I'll wait for someone who doesn't want to blow their brains out after reading the first few pages to do an analysis.

It's not secret, it's confidential because it's not finalised. This is perfectly normal for treaty negotiation.

What's the difference between secret and confidential (honest question!)?

Confidential negotiations are good for the negotiators, because they can make bluffs and propose compromises without the public breathing down their necks, or second guessing every move. As long as the final text is public before it's put to Congress, I'm fine with that in general.

My problem with the TPP is that it pretends to be a trade agreement but is really targeted at expanding intellectual property laws. The nature of what's being negotiated is being hidden behind the excuse of confidentiality.

You are being too generous. "The public breathing down their necks" doesn't happen when the treaty is over palm oil or sisal, even if there is some economic impact on the public.

I think you underestimate how worked up people can get over palm oil. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV1t-MvnCrA

(And never mind the specifics, if palm oil or sisal is your livelihood, you're absolutely going to be breathing down the politicians' necks...)

The public is easily swayed by any industry that feels slighted. While the public might not directly react to the language of a treaty, after a concerted ad campaign featuring actors portraying sad, job-at-risk employees, scary music and dystopian scenarios, etc, they start breathing on said necks.

The bothersome thing about these secret treaty negotiations is that they are something of an end-run around the democratic process in effected countries. In many cases, having signed on to some agreement relating to an organization like this in the past, member countries are often under some obligation to enact legislation conforming to future trade agreements these organizations write up.

In Japan, for example, the trade parts of TPP are very very important.

This is a big treaty, just saying it's about Mickey Mouse simplifies the facts.

Secret: substance and existence is not intended to ever be disclosed. For example, PRISM, MUSCULAR, and other NSA progams revealed by Snowden.

Confidential: existence is well known, substance not disclosed.

In the case of the TPP, the existence is actually strongly publicized by the negotiators, and only the negotiations are confidential--the final text will be made public and debated in Congress.

What is happening right now is that groups that dislike the IP provisions of the TPP are attacking the process for the whole TPP--which is the standard process for any international agreement.

They are taking advantage of the fact that most people don't know, or don't think about, how these deals are always done. So they are able to scare people by using the word "secret".

I don't disagree that the IP stuff bears very close watching, and could be damaging. I just don't think it's a good idea to be so manipulative along the way.

Oh, but it's ok for the USGOV and it's "free media" to be manipulative to an extent that would make any mafia boss blush?

Did I say that? No.

There's a section on it on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOFORN#Levels_of_classificatio...

Basically to do with the harm it can cause if it were known. Secret is rated higher than Confidential because it can cause more of a threat to national security.

I suspect the definition being searched for is something is confidential if you have to keep it quiet for strictly professional reasons; my doctor is not supposed to blab that I got a tetanus booster in 1998 after stitches to my thumb in a minor accident not because anyone on the planet cares, but because an inherent part of the professional relationship is being able to trust a doc not to repeat medical stuff to random people. Secret is where you keep it quiet for non-professional relationship reasons. If the .mil didn't want you to know I hurt my hand on a secret CIA mission to Iran, and my doc blabbed that someone was hurt on a CIA mission in Iran, that's a secrecy violation that has nothing to do with the relationship between me and my doc. (I actually cut my thumb at work, boring story, not a CIA mission)

A negotiator needs to shut up about what his clients tell him, or he's not going to get clients anymore just on general principles. So thats confidential.

A negotiator doesn't have to care much about secrecy other than not getting thrown in jail. It really doesn't matter to his professional relationship if some random citizen knows what he's doing as long as it doesn't violate confidentiality.

So you're confidential to protect your own professional job, but secretive to help others keep their jobs, more or less.

True, though it would be cool to be able to get input from a wider audience before it's final.

say perhaps the New York Times?

The problem is information asymmetry. But not between the parties negotiating. They all see the working text.

But should it be? Legislation should be developed in the open. It certainly shouldn't be kept secret from the people until the day it's being voted on.

Confidential: intended to be kept secret.

We shouldn't split hairs to justify the lack of transparency, especially for such a wide-reaching agreement.

Non the less. It might be, despite the gonzo title, quite interesting for some people, to see, what the positions of different countries are.

And what comes of it, when it is finalized.

FYI, identical posting here with more comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725213

As submitter, I would beg everybody to follow the link and comment on the successful younger submission, as there is much more discussion going on. Just do not want to delete this submission, as comments here would get lost.

Thanks a lot in advance and greetings from Germany.