To the US Congress: reveal the contents of the TPP now

It seems like a case of mass hyp­no­sis. Peo­ple claim­ing they can’t say what’s in the TPP trade agree­ment. And main­stream media accept this premise.

“That’s right. Con­gress must stay silent.”

Pop quiz: who says the text of the TPP must remain secret?

Under what authority?

Mem­bers of Con­gress are scut­tling around like weasels, claim­ing they can’t dis­close what’s in this far-reach­ing, 12-nation trade treaty.

They can go into a sealed room and read a draft, but they can’t copy pages, and they can’t tell the pub­lic what they just read.

Why not?

If there is a US law for­bid­ding dis­clo­sure, name the law.

Can you recall any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion that estab­lish­es secret treaties?

Is there a pri­or treaty that states the text of all treaties can be hid­den from the people?

I see no author­i­ty any­where that jus­ti­fies with­hold­ing the text of the TPP.

Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tors in the oth­er 11 nations: why can’t you reveal what’s in the TPP?

Mass silence around the world. “Sor­ry, we can’t say what’s in the treaty. We’ll vote on it, but you the peo­ple have no input. You have to take what we do on faith.”

Who says so? By what authority?

If a US Sen­a­tor held a press con­fer­ence today and explained every­thing he read in that sealed room about the TPP, what exact­ly would hap­pen to him? Would he be arrested?

Would he be charged with a fed­er­al crime?

What crime?

If he used his cell phone to take pic­tures of pages of the TPP, and came out of the room and sent the pic­tures to 500 press out­lets, what would happen?

Would the DOJ roll a few tanks up to his house and put him in cuffs? Would he be placed on trial?

If so, on what charge?

Would the tri­al itself be secret?

Or would every­one sud­den­ly look at each oth­er and say, “We nev­er real­ized it before, but the emper­or has no clothes!”

What would hap­pen if a Sen­a­tor went into the sealed room, picked up the whole TPP text or the lap­top on which it’s stored, bulled his way out of the room, passed the text to his secu­ri­ty staff, and had them for­ward every page to a few hun­dred media out­lets around the world?

Would DHS agents shoot these peo­ple in broad day­light, just to pro­tect the inter­ests of David Rock­e­feller and his Glob­al­ist heavy hitters?

Why haven’t the New York Times, the Wash­ing­ton Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, the BBC and oth­er out­lets run major sto­ries that detail under what pre­cise author­i­ty the TPP text is being kept secret?

What are we miss­ing here?

Is it sim­ply that a bunch of nation­al lead­ers and cor­po­rate big shots and trade rep­re­sen­ta­tives nod­ded and said: “Keep the text a secret”?

Did they arbi­trar­i­ly give the TPP nego­ti­at­ing process a name, a label, with the word “author­i­ty” in it?

I just met with myself and decid­ed to estab­lish The Naked TPP Author­i­ty. I gave it pri­ma­cy over all oth­er nego­ti­at­ing bod­ies, and by its dec­la­ra­tion, the full text of the TPP must be pub­lished for the whole world to see, for two years, before any fur­ther votes take place.

There. It’s done.

I ful­ly believe my Naked Author­i­ty car­ries more Con­sti­tu­tion­al jus­ti­fi­ca­tion than the cur­rent scheme, which is clear­ly criminal.

US Con­gress­man: “I’m sor­ry, my lips are sealed, I’m bound, I can’t reveal what’s in the treaty that will adverse­ly affect the lives of hun­dreds of mil­lions of people.”

“Wrong. You’re lying. You can reveal secret text. In fact, it’s your duty. Oth­er­wise, you’re guilty of coop­er­at­ing in a RICO crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy. Now, let’s start at the begin­ning. Who told you that you had to remain silent? What US law did they cite? Take your time. We’ll stay here as long as it takes.”

Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 2, Clause 2 of the US Con­sti­tu­tion states: “[The Pres­i­dent] shall have Pow­er, by and with the Advice and Con­sent of the Sen­ate, to make Treaties, pro­vid­ed two thirds of the Sen­a­tors present concur…”

Noth­ing there about secret treaties. Noth­ing there about the Pres­i­dent hav­ing the dis­cre­tion to keep the text of treaties secret.

Of course, a Pres­i­dent could argue that treaties, if exposed to the light of day pri­or to a Sen­ate vote, would face so much crit­i­cism and cross-talk that they would nev­er pass.

But that’s a prac­ti­cal issue and prob­lem. It’s called “free speech.” It’s also some­times called “dis­sent.”