The House will hold the final vote tomorrow on Fast Track, a bill (H.R. 1314) that would rush approval for secret anti-user trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) by limiting full congressional debate and prohibiting any changes to their text. Since the Senate has already passed its bill, the last place we can stop this undemocratic procedure is in the House, before it goes to President Obama's desk where he is guaranteed to sign it into law.
The vote now looks like it's going to be dangerously close. President Obama is personally calling each Congress member who's still on the fence about the issue and is even offering special perks from the Oval Office in exchange for their vote. That means the window of time to influence our lawmakers is quickly closing and we need to do everything we can to urge our lawmakers to come out against Fast Track and other undemocratic trade deals.
If we can block this bill, these treaties will have to go in front of Congress for full debate and would be subject to amendments and improvements. TPP, for one, is a sprawling agreement that covers many policy areas. It faces strong opposition from an incredibly diverse collection of groups from across the political spectrum. While the opponents of TPP may not all be concerned about the same issues, we can agree on one thing: trade agreements must be fair and transparent, especially if they attempt bind our lawmakers to new international obligations lobbied for by powerful special interests.
If you're a U.S. voter, visit our action and enter your address and ZIP code. Then you'll be connected to your representative's office. We want to generate thousands of calls today and up until this bill goes up for a vote in the House tomorrow.
If you'd like to speak on the TPP's specific digital rights threats, check out our talking points hand out to use for your call. Once you've taken action, please remember share this on Twitter, Facebook, and your other social networking sites to ask your friends to join you. It’s as easy as posting this message:
The House is dangerously close to giving the White House powers to Fast Track the TPP. Speak out now: https://eff.org/r.tvoq
This is a crucial time to stop the TPP and we really can't do it without your help.
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Read about all of our concerns with the TPP agreement:
- Anti-Circumvention of Digital Rights Management (DRM)
- Criminalization of Investigative Journalism, Security Research, and Whistleblowing
- ISP Liability: Internet Intermediaries as Copyright Cops
- Criminal Copyright Enforcement
- Expansion of Copyright Terms
- "Investor-State" Provisions Could Undermine User Protections in Copyright
- Restrictions on Fair Use
