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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Sunday 14 April 2013 03:46 PM, Ian
Peter wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:D8DB636DF4AD4CA5AA7078BE25E9C3B0@Toshiba"
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<div>The interesting thing about this debate is that it is
typical of the tensions within this group between idealism
and pragmatism.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Avri puts the idealist end of the spectrum well - </div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">“All of the Internet, like
the land world before it, was once commons. Then, as
before, the rich, the powerful and greedy, with the
assistance of the governments they bought, and continue to
buy, began to misappropriate those commons and called it
property. Each day more of that commons its stolen. Each
day more of the linguistic commons is stolen and called
intellectual property. The Internet commons is almost
gone. This its what government do best - with some very
few exceptions - assist in the theft of the commons.”</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">And at least part of me
agrees wholeheartedly with an analysis that sees
governments as bodies who don’t represent the public
interest here, and the less we have to do with them the
better. That’s an idealist stance.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">But on the other hand is the
pragmatic end of the spectrum. Here, many of us
acknowledge that governments, fortunately or
unfortunately, do exist, and somehow or other we have to
bring them to the table and find a way to make their
involvement here less harmful and more in line with the
public interest. At this end of the spectrum we
acknowledge a role for governments and insist on a role
for others parties as well.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">In the early days of Green
politics this split (most obvious in Germany where the
“fundies” (fundamentalists) and “realos” (realists) fought
huge political battles on all sorts of issues, each side
passionately claiming that a real “green” party had to
(from one end of the spectrum) stand up for its basic
principles and never compromise, or (from the other end)
come up with implementable policies which may not achieve
everything we want but would at least get something useful
done. Neither side was wrong!</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">And I think those same
tensions exist in much of what we discuss here. Perhaps
some “status-quoists” are people who can see how imperfect
governments are, and therefore suggest their involvement
won’t be helpful. Perhaps those arguing that we have to
involve all governments (citing democratic principles
often) , are just realising that they do exist, they are
legitimate structures honoured by most people, and they
cant be ignored..</font></div>
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<br>
Perhaps we should make a distinction between technical governance of
the Internet (ICANN plus system) and Internet's political governance
in different socio-economic areas. Both the institutional
requirements and institutional histories in the two cases are very
different. In the former area, it is meaningful to talk about, well
we should or may have to involve governments as well.... In the
latter area, the starting point is governments, and we have to
discuss who else and which manner they have to be involved.<br>
<br>
A lot of enhanced cooperation discussions involve very confusing
cross talks between these two different governance spaces.....<br>
<br>
What you consider as idealist and what pragmatist also differs
accordingly. I am pretty sure that as far for larger political
governance of the Internet is concerned it is more idealist to begin
with an inter-gov arrangements then with systems that give
institutionalised political power to corporates, which if anything
is a pragmatic adjustment. <br>
<br>
parminder<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:D8DB636DF4AD4CA5AA7078BE25E9C3B0@Toshiba"
type="cite">
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<div><font face="Times New Roman">And with various shades in
between. I must admit to moving often from one end of this
spectrum to the other. In the middle, perhaps, is the
“pragmatic idealist” – and somewhere in the middle of our
various positions in this debate there just might be a
position or two where we can find some common ground.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">That is, if we can overcome
some linguistic and cultural differences.......</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><br>
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<div style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
title="parminder@itforchange.net"
href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder</a>
</div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, April 14, 2013 6:58 PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [governance] US House Bill to
Affirm the Policy of the United States Regarding
Internet Governance</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
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<div> </div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Saturday 13 April 2013 09:05
AM, Ian Peter wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:EE796AE9A5FF43279790844911092B2F@Toshiba"
type="cite">
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000;
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<div>yes, the concept of no government involvement is
nonsense. The Public Knowledge response (or draft
response, it may have changed) included the
following. Not that I entirely agree with it, but it
makes some relevant points about the language.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>“ we fear that the broad language of the proposed
bill may</div>
<div>intrude on areas of consumer protection,
competition policy, law enforcement and</div>
<div>cybersecurity long considered appropriate for
national policy formulated by governments</div>
<div>with input from civil society, business and the
technical community.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
The 'Public Knowledge' statement is also very clear on
respective roles of different groups or stakeholders vis a
vis the public policy role of governments. This is the
single most contentious issue in global IG today..... A good
rejoinder to all those 'all stakeholders are equal in public
policy making processes' kind of dangerous anti-democracy
statements, that this elist/group also seem to be rife with.
