[bestbits] Input needed on options for delivery of international civil society letter to Congress on NSA

Sun Jun 16 13:28:39 EDT 2013

Thinking it might be good to send as  BEST BITS COALITION of  International
Organisations, represented by a "member" known to congress and "Dear
Senators and Representatives"

Upside, the "international" character is there, and the influence +
national recognition will be kept. If there is follow-up, it will come via
the COALITION representative, supported by other Best Bits signatory
"members"

My 2 cents

Nnenna

On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Gene Kimmelman <genekimmelman at gmail.com>wrote:

> I think it should be addressed to each senator and representative ("Dear
> Senators and Representatives") -- no need to be individualized unless
> someone can just send it through an existing list.
>
> I think it should be sent from Best Bits, with a characterization of who
> we are, plus any organization/individual involved (with phone and email
> contact person) that desires to field inquiries from Congress -- so long as
> the list isn't bigger than 5-6 people/groups, I think that gives members of
> Congress a sense of who they can reach out to for more information.
>  Obviously, those who volunteer would need to agree to provide responses,
> and limit their engagement under the Best Bits rubric to the substance of
> the letter (and speak separately for their own organization).
>
> On Jun 16, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Deborah Brown wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I wanted to send a quick note regarding delivery of the letter to
> Congress. I've been working with CDT and Free Press to figure this out and
> we now have a few options to bring back to the group.
>
> From what we were able to determine, the American Civil Liberties Union
> (ACLU) is best equipped to send the letter to Congress through their
> backend and they could route it through whatever email sending address we
> want.
>
> Kevin, can you confirm that's correct?
>
> Assuming this is correct, we need to figure out what group should be the
> "sender". A few factors that play into this decision are:
>
>    - Recognition in Congress (so that it's opened)
>    - Sufficiently international/reflective of the broad group working on
>    this
>    - Capacity for follow up, should staffers/media reply
>
> *Are there other factors we should be considering?
> *
>
> Here are a few other options (in no particular order), with some initial
> thoughts on pros/cons. Please add commentary and feel free to disagree.
>
> 1) Send it from a higher profile international group, like HRW. *upside: *we'd
> be most likely to get the attention of the staffers. *downside*: May not
> be able to get confirmation from HRW to send it in time.
>
> 2) send it from a Best Bits email address. *upside: *reflective of actual
> authorship, already has buy-in from group members. *downside*: minimal
> recognition in Congress. Does Best Bits have the infrastructure to manage
> response or follow up?
>
> 3) Send it from a US org with int'l operations, such as EFF or CDT. *
> upside*: has recognition in Congress.*downside: *Are EFF/CDT perceived as
> int'l enough to represent this coalition? Would also need to check on their
> capacity to respond.
>
> 4) Send from ACLU: *upside: *they've got the system and name brand
> recognition. *downside*: they're very American, and it may be problematic
> to have the letter delivered by a group that was not involved in its
> drafting. Would also have to see if they have the capacity to respond
>
> 5) Send from the Web Foundation. *upside: *they're international and well
> established. *downside*: not sure about their recognition in Congress.
> Would need to see if they have the capacity for follow up.
>
> I should add that Access is happy to be the "sender", and we have the
> dedicated staff/capacity to do follow up. Our recognition in Congress,
> however, is minimal, and while we consider ourselves an international org.,
> I can't judge whether we're perceived as int'l enough to send the letter on
> behalf of this coalition.
>
> *What options are missing here?*
>
> I realize people working for many of the above-mentioned organizations are
> on these lists, so please feel free to jump in.
>
> Another question I've raised a few times here is *who* exactly we're
> planning to send the letter to? All members of Congress? Or relevant
> committee members in the House of Representatives and the Senate?
>
> Looking forward to yuour feedback on this.
>
> All the best,
> Deborah
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 7:17 AM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Significant typo at end of last sentence on paragraph 4 "fatally impacts
>> consumer’s trust on all American (…) that provide worldwide services."
>> (word missing--likely "companies"****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Otherwise great job everyone.  Sorry that I wasn't around to edit at the
>> end… family stuff kept me off the Internet all day… but whoever did it did
>> a great job…****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> M****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> *From:* webwewant at googlegroups.com [mailto:webwewant at googlegroups.com] *On
>> Behalf Of *Jeremy Malcolm
>> *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 7:58 PM
>> *To:* Kevin Bankston
>> *Cc:* bestbits at lists.bestbits.net bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
>> irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org; governance at lists.igcaucus.org;
>> webwewant at googlegroups.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [bestbits] Re: Delivery of International civil society
>> letter to Congress to follow up from HRC statement****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> On 14/06/2013, at 7:48 AM, Kevin Bankston <kbankston at cdt.org> wrote:****
>>
>>
>>
>> ****
>>
>> A few typos:****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Paragraph 4 includes the sentence "That was clearly not the case with the
>> latest practices of the US Government (this is inconsistent with references
>> to “allegations” above)"  I assume we want to cut the parenthetical.  To
>> address the comment in the parenthetical, perhaps change "clearly" to
>> "apparently"?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Paragraph 5: "detailed" is misspelled "detailsed"****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Paragraph 6 begins and ends with quotation marks that need to be deleted.
>>  The phrase "which constitute an almost certainly human rights violations"
>> should be "which constitutes an almost certain human rights violation".
>> ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Fixed, and I also linked between this letter and the last one to the UN
>> Human Rights Council.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> -- ****
>>
>> *Dr Jeremy Malcolm
>> Senior Policy Officer
>> Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
>> Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
>> Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur,
>> Malaysia
>> Tel: +60 3 7726 1599****
>>
>> WCRD 2013 – Consumer Justice Now! | Consumer Protection Map:
>> https://wcrd2013.crowdmap.com/main | #wcrd2013****
>>
>> @Consumers_Int | www.consumersinternational.org |
>> www.facebook.com/consumersinternational****
>>
>> Read our email confidentiality notice<http://www.consumersinternational.org/email-confidentiality>.
>> Don't print this email unless necessary.****
>>
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>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Deborah Brown
> Policy Analyst
> Access | AccessNow.org
> E. deborah at accessnow.org
> @deblebrown
> PGP 0x5EB4727D
>
>
>
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