EU gives green light German, Swedish temporary re-imposition of border controls.

EU gives green light to German, Swedish temporary border checks. (DS).

The European Commission has formally authorized the temporary re-imposition of border controls by Sweden and Germany's extension of frontier checks to help get a grip on a large influx of asylum seekers, the EU executive said Friday.

With refugees flooding into European Union territory in the worst migrant crisis since World War II, the viability of the EU's Schengen system of open borders is under strain as never before as EU members reintroduce controls at their frontiers.

Sweden, long a haven for people fleeing war and persecution, was the latest EU state to re-establish checks at its borders to stem a tide of migrants coming from Denmark.

Germany reimposed border controls on Sept. 13 and decided to extend them beyond an initial limit of two months foreseen by Schengen rules, using a clause that permits stretching checks to a maximum of six months.

"The temporary reintroduction of border controls between member states is an exceptional possibility explicitly foreseen in and regulated by the Schengen Borders Code, in case of a serious threat to public policy or internal security," the European Commission said in a statement.

The Swedish decision "prima facie appears to be a situation covered by the rules", it said.

The decision replicated similar provisional authorizations granted by the EU executive to Austria, Hungary and Slovenia when they imposed temporary border controls in recent weeks.

"We have no objections to measures that should remain proportionate," a Commission spokeswoman told a regular news briefing. "Saving Schengen is a race against time. And we are determined to win that race," the head of EU leaders, Donald Tusk said after the meeting. Hmmm.........Too late the political face of Europe will be changed coming next election.

Video - Just how bad is the TPP? As bad as it can get!

RELATED:

TPP ‘worst thing Harper did for Canada’ & will cost hundreds of billions – ex-Blackberry tycoon

The TPP may lead to:

Violent revolution throughout the West and the complete elimination of the One Percent is another possible outcome. Once, for example, the French people discover that they have lost all control over their diet to Monsanto and American agribusiness, the members of the French government that delivered France into dietary bondage to toxic foods are likely to be killed in the streets.

The Re-enserfment of Western Peoples.

The Re-enserfment of Western Peoples. (RT).

The re-enserfment of Western peoples is taking place on several levels. One about which I have been writing for more than a decade comes from the offshoring of jobs. Americans, for example, have a shrinking participation in the production of the goods and services that are marketed to them.

These so called "trade partnerships" have nothing to do with trade. These agreements negotiated in secrecy grant immunity to corporations from the laws of the countries in which they do busy. This is achieved by declaring any interference by existing and prospective laws and regulations on corporate profits as restraints on trade for which corporations can sue and fine "sovereign" governments. 

For example, the ban in France and other counries on GMO products would be negated by the Trans-Atlantic Partnership. Democracy is simply replaced by corporate rule.

I have been meaning to write about this at length. However, others, such as Chris Hedges, are doing a good job of explaining the power grab that eliminates representative government.

The corporations are buying power cheaply. They bought the entire US House of Representatives for just under $200 million. This is what the corporations paid Congress to go along with "Fast Track," which permits the corporations' agent, the US Trade Representative, to negotiate in secret without congressional input or oversight.

In other words, a US corporate agent deals with corporate agents in the countries that will comprise the "partnership," and this handful of well-bribed people draw up an agreement that supplants law with the interests of corporations. No one negotiating the partnership represents the peoples' or public's interests. The governments of the partnership countries get to vote the deal up or down, and they will be well paid to vote for the agreement.

Once these partnerships are in effect, government itself is privatized. There is no longer any point in legislatures, presidents, prime ministers, judges.

Violent revolution throughout the West and the complete elimination of the One Percent is another possible outcome. Once, for example, the French people discover that they have lost all control over their diet to Monsanto and American agribusiness, the members of the French government that delivered France into dietary bondage to toxic foods are likely to be killed in the streets. Hmmm......Welcome to 'the dark ages'.  Read the full story here.

Related: TPP ‘worst thing Harper did for Canada’ & will cost hundreds of billions – ex-Blackberry tycoon

WikiLeaks releases draft of highly-secretive multi-national trade deal - TPP is about world domination for US corporations.

TPP Uncovered: WikiLeaks releases draft of highly-secretive multi-national trade deal. HT: RussiaToday.

