<div dir="ltr"><div>+1000<br><br></div>Nnenna<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 7:17 AM, Anriette Esterhuysen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anriette@apc.org" target="_blank">anriette@apc.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font size="+1">Dear all<br>
<br>
I have been fairly silent on this issue and APC is consulting our
members about it at present. We have been really busy in APC with
project meetings, evaluations, planning, and also the African
School on IG, so apologies for not participating.<br>
<br>
Anja, thanks for asking for the view of Brazilian colleagues. I
have also asked people off list and thus far I get the sense that
while there are concerns, there is also a sense that it is worth
giving the process a try.<br>
<br>
I felt that the the letter that Ian and the CSCG wrote was
excellent, and I feel that having them in place has put us in a
stronger position. I also feel that JNC's decision to not be part
of the process is legitimate and clear.<br>
<br>
I do see the pros and cons of participation a bit differently from
how Ian had put them in an earlier message...perhaps not quite as
'black and white'.<br>
<br>
My feeling at this point is that some of the strong concerns we
expressed at the time of the NETmundial Initiative Launch in late
August have actually been addressed.<br>
<br>
I don't particularly like the process... I would have liked more
transparency and consultation around the redesign of the process
and its mechanisms.<br>
<br>
But I really do care about the NETmundial outcomes, and I believe
we should do our best to take it forward, to intergovernmental
spaces, at national level, and through the IGF. This might sound
pretty naive to many but I still believe that the only sustainable
path to inclusive democratic multistakeholder internet policy and
regulation is through closer connections between multistakeholder
and intergovernmental processes and mechanisms.<br>
<br>
I am at the airport and about to board.. so should be fast.<br>
<br>
My view would be that civil society participates in the NMI with
the following:<br>
<br>
- a set of indicators and criteriat that are important to us<br>
- a limited timeframe <br>
- agreed milestones including for a point at which we assess
whether we continue or not<br>
<br>
<br>
My proposal would be try and make the process work, and to link it
closely to the IGF and for civil society e.g. at Best Bits meeting
to get together prior to the 2015 IGF and then to assess whether
our particpation has had impact, whether we have been able to
influence the process and whether it meets the criteria important
to us.<br>
<br>
This is a risk of course. And we could legitimise a process that
turns out not to be worthy of it. But I think it is a risk worth
taking, and we can always withdraw.<br>
<br>
Not trying is a greater risk as it could result in the most
progressive, to date, agreement on principles that respect human
rights inclusive processes in internet governance simply fizzling
out. I think that backtracking in that way on what we all
achieved through the NETmundial would be a huge loss to changing
how we think about, and implement, internet governance.<br>
<br>
Anriette<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><div><div class="h5">
<div>On 19/11/2014 21:59, Anja Kovacs wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Dear all,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A question. If any of the Brazilians on these lists could
perhaps shed some light on why their government has decided to
support this initiative, and how they see it, that could
possibly be very helpful? I have had great respect for Brazil
and its work in the past, and can't help but wonder whether
I'm missing something here.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>For the moment, however, knowing what I know, I am still
not in favour of civil society networks giving this their
stamp of approval (though as earlier, I also don't have an
issue with individual organisations who want to participate to
continue doing so and report back to the wider community). A
WEF-ICANN alliance, even if backed by the Brazilian
government, is just not the place I want to see emerge as a
new power centre in Internet governance - even less so as they
have already given themselves some fixed seats.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've in particular been wondering what this selection and
committee means seeing that some of the initiatives the NMI
would "foster" clearly are already on the way. For example, I
(and I know many others on this list too) have already been
contacted by the Governance Lab at NYU to give feedback on a
proposed NETmundial Solutions map that would be developed
under the flag of the NMI. It's difficult not to feel like the
only thing we and others would be doing is simply to
rubberstamp things that would happen anyway - but because we
okay them, somehow the structure and the initiatives it gives
birth to gain a legitimacy that they would not have had
without. An unwise use of our power, I would say (that they
would go ahead without us anyway is something that a
representative from the WEF made clear enough to me in an
informal conversation in October. Some of the individual
initiative, such as that map, might have value, but about the
structure as a whole, I am not so certain) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I would feel far more comfortable if we would instead start
exploring the constructive ways of going ahead with our own
work suggested by Amelia and others. I would love to hear more
about what they're thinking, and how we could operationalize
this ourselves and take it forward.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks and best,</div>
<div>Anja</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 19 November 2014 01:12, Nnenna
Nwakanma <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nnenna75@gmail.com" target="_blank">nnenna75@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>Dear Governance and Best Bits listers, and
especially African Civil Society members here.<br>
<br>
</div>
My opinion is that Civil Society should participate.
