its site? Or if Ethiopia mandated the deletion of all sites referring to imprisoned journalist, Eskinder Nega, would online platforms be forced to comply with that order?

Those are only a few examples of how such a precedent could dangerously expand. If courts become empowered to demand intermediary platforms remove and take down domains worldwide, that could be the end of online free expression as we know it. And if history has taught us anything, authorities are very good at creatively constructing legitimacy to shut down speech. This case alone is evidence of that: the judge mentioned that she was inspired by the recent EU rulings on the “right to be forgotten,” and felt that forcing global removals was just a way to “keep up with the times.”

We can imagine how problematic this would be if it were applied to copyright infringement. There is already a history of cases in which government agencies have taken down entire domains over allegations of content piracy. The United States has been especially guilty of this. One of the most glaring cases involve Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), when it took down a Spanish sports streaming site, Rojadirecta. It is alarming that any government agency, anywhere in the world, would have the authority to unilaterally remove an entire website, especially when doing so may violate another country’s strong legal protections for the right to free expression. This kind of forceful takedown of domains is exactly the kind of sweeping censorship that what we fought against in the SOPA and PIPA bills defeated over two years ago. No matter what the charges are, there is no reasonable justification for intermediaries to block an entire website over content that only some of the pages contain.

Thankfully, Google has indicated that it intends to appeal the decision to prevent this from becoming a dangerous new precedent. It is as important as ever that intermediaries, such as search engines, Internet service providers, and domain name registrars, be protected as neutral platforms. They are often attractive targets for those who want those services to help them remedy alleged wrongdoing. But dragging intermediaries into court as implicit facilitators of unlawful activity creates a wide range of negative, unintended consequences for the Internet. Just because a party has been wronged does not mean that they are entitled to any and all remedies. Going after intermediaries is an easy shortcut, but one with too many costly ramifications.

(Source: EFF cc)

Privacy, Tyranny

Research Teams Publish Details of Government Phone Hacking Tools

Derrick Broze
Ben Swann: June 27, 2014

Research teams in Russia and Toronto have uncovered new details regarding surveillance tools used by more than 60 governments around the globe.

Reports from Kaspersky Lab in Russia and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs in Canada reveal various components of tracking tools made by Italian company Hacking Team. The spyware can take control of wi-fi, and gps; record voice, take screenshots and pictures, and turn on the microphone; view visited urls, address books, call history, notes, calendar, and emails; and log all keystrokes. The tools are designed to detect attempts to locate them and automatically delete if under attack.

The Kaspersky Lab found more than three hundred and fifty command-and-control servers created for the tools, in more than forty countries. With sixty four servers the United States leads the way followed by Kazakhstan with forty nine, Ecuador with thirty five and the United Kingdom with thirty two. Although it is unknown whether law enforcement agencies in the United States use the tools, or if they are used by other governments, however Kaspersky states that its unlikely for governments to maintain servers in foreign countries where they might lose control of them.

The tools are designed to be used with Android, Ios, Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices. The labs found that with the Android version a phone’s Wi-Fi function can be used to pull information off the phone wirelessly rather than using the network which could possibly notify the phone owner of a rise in data use. The iOS version only works on jailbroken iPhones but this is easily remedied if authorities run a jailbreaking program and then install the tool. Even with a password protected phone it is still possible for police to access the device if it is connected to a computer with the Hacking Teams main surveillance tool – the Remote Control System, also known as DaVinci or Galileo.

The Toronto team also received a copy of the user manual Hacking Team provides to their customer. The document explains to agencies how to create the system needed to implant targeted machines and how to use the software’s dashboard to manage data stolen from infected phones and computers.  The company recommends its customers set up anonymous proxy servers to route the stolen information from the devices. This is meant to prevent curious researchers or phone users from follow the data trail back to the command servers.

(read the full article at Ben Swann)

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Tyranny

Herr Harper Spits on Charter Of Rights & Freedoms; Treat Every Protester as a Potential Threat

The Harper Government Is Expanding Their Surveillance Policy to Treat Every Protester as a Potential Threat

Remi L. Roy
Vice: June 26, 2014

In a push that sees Canada move one step closer to a state where being constantly watched, catalogued, and data mined is the norm, the Conservative government recently decided to expand its public surveillance policy to include all protests and demonstrations. The Government Operations Centre sent an email to all federal departments that requested information on even the most mundane social movements. The email then leaked to Postmedia news and opposition parties are now crying afoul, calling the plan a clear blow to democratic freedom.

NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison believes the government’s play is a smack in the face of basic democratic rights and freedoms. Though he doesn’t feel we’ve quite moved into a Big Brother state in Canada, he says this issue is proof that the country is undoubtedly heading in that troubling direction under the strong arm of the Harper Conservatives.

“It’s a fundamental disrespect for basic rights of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, to say that they should monitor all the time in case somebody in the future breaks the law. It’s shocking,” he told VICE. “They’ve appeared to take the position now that the government should spy on everyone who protests because there is some possibility in the future that any of us might become violent. That’s a big concern, when the government’s expressing that kind of attitude.”

In addition to gathering presumptive data for unknown purposes, the GOC will also be making use of bureaucrats and public servants to monitor legitimate protests, big or small, peaceful or vigilant, all on the taxpayer dime. From Garrison’s perspective, the most disturbing part of this push is that it is indicative of yet another bullet point on a troubling agenda that has been written over the last eight years.

“I think that’s one of its important and unfortunate impacts is that it makes Canadians very cynical and, in a certain way, almost accepting that the Conservatives are going to do things like this,” he says. “I don’t think pieces by themselves are as disturbing as the pattern. We see it with online data, we see it with the provisions they are trying to put into Bill C-13… to this order that all government departments spy on protestors. We see it in so many areas, and it’s that pattern that’s of most concern to me.”

Liberal MP Wayne Easter, also the party’s public safety critic, has called this a play one would see in a dictatorship. Easter believes his use of hyperbole, if one can even call it that, is not alarmist in the slightest. He is convinced that the government’s move to collect this brand of information is one step closer to creating a closed and fearful society:

“Sometimes you have to over-express to emphasize the danger that’s here, so that’s why the word was used,” he says, explaining his use of the term “dictatorship” to describe the government du jour. “I emphasized the point because this is in fact what you see in some dictatorships around the world and if you look at our history where a government’s spied on its citizens, neighbours spied on each other, people were in fear of each other.”

Blacklisted in the 70s on a count of a radical movement as former president of the National Farmers Union, Easter knows first-hand what it means to be on a government checklist. Shutting down political opposition, using technology to monitor the population, and instilling fear into groups that oppose the powers that be, he says, are draconian tactics being utilized by an insecure government on Parliament Hill willing to go to any length to retain its rule.

“This is all about control. If you look at the way the Harper government has treated charity organizations, for instance, they’ve gone on a concentrated attack on charities and even the status of women… that is, in a great many ways, creating a loss of expression by those who should speak out in Canadian society. Canada should be an open society where demonstrations are a healthy part of your society. And where is that information? That information is collected and gathered and then, what is done with it?”

(read the full article at Vice)

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Banksters, Corporate Welfare, Geopolitics/War, Health/Environment, Privacy, Tyranny

Canada to host TPP negotiations in July: Treason behind closed doors

The TPP is coming to Canada (not that it’s easy to tell)

Scott Harris
The Council of Canadians: June 25, 2014

Canada is about to play host to the latest round of high-level talks aimed at concluding the sweeping 12-nation trade and corporate rights pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but the Harper government seems to be doing as much as it can to ensure nobody even knows it’s happening.

Not that secrecy is something new when it comes to TPP negotiations which started back in 2008, and which Canada joined in October of 2012.

It’s one of the largest and most dangerous agreements ever negotiated, with 12 countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam) involved, representing almost 800 million people and almost 40 percent of the world economy. While it’s presented as another “free trade” agreement, only a handful of the TPP’s expected 29 Chapters have anything to do with traditional trade issues like market access for goods. The rest deal with dictating how governments can regulate corporations, the length of pharmaceutical and copyright terms, rules on the Internet and the sharing of data across borders, and rules for the financial sector.

Worse yet, all of this will be backed up by a NAFTA Chapter 11-like process of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which will allow corporations to sue governments for compensation when environmental, health or other regulatory policies interfere with profits.

But despite the far-reaching impacts TPP will have if concluded, the talks have been largely shrouded in secrecy. Negotiating texts are secret, so everything the public knows about TPP has come from leaked documents. Background materials won’t be made public until four years after the TPP negotiations end. Even elected members of national parliaments apparently can’t be trusted with knowing what’s in the TPP and they’ve had to push to see the agreement before it’s signed.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Canada’s first (and likely last) turn as host of a high-level TPP negotiating round is also shrouded in secrecy.

