[bestbits] RE: Call for Tenders SMART 2013/N004 “European Capability for Situational Awareness” (ECSA) - European Federation for cyber-censorship and human rights monitoring

Wed Sep 4 08:29:53 EDT 2013

We've been talking about it in EPFSUG too:

    http://epfsug.eu/wws/arc/epfsug/2012-12/msg00045.html

But the parliament doesn't block Tor, does it?

//Erik

On 09/04/2013 10:49 AM, Camino.MANJON at ec.europa.eu wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> And now the full EC link, for all those ones, like our friends in CN
> for instance, where bitly is blocked
>
> http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/smart-2013n004-—-european-capability-situational-awareness
> <http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/smart-2013n004-%97-european-capability-situational-awareness>
>
> Thanks Erik J. for the warning.
>
> Seems we do really have a problem with censorship (jokingly said of
> course)
>
> I hope we can also input that to ECSA! 
>
> All the best
>
> Ms Camino Manjon
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* MANJON Camino (CNECT)
> *Sent:* 03 September 2013 17:27
> *To:* bestbits at lists.bestbits.net;
> Irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org;
> governance at lists.igcaucus.org; liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu;
> pet at lists.links.org
> *Subject:* Call for Tenders SMART 2013/N004 “European Capability for
> Situational Awareness” (ECSA) - European Federation for
> cyber-censorship and human rights monitoring
>
> Dear colleagues (and some friends in the lists),
>
>
> The purpose of this email is to inform you of the recent publication
> of the *Call for Tenders **SMART 2013/N004 “European Capability for
> Situational Awareness” (ECSA). *If you are interested in this
> contract, you should submit your tender no later than *_26/09/2013_*.
>
>
> You will find all the relevant information (invitation to the tender,
> tender specifications and model contract) in the following link:  
>
> http://bit.ly/16E6sfG
>
>
> At the initiative of the *Directorate General for **Communications
> Networks, Content and Technology* (DG CONNECT),in close cooperation
> with other European Commission services (DG Development and
> Cooperation and DG Enterprise) and the European External Action
> Service (EEAS), the European Commission has put in place the
> No-Disconnect Strategy.^^1 <#sdfootnote1sym> The goal of this policy
> toolkit is *to provide on-going support to counter-censorship and
> surveillance to facilitate the role of **activists, political
> dissidents, bloggers, journalists and citizens living and/or operating
> in high-risk environments, or elsewhere*. This way we make operational
> our commitment to uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms online
> and support that the No-Disconnect Strategy embraces the wider EU
> strategy for Human Rights.^^2 <#sdfootnote2sym>
>
>
> For those who are not yet familiar with the Strategy, its four main
> strands of activity are: *(1)*development of technological tools;
> *(2)*training/awareness and capacity building; *(3)*development of
> methods to provide a global capability for situational awareness; and
> *(4)*cooperation with the ICT/Internet industry, EU Member States and
> third countries, also involved in the protection of online freedom of
> expression and privacy.
>
>
> The tender "*European capability for situational awareness*" (ECSA) is
> aimed at providing to the European Commission the framework and
> information necessary to evaluate the creation of a wider _*European
> Federation for cyber-censorship and human rights monitoring, and the
> underlying system infrastructure required to that end.*___
>
> _*
> *_
>
> To achieve this objective, the ICT-PSP Work Programme 2013 will
> support the development of the ECSA platform with an allocation of
> approximately EUR 400,000 for the initial phase (conceptualization of
> the platform according to the conditions seth forth in the tender
> specifications that you will find in the link above, and the design of
> a first prototype of the systems infrastructure and interactive map).
>
>
> The idea departed partially from the “/OECD Communiqué on Principles
> for Internet Policy Making/”, in particular the following two ones:
>
>  *
>
>     “Develop capacities to *bring publicly available, reliable data
>     into the policy-making process*. Publicly available data can
>     increase the quality of all stakeholders’ participation in
>     Internet policy- making as well as governments’ ultimate policy
>     decisions. The collection, validation and public dissemination of
>     objective data to inform Internet policy decisions should be
>     reinforced and used to augment the combined research capacities of
>     governments, other competent authorities and other stakeholders.
>     International comparable metrics will help to quantify the ongoing
>     economic developments and assess the proportionality and
>     effectiveness of any policy solutions created in multi-stakeholder
>     processes. Data gathering should be undertaken so as to avoid
>     administrative burdens and data analysis should be done carefully
>     to enable sound policymaking.”
>
>  *
>
>     “*T**ransparency, fair process, and accountability.*In order to
>     build public trust in the Internet environment, policy-making
>     processes and substantive policies that ensure transparency, fair
>     process, and accountability should be encouraged. Transparency
>     ensures that Internet users have timely, accessible, and
>     actionable information that is relevant to their rights and
>     interests”.
>
> Is in this context in which we realized that a tool enabling
> evidence-based policy-making and transparency related, in this case,
> to censorship and surveillance, could also provide *situational
> awareness*not only to EU policy and decision makers but also to those
> affected directly by the aforementioned restrictions, maximizing their
> empowerment: political dissidents, activists, human rights defenders,
> bloggers, journalists and several other essential actors in the fight
> for online (and offline) freedom.
>
>
