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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>We’ve now spent 3 or 4 days discussing/avoiding legitimizing the leadership structure for BB which is, I would guess, more than enough time for the current leadership to have gone through a reasonable if accelerated transparent selection/legitimization process. This along with your statement that the reason for this is the “</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>very important processes that are rolling along”, </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>I must say leads inevitably to even more suspicion and unease as to possible underlying motives for this evident lack of will in this direction etc. etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The fact that the entire self-appointed Steering Committee appears to be part of an as yet invisible nom-com for selecting for example, the CS rep. to the HLP makes one even more uneasy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>What Snowden did which is of immediate relevance is to indicate how significant the Internet is seen by the emergent Surveillance State. As I discussed quite extensively in a<a href="http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-open-internet-society-and-its-enemies-can-multistakeholderism-survive-information-dominance/"> blogpost</a> it would be astonishing if the security apparatus would be systematically looking for vulnerabilities and ways of subverting Internet processes in global governments, the private sector and the technical community and would bypass activities such as those such ours in Civil Society that potentially go to the heart of the Internet through its potentially emergent structures of governance as we are currently discussing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>As Ronald Reagan famously said “trust but verify”.</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>M<span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Jeremy Malcolm [mailto:jeremy@ciroap.org] <br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, November 21, 2013 12:24 AM<br><b>To:</b> michael gurstein; bestbits@lists.bestbits.net&g<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [bestbits] Best Bits MAG nominations for your approval - URGENT<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On 20 Nov 2013, at 10:59 pm, michael gurstein <<a href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com">gurstein@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br><br><o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Unfortunately in the post-Snowden world “trust us” is not a sufficient answer—only transparency and accountability are.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>As long as the Steering Committee is self-appointed through murky procedures and as long as this self-appointed (Interim or no) Steering Committee chooses to act (and present itself to the world) as though it has a mandate to act on behalf of the BB grouping whatever that might be, there will necessarily and quite reasonably be a lack of trust and questions as to legitimacy.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Actually the only such questions are coming from within; we are undermining ourselves, and to my mind unnecessarily so. Snowden did not tar civil society with the same brush as the NSA. We have presented an interim procedure for democratising the steering committee in Bali, which remains open for discussion and will be implemented soon once finalised, but to rush its finalisation now at a time when leadership is required would be pointless and would simply remove us from some very important processes that are rolling along with or without us.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='background:white'>-- </span></span><br><br><span class=apple-style-span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='background:white'><b><span style='font-size:9.0pt'>Dr Jeremy Malcolm<br>Senior Policy Officer<br>Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers</span></b><span style='font-size:9.0pt'><br>Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East<br>Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia<br>Tel: +60 3 7726 1599<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:9.0pt;background:white'>Explore our new Resource Zone - the global consumer movement knowledge hub |</span><span style='font-size:9.0pt'><a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/news-and-media/resource-zone"><span style='background:white'>http://www.consumersinternational.org/news-and-media/resource-zone</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='background:white'><span style='font-size:9.0pt'>@Consumers_Int | <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/">www.consumersinternational.org</a> | <a href="http://www.facebook.com/consumersinternational">www.facebook.com/consumersinternational</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='background:white'><span style='font-size:8.0pt;color:#999999'>Read our <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/email-confidentiality" target="_blank">email confidentiality notice</a>. Don't print this email unless necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><b><span style='color:#FF2600'>WARNING</span></b></span><span class=apple-style-span>: This email has not been encrypted. You are strongly recommended to enable PGP or S/MIME encryption at your end. For instructions, see <a href="http://jere.my/l/8m" title="https://luxsci.com/blog/installing-smime-and-pgp-encryption-certificates-into-major-email-clients.html"><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:#999999'>http://jere.my/l/8m</span></a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>