Negotiations are supposed to start in Ottawa on July 3 and run until July 12, with the lead negotiators joining smaller, issue-specific negotiating teams starting on July 5. Even though the talks are slated to begin next week, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) only made it official on their website yesterday afternoon (June 24) with a brief note saying, “Negotiators, subject matter experts and other officials will meet in Ottawa, Canada, from July 3-12. No ministerial meeting is being scheduled on the margin of the officials meeting in Ottawa.”

Even more curiously, the talks had been initially booked in Vancouver (not that the hosts made an official announcement about the meetings), but on June 18 Canada suddenly notified the other negotiating parties that it was switching the venue to Ottawa.

And while negotiators and interested civil society groups now know (unless it changes again) that the talks will be indeed be held in Ottawa, no other details have been revealed. Nobody — not even negotiators coming to Canada next week for the talks — have been told the location. Specific information about when negotiations on specific chapters will take place are being kept similarly under wraps.

There has been no response from requests from interested civil society groups for information about opportunities for engagement with negotiators. In previous rounds of the TPP negotiations some efforts were made to facilitate discussions with negotiators, albeit with the challenge of not being able to know the specifics of what was being negotiated. As the negotiations have moved forward, however, public interest groups have been increasingly sidelined from the process and shut out of negotiations.

And for its first crack at hosting a chief negotiators-level TPP meeting, it would seem, Canada has taken it to the extreme by attempting to eliminate any possibility of engagement by civil society at all, and is not even letting negotiators from other countries know the location out of concern that word will get out.

With some speculation that the TPP could be finished late this year, it’s more important than ever that Canadians — and the citizens of the other 11 TPP countries — know what’s being negotiated in their name and have a chance to see the deal before it’s signed. Unfortunately, the Harper government is instead doing everything it can to make sure nobody can even find the meetings.

Source:
http://canadians.org/blog/tpp-coming-canada-not-its-easy-tell
cc

Drugs, Tyranny

A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

That’s right: Officers threw a flashbang grenade in my son’s crib — and left a hole in his chest. It gets worse

Alecia Phonesavanh
Salon : June 24, 2014

After our house burned down in Wisconsin a few months ago, my husband and I packed our four young kids and all our belongings into a gold minivan and drove to my sister-in-law’s place, just outside of Atlanta. On the back windshield, we pasted six stick figures: a dad, a mom, three young girls, and one baby boy.

That minivan was sitting in the front driveway of my sister-in-law’s place the night a SWAT team broke in, looking for a small amount of drugs they thought my husband’s nephew had. Some of my kids’ toys were in the front yard, but the officers claimed they had no way of knowing children might be present. Our whole family was sleeping in the same room, one bed for us, one for the girls, and a crib.

After the SWAT team broke down the door, they threw a flashbang grenade inside. It landed in my son’s crib.

Flashbang grenades were created for soldiers to use during battle. When they explode, the noise is so loud and the flash is so bright that anyone close by is temporarily blinded and deafened. It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns.

There’s still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. At least that’s what I’ve been told; I’m afraid to look.

My husband’s nephew, the one they were looking for, wasn’t there. He doesn’t even live in that house. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers – armed with M16s – filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any.

I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth. It was only hours later when they finally let us drive to the hospital that we found out Bou Bou was in the intensive burn unit and that he’d been placed into a medically induced coma.

For the last three weeks, my husband and I have been sleeping at the hospital. We tell our son that we love him and we’ll never leave him behind. His car seat is still in the minivan, right where it’s always been, and we whisper to him that soon we’ll be taking him home with us.

Every morning, I have to face the reality that my son is fighting for his life. It’s not clear whether he’ll live or die. All of this to find a small amount of drugs?

The only silver lining I can possibly see is that my baby Bou Bou’s story might make us angry enough that we stop accepting brutal SWAT raids as a normal way to fight the “war on drugs.” I know that this has happened to other families, here in Georgia and across the country. I know that SWAT teams are breaking into homes in the middle of the night, more often than not just to serve search warrants in drug cases. I know that too many local cops have stockpiled weapons that were made for soldiers to take to war. And as is usually the case with aggressive policing, I know that people of color and poor people are more likely to be targeted. I know these things because of the American Civil Liberties Union’s new report, and because I’m working with them to push for restraints on the use of SWAT.