It is okay to table our "fears" and let NMI know
that our participation may be withdrawn if XYZ is
not met.<br>
<br>
I think it is fine for certain networks to say "No",
but in Africa, I dont think we should miss out.<br>
<br>
</div>
NMI may also just make a public call for CS who wants
to participate. From the launch, I already saw that
some CS persons were already very interested in the
NMI.<br>
<br>
</div>
I see it is okay if one network or list or platform
decides NOT to participate but we cannot ask others not
to.<br>
<br>
Me, I am in favour of Governance and BB lists nominating
people. And at the same time, saying that it is
important for African S to participate.<br>
<br>
</div>
All for now<span><br>
<br>
Nnenna<br>
</span></div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div>
<div>On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 6:06 PM,
Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jc.nothias@theglobaljournal.net" target="_blank">jc.nothias@theglobaljournal.net</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Jeremy,<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
</span>
</span></span></span></span></div>
<div>Thanks for your email.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Looking after pathologies is certainly a
noble cause, but as we both do not belong to
the medical corpus, maybe it would simply be
wise to terminate this, and cool down a bit.
Even though we are in real politics.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Go after the arguments put on the table is
probably of better effect and impact. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What I wanted to say using quotes from an
array of observers or participants is that the
initiative has more than a troubling set of
definitions, expectations and leading to an
overall confusion. It looks more or less like
"un chèque en blanc" to illegitimate grouping
of a wealthy elite (the three players of NMI
have deep pockets, and friends with deeper
pockets). I am not even trying to clarify the
obvious tactics behind all their gesture. I
had an intermezzo as a consultant for 10 years
in my life, and can more than easily read the
partition behind all of that smoking screen.
In the army, you always call some troopers
from the "génie" when you need a screen of
smoke to cross a street, a bridge or a simple
line. No, let's stay on what is at stake such
as</div>
<div>- why part of civil society in Busan
accepted the fact that the US refused to
discuss mass surveillance?</div>
<div>- why is the IGF not the best bet for civil
society to keep maturing and growing?</div>
<div>- why is encryption, I know EFF is working
hard on this topic, insufficiently at the
center of the IG debate? Isn't encryption part
of the mass surveillance issue? So then why to
please the US, in Sao Paulo, then in Busan by
refusing to really go after it? Mass
surveillance has nothing to do with IG they
told us.</div>
<div>- why civil society not more vocal on the
Google Tour against the EU decision to protect
personal data, considering rightly in my view,
that search engines are touching at personal
data, beyond the simple links they assembled
in their result pages? This is a real good
debate for CS.</div>
<div>- why not to discuss the IETF and its roles
in the IG? More important than IANA for
example? </div>
<div>- why CS seems deprived of imagination and
innovative ideas when it comes to create a new
coordinating body/system, as the ICANN is
saying the political aspects of IG is beyond
its mandate? How can we help ourselves to have
these ideas popping out of CS minds? Looking
at all the NGOs we are currently ranking, I am
positively impressed with their innovative
abilities, much more powerful than classical
corps. They also create more "values".</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I am not naive, and have probably a few
answers in mind. Nevertheless, CS should
really act differently. The NMI story is
relevant of the weakness that anyone can
perceive among CS, and this is not to blame
JNC or anyone else. A leadership crisis wrote
someone today.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Remember the preparation of Net Mundial?
Did the ICANN handle CS in a satisfactory
fashion? Haven't we seen the trailer? We had
to twist their arm every minute to get info,
to get principles, to simply get it not that
bad. Why is it so difficult for the 'nice
guys" not to go directly after the right
ideas, proposals and suggestions when
launching an open, honest, transparent debate?
Instead they keep creating distrust with their
committees, high level panel, advisory
boards... Trust is critical. "Please energize
me! should we all cry. We are all losing.
Terrifying, I would say.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So why don't you and other leaders of CS
decide to meet, have a debate and launch a
true CS initiative, calling governments,
citizens and corporations to join in a effort
to rebalance the growing asymmetry we live in
since the mid-nineties? In the face of
History, and our fellow citizens, we are
failing, because CS is not united. To do that
you do not need any WEF. You only need to
trust, share, and confront the realities that
are taking away our rights. This is what
should be done, now, instead of wasting our
time and little money to debate about the
comfortable sofas of the WEF.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Somehow BB is a failure, as it has not
delivered to its own mandate. JNC is not
getting more isolated, it is growing and
reaching more and more people. We should not
care about that. We should care about having a
collective action that would oblige
governments, corps and the current mandarins
to take more progressive steps.
Multistakeholderism when it comes to convene
and consult many participants is certainly
nice. This has often been done, long before we
began to put in our mouth the MS narrative.