'No wonder they kept it secret, TPP is about world domination for US corporations.'

 Details of a highly secretive, multi-national trade agreement long in works has been published by WikiLeaks, and critics say there will be major repercussions for much of the modern world if its approved in this incarnation.
The anti-secrecy group published on Wednesday a 95-page excerpt taken from a recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a NAFTA-like agreement that is expected to encompass nations representing more than 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product when it is finally approved: the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei.

#WikiLeaks release on secret #TPP that represents more than 40% of the world GDP - full negotiated IP draft text | http://t.co/FOOH82tBCI
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 13, 2013

US President Barack Obama and counterparts from 11 other prospective member states have been hammering out the free trade agreement in utmost secrecy for years now, the result of which, according to the White House, would rekindle the economies of all of those involved, including many countries considered to still be emerging.
“The TPP will boost our economies, lowering barriers to trade and investment, increasing exports and creating more jobs for our people, which is my number-one priority,” Obama said during a Nov. 2011 address. The deal, he said, “has the potential to be a model not only for the Asia Pacific but for future trade agreements” by regulating markets and creating opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses in the growing global marketplace. 
Upon the publication of an excerpt obtained by WikiLeaks this week, however, opponents of the act are insisting that provisions dealing with creation, invention and innovation could serve a severe blow to everyone, particularly those the internet realm.
Although the TPP covers an array of topics — many of which have not been covered by past agreements, according to Obama — WikiLeaks has published a chapter from a draft dated August 30, 2013 that deals solely on Intellectual Property, or IP, rights. Previous reports about the rumored contents of the TPP with regards to IP law have raised concern among activists before, with the California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation going as far as to warn that earlier leaked draft text suggested the agreement “would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate,” all of which is being agreed upon without any oversight or observation. Indeed, the thousands of words released by WikiLeaks this week has concreted those fears and has already caused the likes of the EFF and others to sound an alarm.

The newly leaked TPP text confirms it's a serious threat to users' rights. Help us stop it: https://t.co/JEfZ5SNMhJ
— EFF (@EFF) November 13, 2013

The IP chapter, wrote WikiLeaks, “provides the public with the fullest opportunity so far to familiarize themselves with the details and implications of the TPP,” an agreement that has largely avoided scrutiny in the mainstream media during its development, no thanks, presumably, to the under-the-table arguments that have led prospective member states to the point they’re at today.
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of the whistleblower site who has been confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year now, had particularly harsh words for the TPP in a statement published alongside the draft release.
“If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons,” Assange said. “If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”
Within the IP chapter, the partaking nations in one excerpt agree to “Enhance the role of intellectual property in promoting economic and social development,” but elsewhere suggest that the way in which such could be accomplished would involve serious policing of the World Wide Web. Later, the countries write they hope to “reduce impediments to trade and investment by promoting deeper economic integration through effective and adequate creation, utilization, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, taking into account the different levels of economic development and capacity as well as differences in national legal systems.”
“Compared to existing multilateral agreements, the TPP IPR chapter proposes the granting of more patents, the creation of intellectual property rights on data, the extension of the terms of protection for patents and copyrights, expansions of right holder privileges and increases in the penalties for infringement,” James Love of Knowledge Ecology International explained after reading the leaked chapter. “The TPP text shrinks the space for exceptions in all types of intellectual property rights. Negotiated in secret, the proposed text is bad for access to knowledge, bad for access to medicine and profoundly bad for innovation.”
Opponents have argued in the past that stringent new rules under the TPP with regards to copyrighted material would cause the price of medication to go up: potentially catastrophic news for residents of member state who may have difficulties affording prescriptions. Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy organization, has warned that US Trade Representatives privy to the TPP discussions have demanded provisions that “would strengthen, lengthen and broaden pharmaceutical monopolies on cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS drugs, among others, in the Asia-Pacific region.” Indeed, the leaked chapter suggests drug companies could easily extend and widen patents under the TPP, prohibiting other countries from producing life-saving pills and selling them for less. Outside of the world of medicine, though, the implications that could come with new copyright rules agreed upon my essentially half of the world’s economy are likely to affect everyone.
"One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations, and the copyright parts of the text support such a view," Dr. Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "Hollywood, the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this."
WikiLeaks wrote in response that the enforcement measures discussed have “far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and environmental commons.”
“Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards,” warned WikiLeaks. “The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with secret evidence.”
According to the whistleblower site, the IP chapter also includes provisions that rehash some of the very surveillance and enforcement rules from the abandoned SOPA and ACTA treaties that were left to die after public outrage halted any agreement with regards to those legislation.
“The WikiLeaks text also features Hollywood and recording industry inspired proposals – think about the SOPA debacle – to limit internet freedom and access to educational materials, to force internet providers to act as copyright enforcers and to cut off people’s internet access,” Burcu Kilic, an intellectual property lawyer with Public Citizen, explained to the website TorrentFreak.
SOPA, or the Stop Online Privacy Act, was abandoned last year after massive public campaign thwarted the US Congress’ attempt to censor access to certain internet sites where copyrighted content may be incidentally hosted. One of the bill’s biggest opponents, Kim Dotcom of file-sharing sites Megaupload and Mega, was quick to condone WikiLeaks for their release of the TPP draft and condemned those responsible for drafting a bill that he warned would have major consequences for all if approved, including residents of New Zealand such as himself.
“No wonder they kept it secret. What a malicious piece of US corporate lobbying. TPP is about world domination for US corporations. Nothing else. We will stop this madness in New Zealand,” he told RT’s Andrew Blake.
According to WikiLeaks, the Obama administration and senior heads of state from other potential TPP nations have expressed interest in ratifying the agreement before 2014. All of that could now be put in jeopardy. 

