NARRATOR: The treaty covers nearly half of the world's economy and is the largest ever negotiated. It will have implications beyond matters of trade, intruding into almost every aspect of people's lives. The TPP bans favoring local businesses. Experts say it will send millions of jobs overseas and drive down wages and conditions at home. Multinational corporations will be able to sue the government for passing laws, including on the environment and health protections that they claim affect their expected future profit.
JOHN OLIVER: That's right. A company was able to sue a country over a public health measure through an international court. How the [bleep] is that possible? Philip Morris International, a company with annual net revenues of $80 billion, basically threatened to sue Togo, whose entire GDP is $4.3 billion. Togo, justifiably terrified by threats of billion-dollar settlements, backed down from a public health law that many people wanted. And it's not just Togo. Two tobacco companies sued Australia in its highest court. Philip Morris International is currently suing Uruguay. British American Tobacco sent a similar letter to Namibia, ... the Solomon Islands.
NARRATOR: Pharmaceutical companies will be allowed to expand their monopolies, restricting the availability of affordable generic drugs. The TPP requires Internet service providers to become Internet policemen, watching your every click. It is a one-way ticket. Once signed, it will be locked in place for decades. But the scariest thing about the TPP is that there are 26 chapters that cover our daily lives that we have not seen.
AMY GOODMAN: Part of a new video released by WikiLeaks today. Well, on Memorial Day, I traveled to London and interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he's lived for nearly three years with political asylum. Assange faces investigations in both Sweden and the United States. I asked him about WikiLeaks' TPP campaign.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, we are raising $100,000, which we think won't be any problem at all, in pledges, for the 29 chapters of the TPP. Now, we have already obtained four and published four, but we'd also like updated versions of those four. Now, why is this so important? This agreement covers 40 percent of the global economy, and it lays the foundations for a new system of international law that will be embedded in all the economies involved. And it is a predecessor agreement to something called the TTIP, which is the U.S.-EU version. So, it's going--
AMY GOODMAN: Called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment --
JULIAN ASSANGE: Partnership.
AMY GOODMAN: -- Partnership.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, so this is going to cover more than 60 percent of GDP. And it is the framework, if it gets through, of international law, and filtering into domestic law. It is the construction of a new world, a new way of doing things, a new legal regime. So it's, in historical terms, the largest-ever such agreement negotiated. And so that's the importance. But we also want to also demonstrate that whistleblowers who give information in relation to this, they shouldn't be chased or harassed, they should be celebrated. They should be celebrated like the Nobel Prize celebrates people who do good work, for the Nobel Prize. And so, I think we can achieve not just encouragement and incentive for people to look for such information, but rather, we can award and celebrate their courage and tenacity in getting a hold of it.
AMY GOODMAN: So, in a sense, you're saying it's not paying for the information, but it's prize money for turning it over?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, it's prize money for demonstrating the courage and tenacity in finding such information.
AMY GOODMAN: Can we go to the issue of journalism in the United States and how it's being practiced today when it comes to whistleblowers, the issue of what it means to get information from a whistleblower, how you get that information? You have said you feel this is deeply endangered now and that laws are being considered that would criminalize journalism.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Right. Well, we want to take a -- we also want to take a strong stand in relation to this. Now, the U.S. government, in terms of its attack on WikiLeaks, has tried to construct a theory which, if permitted, will be the end of national security journalism, not just in the United States, but also about the United States. That claim is that journalists can't solicit information from sources and to solicit information is to be involved in a conspiracy. And --
AMY GOODMAN: An accomplice to the conspiracy.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah. And the United States, in terms of the charge types that it's trying to charge me with -- those include conspiracy and conspiracy to commit espionage -- this is rubbish. We cannot tolerate this at the political level or the media level. If we do tolerate it, then that standard will be erected. Then what happens in practice? How does traditional investigative journalism work? Well, you hear a rumor about some event occurring. Let's say it's an assassination squad assassinating people. You hear a rumor that there might have been an event, and you go and speak to your sources, or perhaps one approaches you and says, "I heard that this happened." And then you say, "Well, that's good, but we need to be able to prove it. So do you have information that can prove it?" And then they say, "Well, I think I might have some report on the incident." And then you say, "Well, that's good. Can we have that report? Can we see that report?" And that's the way journalism has always been done. Now, the U.S. DOJ --
AMY GOODMAN: That's the smoking gun.
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