<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div>On 20 Nov 2013, at 10:59 pm, michael gurstein <<a href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com">gurstein@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1;"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Unfortunately in the post-Snowden world “trust us” is not a sufficient answer—only transparency and accountability are.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">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></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div><blockquote type="cite"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1;"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br><div><div apple-content-edited="true"><div style="orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-- </span><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="font-size: 9pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto;"><b>Dr Jeremy Malcolm<br>Senior Policy Officer<br>Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers</b><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</p><p style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Explore our new Resource Zone - the global consumer movement knowledge hub |</span><a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/news-and-media/resource-zone" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.consumersinternational.org/news-and-media/resource-zone</a></p><p style="font-size: 9pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">@Consumers_Int | <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/">www.consumersinternational.org</a> | <a href="http://www.facebook.com/consumersinternational">www.facebook.com/consumersinternational</a></p><p style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-size: 8pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read our <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/email-confidentiality" target="_blank">email confidentiality notice</a>. 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