"ACT(A) with a Vengeance" - ACTA 2.0: The Trans-Pacific Partnership.

"ACT(A) with a Vengeance" - ACTA 2.0: The Trans-Pacific Partnership.(AP).By Stephen Lendman.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "a secretive, multi-nation agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws across the globe."
It replicates its worst features. Nine nations are negotiating it secretly, plus Japan, without formal status. They include America, Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, and Brunei.Though provisions aren't known, Article 1.1.3 states:

The Parties seek to support the wider liberalisation process (read corporate control) in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) consistent with its goals of free and open (not fair) investment.

APEC includes 21 members. Major Asian ones include China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea among others. Non-Asian ones include America, Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile. Four countries (Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei and Chile) negotiated an initial agreement. On June 3, 2005, it was signed and took effect on May 28, 2006. Six other countries joined negotiations.
Ten previous negotiating rounds occurred beginning from March 15 - 19, 2010. An 11th is scheduled for March 1 - 9, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia.
At issue is agreeing on unrestricted trade in goods, services, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers, government procurement and competition policies, and intellectual property (IP).
EFF urges: "Don't Let TPP Become the New ACTA: Contact Your Lawmakers and Demand Transparency," saying:

Like ACTA, TPP negotiations are secret "and on a fast timetable. We don't know what's in the TPP IP chapter, and that's what worries us." Entertainment industry executives are involved. It's one of corporate America's most corrupt.
Intellectual property (IP) includes copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related considerations. One-sided structuring for business harms ordinary citizens' rights. In addition, at stake is "the future of the Internet's global infrastructure and innovation across the world."
A leaked February TPP version showed US negotiators pressuring for far more restrictive IP provisions than ACTA and other international treaties. It stated:

This document must be protected from unauthorized disclosure....It must be stored in a locked or secured building, room, or container.
Declassification would be authorized "four years from entry into force....or, if no agreement enters into force, four years from the close of the negotiations."
In other words, power brokers want secretive provisions established with no public knowledge of their destructive harm. TPP aims to rewrite global IP enforcement rules. All signatory countries will have to change domestic laws, regulations, and other policies to comply.
In America, controversial copyright laws will be further hardened. For example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "broad ban on circumventing digital locks and frequently disproportionate statutory damages for copyright infringement."

Moreover, Congress will be prevented from reforming domestic law to assure Internet freedom and innovative technology protections.
Leaked TPP provisions subvert US laws. As a result, significant issues are raised, including free expression, privacy, and due process. From what's known, TPP will require signatories to:

(1) "Treat temporary reproductions of copyrighted works without copyright holders' authorization as copyright infringement." Earlier this was discussed and rejected.

