WikiLeaks announced on Tuesday that it was crowdfunding a $100,000 reward for any person who leaks the 26 chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that have yet to be disclosed.
As of about 4 p.m. Eastern time, the crowdfunding campaign had raised over $26,000 from more than 100 people.
“The transparency clock has run out on the TPP," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. “No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all.”
Previously, WikiLeaks released drafts of the environment, intellectual property and investment sections of the trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific nations.
The still-secret sections include the portions of the agreement dealing with labor, the telecommunications industry and textiles and apparel.
The trade deal is being negotiated in secret, which its proponents, including President Barack Obama, argue is essential to its good-faith negotiation.
Critics of TPP want its details to be public. They are concerned that the deal empowers multinational corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and even sovereign national governments.
WikiLeaks quoted the remarks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a prominent TPP critic, about the agreement’s secrecy.
Warren recounted a supporter of TPP in Congress telling her the deal had to be secret, because “if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.”
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