'Public Knowledge' takes a clear and strong position against
such a formulation. IT for Change has since long warned that
playing with democratic principles at the global level can
have extremely dangerous consequences for national and local
level democracy practices and principles. <br>
<br>
what are basic democratic principles for local and national
levels remain unchanged for global levels. We all know that
facts as well possibilities at each level are different, and
these have to be worked with, however, without breaching
larger democratic principles (which are repeated sought to
be breached in the name of MSism).... UN based multilateral
systems are far from perfect (but so are are our national
systems in different ways). But then the processes at
multilateral levels are also different - for instance need
for consensus for most processes, and the fact that almost
always anything agreed to internationally becomes effective
only when ratified, and that there are almost zero coercive
implementation mechanisms in the hands of multilateral
systems (expect for some of the kind which US routinely
usurps, but that is a different matter). Still, the
democratic practices at global levels should be further
improved - with all kinds of new participative,
transparency, accountability etc methods..... Which however
is very different from using the pretext of 'democracy
deficit' to institutionalise practices and institutions that
are 'in principle' anit-democratic, like seeking that a
corporation should have a similar voting power as a
government in international policy making settings.<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:EE796AE9A5FF43279790844911092B2F@Toshiba"
type="cite">
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000;
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<div>For example, the</div>
<div>United States has by law protected the privacy of
children online through Child Online</div>
<div>Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) for nearly 15
years. Although we opposed the ITU</div>
<div>resolution to require countries to limit spam,
the United States protects its citizens from</div>
<div>spam through the CAN-SPAM Act. The Federal Trade
Commission (FTC), the Federal</div>
<div>Communications Commission (FCC), the Department
of Justice and numerous other</div>
<div>federal and state agencies have long played a
critical role in protecting consumers and</div>
<div>promoting competition and their existing
statutes.</div>
<div>We fear that if this bill becomes law, rather
than being understood as simply a resolution</div>
<div>directed specifically against the efforts to
expand the jurisdiction of the ITU, these</div>
<div>important and long-standing government policies
will be undermined. Our opposition to</div>
<div>ceding authority to the ITU to decide how to
balance consumer protection and free</div>
<div>expression is not because we see no role for
government in protecting consumers or</div>
<div>promoting competition. Rather, we believe those
matters are best decided here at home,</div>
<div>by a Congress accountable to the people and
enforced by a government constrained by</div>
<div>the Constitution. Similarly, many who oppose
addressing cybersecurity or law</div>
<div>enforcement issues at the ITU regard it as
entirely appropriate for Congress or other</div>
<div>federal agencies to address these concerns,
subject to the Constitutional limitations of due</div>
<div>process and free expression.”</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Certainly a number of US groups have opposed the
language for this and similar reasons.</div>
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<div> </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a
title="jeremy@ciroap.org"
href="mailto:jeremy@ciroap.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">Jeremy Malcolm</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:56
PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a
title="governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> [governance] US House Bill
to Affirm the Policy of the United States
Regarding Internet Governance</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline;
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small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">
<div>It doesn't seem to have been mentioned here yet
(or maybe only in passing) that there is a bill on
Internet governance being debated in the Energy
& Commerce Committee of the US House of
Representatives at the moment. There will
doubtless be stampede of uncritical support for it
from politicians of all sides (there is no hidden
intellectual property "gotcha"), but unfortunately
its premises are fundamentally flawed.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a
href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/markup/markup-bill-affirm-policy-united-states-regarding-internet-governance"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://energycommerce.house.gov/markup/markup-bill-affirm-policy-united-states-regarding-internet-governance</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>It only has two sections: one on "Findings" and
one on "Policy regarding Internet governance",
which flows from the findings. The latter simply
states:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>"It is the policy of the United States to
promote a global Internet free from government
control and to preserve and advance the successful
multistakeholder model that governs the Internet."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>So this is obviously nonsense; it is not US
policy to promote a global Internet free from
government control, only free from the control of
other governments besides itself. And note that
US policy is only to "preserve and advance" not to
"enhance" the multistakeholder model, which
continues the fiction that the multistakeholder
institutions that we have now are adequate both in
their inclusiveness and in the breadth of Internet
governance topics that they cover.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Of course, you can argue for more beneficial
interpretations by defining "control" and
"multistakeholder model" expansively, but even so
this bill is just going to entrench the standoff
between the US and other countries, which is not
going to be helpful in reaching compromise on the
evolution of Internet governance arrangements this
year...</div>
<div>
<div> </div>
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