When it comes to make decisions at least on
the public policy level, MS simply doesn't
work. If the coders had to go through MS to
make decision, they would have simply gone
nowhere. Only a few guys fixing better than
other few guys technical issues doesn't equate
a political model. It could work, but then it
would lead to some social disaster, a
disruption that would unleash violence.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>JNC has no monopole of ethics, but because
we are poor enough, our bias is somehow
limited. We are paid by no government, no
corporation, no barons. We are simple
citizens, with a profound democratic concern
(to avoid another asymmetric wars), and we are
ready to go into rationales as long as we are
not characterized as psychotics or lunatics.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There is no way that we can really have a
strong impact as civil society participants if
we do not go after unity. And we all agree
that we should pay more respect to each
others, as long as we do not have hidden
agenda, and gentle philanthropes putting their
money in the debate. That would be fair.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>JC</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> </div>
<br>
<div>
<div>Le 18 nov. 2014 à 17:55, Jeremy Malcolm a
écrit :</div>
<div>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Nov 18, 2014, at 1:49 AM,
Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global
Journal <<a href="mailto:jc.nothias@theglobaljournal.net" target="_blank">jc.nothias@theglobaljournal.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
<div>
<div>
<div><span>I leave to Norbert
co-convenor at JNC to
answer your first email.
On a personal note, I
would appreciate you to
elaborate about the
"dumping on civil society
colleagues" you are
referring to,</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Within the next few days I’m
going to write a separate blog
post about this at <a href="http://igfwatch.org/" target="_blank">igfwatch.org</a>,
because JNC’s pathologies are
off-topic for this list.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><span>The WEF/ICANN/CGIbr
project is not in lack of
clarity. If I do listen to
non JNC members:</span></div>
<div><span>- Wall Street Journal
reporter: "The NetMundial
wants to spread Internet
Governance more evenly
across the developing
world". (Ask Drew Fitzgerald
about the source for that
understanding of what is the
WIB Initiative)</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Which is roughly opposite to
what JNC is saying.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><span>- McCarthy at The
Register: "ISOC has blasted
efforts from some quarters
to create a "UN Security
Council</span><span>”</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A fatuous analogy, do you take
it at face value?</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><span>- Eileen Donahoe, ...</span><span> Virgilio
Almeida, ...</span><span> Richard
Samans, ...</span><span> Fadi
Chehadé: ...</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>None of these statements
support the characterisation of
the Initiative as in your letter
as “being ’the’ mechanism for
global [Internet] governance”.</div>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><span>Based on these
official and public
statement, I can only read
JNC statement as an
interesting analysis and
agree with JNC reluctance to
participate or endorse such
following-up (hijacking
might be to blunt) of the
NetMundial meeting. </span><span>Nor
the WEF, ICANN, or CGIbr are
owners of what was stated
ultimately in Sao Paulo,
with all due reserves by
different participants.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I’ve also said, and maintain,
that I regard the NETmundial
Initiative (particularly the
naming thereof) to be a hijacking
of the NETmundial meeting. On this
much we agree.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><span>So instead of trying
to grab a comfortable seat </span><span>in
that convoy </span><span>...
should for once, Civil
Society ... acknowledges the
serious concerns seen in the
making of, and in the
diverse objectives presented
by the WEF, ICANN and CGIbr.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Ian has taking a more neutral
position, but for my part
personally I certainly have (<a href="http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/netmundial-initiative-takes-a-top-down-approach-to-implementing-the-netmundial-principles" target="_blank">http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/netmundial-initiative-takes-a-top-down-approach-to-implementing-the-netmundial-principles</a>).
What prompted my last email was
not that JNC opposes the
NETmundial Initiative, but that it
has to do this by impugning the
motives of other civil society
groups and falsely attributing
them with their endorsement of the
Initiative.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also for the avoidance of
doubt, nobody else endorsed my
rant which was sent in a personal
capacity (though I have
subsequently received, off list,
two emails in support, as well as
one against).</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><span>By the way, could you
explain us (subscribers of
the BestBits list):</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I do not have time to respond
to the rest of your mail right now
because I am speaking at a
conference today and will be
boarding a flight a few hours
later. But I write this brief
response just because you
suggested in most recent mail that
I was ignoring you - I’m not.
Anyway, others can respond to the
balance of your questions rather
than me monopolising the
conversation.</div>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>-- </div>
<div>Jeremy Malcolm</div>
<div>Senior Global Policy
Analyst</div>
<div>Electronic Frontier
Foundation</div>
<a href="https://eff.org/" target="_blank">https://eff.org</a><br>
<a href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org" target="_blank">jmalcolm@eff.org</a>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>:: Defending Your Rights in
the Digital World ::</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
</div>
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<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
<div>Dr. Anja Kovacs<br>
The Internet Democracy Project<br>
<br>
<a href="tel:%2B91%209899028053" value="+919899028053" target="_blank">+91 9899028053</a> | @anjakovacs<br>
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</div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><pre cols="72">--
`````````````````````````````````
anriette esterhuysen
executive director
association for progressive communications
po box 29755, melville, 2109, south africa
<a href="mailto:anriette@apc.org" target="_blank">anriette@apc.org</a>
<a href="http://www.apc.org" target="_blank">www.apc.org</a></pre>
</font></span></div>
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