THIS IS NOT TRANSPARENCY

Lucas,

A brave protestor shut down Tuesday's Senate Finance Committee hearing on President Obama's 2013 trade agenda.

"This is not transparency. You've got to tell people what's happening," she said rising from her seat as the acting U.S. Trade Representative launched into his testimony.

After more than three years of closed-door negotiations, neither Congress nor the public has seen draft texts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that President Obama wants to sign this October.

By writing your senators and requesting a copy of the TPP texts, you can help make them realize they are being shut out.

Watch a video of the protest, and send an email to your state's two senators today asking for a copy of the draft TPP text.

We need our senators to grasp what's at stake in the TPP.

Unelected negotiators are rewriting wide swaths of domestic non-trade policy behind closed doors in TPP negotiations. Our senators aren't even allowed to see what are now hundreds of pages of completed draft text.

While members of Congress, the public and the press are being shut out, 600 official corporate advisors — people from places like Walmart, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Big Pharma companies like Pfizer and Abbott Laboratories — can see what the negotiators have agreed to.

There's a good chance your senators don't even know that they don't have access to the secret texts.

We've beat corporate powers at this game before. Just over a decade ago, the draft text of another massive corporate agreement — the 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) – was publicly released. Not only could Congress see the texts, but you and I could as well. The release led to public demand that changes be made to various outrageous provisions. Corporate lobbyists said: It's our way or the highway. So, the FTAA was never completed.

Instead of learning the lesson and not negotiating deals that could not survive the scrutiny of the public spotlight, the top U.S. trade officials explicitly told the press that the reason to keep TPP negotiations secret was to ensure that a deal could be completed!

Once senators know that even they can't see the TPP texts, there will be an uproar.

Email your senators right now and join us in shining a spotlight on the TPP's unprecedented secrecy.

The clock on President Obama's October deadline for finishing the TPP is ticking down.

Let's make sure every single senator realizes what's at stake.

Thank you for all you do,

Steve Knievel
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

One last thing — please forward this email to friends, family members, neighbors and colleagues. They'll appreciate knowing what matters to you, and your voice will be amplified by every person who joins you in taking action.