(2) "Ban parallel importation of genuine goods acquired from other countries without the authorization of copyright owners."

(3) Establish copyright provisions well beyond current norms. For example, the US - Oman Free Trade Agreement enforces rights 95 years after publication or 120 years after creating corporate owned works.

(4) "Adopt laws banning circumvention of digital locks (technological protection measures -- TMPs) that mirror the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and treat violation of the TMP provisions as a separate offense, even when no copyright infringement is involved."
As a result, signatories would have to rewrite or reverse existing laws to comply. Enormous public interest harm would result. Business would benefit at the expense of the greater good.

(5) Impose copyright infringement criminal sanctions.

(6) "Adopt the US DMCA Internet Intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety." Again, fundamental protections would end.

Overall, signatories would be forced to adopt harmful provisions. Sovereignty issues and consumer protections are at stake, as well as the ability of governments to prioritize domestic needs. Like ACTA, negotiations are secret behind closed doors. Transparency demands by prominent civil society organizations were ignored. They include Public Citizen, Global Exchange, Friends of the Earth, Earthjustice and others.

If adopted, non-signatory countries will be affected, including all 21 APEC members. Pressure will be applied globally to comply with anti-populist provisions.
TPP Watch

It's "a network of concerned unions, groups and individuals formed to organize and support initiatives to oppose" TPP. "Beware the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement," it highlights.

At issue is "almost every area of policy you can think of,” including labor laws, subsidy protections, and regulations covering GMO and other foods, drugs, tobacco, mining, the ability to reverse privatizations, foreign investments, hot money, and IP protection.
Investor rights are prioritized at the expense popular ones. For example, foreign investors would be able to sue governments for hundreds of millions of dollars for breaching their TPP rights. Corporations now rule the world. Imagine doing it more than ever with an unchallengeable iron fist. Incrementally, free societies are at risk.Unless ACTA, TPP and similar measures are stopped, they're heading for the dustbin of history practically everywhere. If that's not worth fighting to stop, what is? Source .

Hmmmm......."Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty". ~ Plato.

Quod facimus in vita resonat in aeternum. (What we do in life, echoes in eternity).


Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Tell Congress: No Backroom Deals to Regulate the Internet

Tell Congress: No Backroom Deals to Regulate the Internet.(Deeplinks).
Right now, representatives from nine countries including the United States are secretly meeting in a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a trade agreement with the potential to contain intellectual property provisions that go beyond ACTA. These secret meetings could create over-reaching new rules and standards that will choke off the online speech of individuals, websites, and platforms accused of copyright infringement.
But because the meetings are held behind closed doors and the text has not been released to the public, the citizens who will be affected do not know the details and don’t have a voice.

Click here to join EFF in demanding a Congressional hearing so lawmakers can learn what’s in the TPP and hear from all affected stakeholders, not just the content industry.

Yesterday, EFF International Rights Director Katitza Rogriguez checked in with protestors outside ongoing TPP meetings in Los Angeles. Katitza reported:

The energy at the rally was intoxicating. And the people were right to protest: TPP is one more in a long line of global copyright initiatives that are putting Internet users last. All over the world, people are saying enough is enough.

This week of negotiations in Los Angeles is a crucial moment for the TPP. Please contact your lawmakers today and let them know that we will not be left in the dark. Demand to know what's in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.Hmmmm......MPAA head Chris Dodd would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, maybe convened by the White House, to look for a compromise on the much-discussed anti-piracy bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.“The perfect place to do it is a block away from here,” Dodd told the New York Times, pointing from his office in Washington to the nearby White House, the paper said.Read the full story here.

Update: The Obama Administration subverted the legal necessity of allowing to US Senate to ratify the treaty by unconstitutionally declaring it an “executive agreement” before the President promptly signed it on October 1^st, 2011. As a touted constitutional lawyer, Barack Obama is fully aware that Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, mandates Congress in dealing with issues of intellectual property, thus voiding the capacity for the President to issue an executive agreement. The White House refused to even disclose details about the legislation to elected officials and civil libertarians over concern that doing so may incur “damage to the national security.” While some may hang off every word of his sorely insincere speeches and still be fixated by the promises of hope offered by brand-Obama, his administration has trampled the constitution and introduced the most comprehensive authoritarian legislation in America’s history.