A few nights ago, my 8-year-old woke up in the middle of the night screaming, “No, don’t kill him! You’re hurting my brother! Don’t kill him.” How can I ever make that go away? I used to tell my kids that if they were ever in trouble, they should go to the police for help. Now my kids don’t want to go to sleep at night because they’re afraid the cops will kill them or their family. It’s time to remind the cops that they should be serving and protecting our neighborhoods, not waging war on the people in them.

(read the full article at Salon)

Privacy, Tyranny

The government spied on me without a warrant

Cindy Blackstock : June 21, 2014

Earlier this month Canadians joined with the international community to honour the sacrifice made by Second World War veterans to preserve our freedom. At the same time, headlines in Canadian newspapers warned of government surveillance of citizens engaged in peaceful protests. It made me wonder — why would we allow our own government to trample on the freedoms that many Canadians died protecting?

Until it happened to me I thought domestic government surveillance could only be carried out with a warrant. In my case there was no warrant and yet in 2011, I received hundreds of pages of government documents revealing that 189 federal government officials from the departments of Justice and Aboriginal Affairs were routinely spying on my personal Facebook page, collecting information about my family, friends and me, and distributing it to other government officials.

They even collected Facebook addresses of other users and circulated postings made by children, without the consent of their parents. My domestic and international movements were monitored and my personal and private government records were accessed. Government email correspondence suggested the surveillance was undertaken to try to prove I had “other motives” for filing a historic human rights case in 2007 alleging the federal government’s provision of First Nations child welfare was discriminatory.

I was stunned and afraid — it felt like I was being stalked. I remember thinking this cannot possibly be legal, but I had no idea where to file a report about the Canadian departments of Justice and Aboriginal Affairs, and what would happen to me and the people I cared about if I did report it?

Amidst the fear and confusion I thought that if this was happening to me — a law-abiding social worker who does not even have a parking ticket — then how many other Canadians are subject to government surveillance and what does it mean for our freedom? In fact I had good reason to believe others were affected, as the Department of Aboriginal Affairs had a form for bureaucrats to access restricted websites.

As a taxpayer I was equally appalled — why was the government wasting all this money following me around while cutting services to Canadians? I decided to share the government documents with the media. Some people say I was courageous but I was simply less afraid of standing up for freedom than of living without it.

The privacy commissioner found the federal government’s access of my personal Facebook page violated the Privacy Act and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is currently deliberating on whether the government’s conduct amounts to retaliation under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Meanwhile, three United Nations Special Rapporteurs are conducting an inquiry to determine if Canada is meeting its international human rights obligations to respect and protect human rights defenders, freedom of association and Indigenous peoples.

[…]

Some say that people with nothing to hide should not be afraid of government surveillance. I believe that governments with nothing to hide should not be spying on citizens without a court order. It should frighten us all when our own government takes away the freedoms that our veterans fought so hard for us to enjoy.

(read the full article at The Star)

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Banksters, Corporate Welfare, Geopolitics/War, Tyranny

LEAKED : Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)

Today, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, which covers 50 countries and 68.2% of world trade in services. The US and the EU are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes, which also covers cross-border data flow. In a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre by the parties, the draft has been classified to keep it secret not just during the negotiations but for five years after the TISA enters into force.

Despite the failures in financial regulation evident during the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and calls for improvement of relevant regulatory structures, proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. The leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data.

TISA negotiations are currently taking place outside of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. However, the Agreement is being crafted to be compatible with GATS so that a critical mass of participants will be able to pressure remaining WTO members to sign on in the future. Conspicuously absent from the 50 countries covered by the negotiations are the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. The exclusive nature of TISA will weaken their position in future services negotiations.

The draft text comes from the April 2014 negotiation round – the sixth round since the first held in April 2013. The next round of negotiations will take place on 23-27 June in Geneva, Switzerland.

Current WTO parties negotiating TISA are: Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, which includes its 28 member states Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

China and Uruguay have expressed interest in joining the negotiations but so far are not included.

The only avenue TISA negotiators offer for public input is via public submissions. Each country has their own method for handling submissions. Below are the public submissions from the biggest proponents of TISA.

Read the Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex

Read the Analysis Article – Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex

(Source : Wikileaks)

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