[bestbits] Delivery of International civil society letter to Congress to follow up from HRC statement

[parminder]

Again, I am running for a day long meeting and wont be able to 
contribute for the next many hours.. So, Jeremy, can we have another 
day, but dont want to delay any deadline imperative, so do go ahead if 
that is difficult.... But I think this is an important statement and 
thus important to get right...

On Gene's point - asking companies to support changes in law is fine -- 
but I also have  a lot of questions and issues to address them about 
what already happened - and so have the people I talk to - and I think 
we need to write to them separately too, unless, we are just writing an 
open statement - which I prefer - which covers both US and these 
compaines issues...

parminder


On Thursday 13 June 2013 08:14 AM, Gene Kimmelman wrote:
> On Parminder's second point, about the companies, I wonder if we 
> should just ask all companies that engage in internet commerce to 
> abide by the same human rights  principles we're asking governments to 
> follow; and in addition ask these companies with a presence in the 
> U.S. to support the same changes in law we're proposing?
> On Jun 12, 2013, at 10:22 PM, parminder wrote:
>
>> Hi All
>>
>> Sorry, have been behind on this and could not follow closely due to 
>> some pre occupations.... Did not suspect we have such a close 
>> deadline for delivery. I thought we had time.... I am unable to 
>> respond right now but have some comments which I can make only later 
>> in the day... Can we wait a day or two.... But pl go ahead if it is 
>> urgent...
>>
>> Two things bother me about the statement
>>
>> 1. While I am not against addressing it to the US gov normally, I 
>> have been appalled that in all the post PRISM clarifications, 
>> everything has eclusively been about protecting US citizens' 
>> interests, and saying that they would not do such a thing to US 
>> citizens (meaning very clearly that non US citizens are a very 
>> different matter). Not a word has been uttered about the rights of 
>> non US citizens, even when the worst transgressions have been made 
>> against them. I resent such an attitude of US gov, which makes me 
>> think whether I want to address it at all on this issue.. And even if 
>> addressed, this  point has to be foregrounded. Especially the 
>> hypocrisy of all the speak of "global Internet community' when the 
>> issue is critical Internet resources oversight, and that category of 
>> thought completely disappearing when real Internet governance issues 
>> come up need to be highlighted.
>>
>> 2. I am unable to understand why are we so soft on the involved 
>> companies. I need to know more why they did what they did and how, 
>> and why they could not be more transparent to their global 
>> customers.... In India here most people feel a deep breach of 
>> trust.... I am not at all convinced that they are entirely clean on 
>> this, and they told us all that they legally could. Do we write a 
>> seperate letter to them.... In fact, my view is, we write a general 
>> statement on the issue, not addressed to anyone, which covers both US 
>> govs's and these companies' culpabilities, or at least asks the 
>> needed probing questions from the latter. I have many such questions.
>>
>> parminder
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday 13 June 2013 01:57 AM, Deborah Brown wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I wanted start a separate thread on delivery of the statement, as 
>>> it's looking like we're getting close to finalizing the text.
>>>
>>> Jeremy set a deadline of noon GMT on Thursday for edits, I believe. 
>>> I'm hearing that it would not be wise to deliver the letter this 
>>> week because Congress is consumed with immigration reform and the 
>>> farm bill. Plus delivering it on Friday would not be ideal if we 
>>> want media attention.
>>>
>>> How do others feel about aiming for a Monday or Tuesday delivery? 
>>> Then as Joana mentioned, those who will be at the Freedom Online 
>>> Coalition meeting in Tunis can deliver it to officials there as well.
>>>
>>> If the plan is to deliver this to all members of Congress, we would 
>>> need contact information for all offices. Is that what others had in 
>>> mind? A number of groups that regularly do DC-based advocacy already 
>>> have this information, so perhaps it would make the most sense to 
>>> work with one of the more international groups with a DC presence on 
>>> delivery. Amnesty International and HRW come to mind, but there are 
>>> probably others. What do others think?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Deborah
>>> -- 
>>> Deborah Brown
>>> Policy Analyst
>>> Access | AccessNow.org <http://AccessNow.org>
>>> E. deborah at accessnow.org <mailto:deborah at accessnow.org>
>>> @deblebrown
>>> PGP 0x5EB4727D
>>
>

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