> Now, *shifting the focus of this email to the tender itself*, the
> tasks outlined in the tender specifications (http://bit.ly/16E6sfG)
> will address, among several other things, the definition of the
> governance framework and systems infrastructure that should govern and
> support the operations of the federation of organizations that
> tenderers will have to propose, taking into account that all sorts of
> expertise on Internet-event monitoring will be needed.
>
>
> With the view to translate the Internet reality into a “*cartography*”
> of cyber-censorship and cyber-surveillance, the federation will be
> anchored in a dynamic platform -controlled from a /dashboard/-, where
> the aforementioned federated network of partners with Internet and
> censorship/surveillance monitoring capabilities will aggregate a
> variety of clearly defined sets of data (including Open Data and Big
> Data) coming from several sources and stakeholders. 
>
>
> We expect this project to provide reliable and real time or near-real
> time information on the status of network connectivity and network
> traffic alterations/restrictions, as well as timely information on
> legal, social and political developments related to the use of the
> Internet and media for the exercise of human rights and fundamental
> freedoms.
>
>
> As it seems obvious, the gathering of data (and in some cases of
> information) will be related to the location and intensity of
> cyber-censorship and surveillance in non-democratic countries, nascent
> democracies, jurisdictions where human rights are most at risk or
> other parts of the globe where similar trendshave been arising in
> recent times.
>
>
> The data gathering will have *two tracks*: the *first*one addressing
> restrictions/disruptions of Internet and ICT infrastructure, access,
> traffic, content, Internet cut-offs or security events, /inter alia/,
> overlaid with a *second*track of contextual data of political, social,
> legal, regulatory, policy, media, journalistic or human rights nature,
> related to the Internet or not and with a global scope, which would
> help provide the full picture and enable the EU and other actors to
> swiftly act upon reliable and timely information. Examples of this
> second track could be arrests of journalists, restrictions on freedom
> of expression in times of elections, laws affecting Internet openness,
> crack-downs on activists or restriction to NGO´s establishment, to
> name a few.
>
>
> That near-real time information will be mashed-up and controlled from
> the dashboard, and presented in a user-friendly manner, ideally in
> different layers (thematic, geographic, highly troubled areas, etc.)
> through *interactive visualizations via live maps as an essential
> condition, *coupled with the generation of alarms; subject-matter
> reports and geographical reports. As you will see in the tender, new
> ways of dissemination of information are most welcome.
>
>
> As highlighted before, this type of capability is expected to enhance
> the current EU´s early-warning, decision-making and policy-making
> skills and strengthen the level of situational awareness of, but not
> limited to, stakeholders such as digital activists or human rights
> defenders, but even researchers.
>
>
> In particular, the tasks you will find in the tender are:
>
>
> *Task 1 Creation of an Internet censorship monitoring Federation*
>
> *Task 2 Provision of a Data Sources catalogue*
>
> *Task 3 Definition of a Data Governance Framework*
>
> *Task 4 Definition of the technical and infrastructure specifications,
> features and functionalities**(including security measures)*
>
> *Task 5 Recommendations*
>
> *
> *
>
> Some of the expected positive impacts of ECSA we can name are as
> follows: *(1)*Ensuring Internet resilience and stability; *(2)*
> Reinforcement of early-warning capabilities and emergency response
> concerning events affecting human rights, legal, policy and media
> restrictions; *(3) *Better measurement of the evolution of
> non-democratic environments to democratic ones ("/democracy
> thermometer/"); *(4) *Better exchange of information and capacity
> building among relevant stakeholders; *(5) *Better response in case of
> attacks to human rights and activists networks; *(6)* Creation of a
> body of knowledge at the disposal of academics and researchers, as
> well as of the general public (Open Science); *(7) *Publication of
> timely reports and alarms on relevant Internet and human rights
> related events (including activity and threat reports); *(8) *Support
> to the implementation of Human Rights-based approaches;
> *(9)*Optimization of resources and tailored targeted grant support in
> areas where human rights are most at risk in terms of cyber censorship
> and surveillance; *(10)*Reinforcement of capabilities to ensure global
> Internet connectivity; *(11)*Provide (new) methods for network
> measurement; *(12)*Provision of a new source of information about
> Internet security and infrastructure incidents; or *(13)*Provision of
> capabilities for crisis mapping, among others.
>
>
> In *Part 1 of the Tender specifications*you will find the*Technical
> Description*, containing the general context, the specific context and
> examples of organisations and existing projects in the area of
> Internet monitoring (whereby some of your projects we regularly
> observe are mentioned).
>
>
> As regards the *Elegibility Criteria*, we recommend you to have a look
> in detail at *Part**2 of the Tender Specifications*containing the
> Administrative Details, in particular Section 1 “*Elegibility
> requirements*”; Section 2 “*Administrative Requirements*”; Section 5.2
> “*Selection Criteria*” and Section 5.3 “*Award Criteria*”.
>
>
> At the request of tenderers, additional information will be
> communicated solely for the purpose of clarifying the nature of the
> contract and the tender specifications. Such information will have to
> be communicated on the same date to all interested parties hence your
> questions will be published in the link referred to in the document
> “invitation to the tender”
> (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/news-redirect/l1626). This means
> that for whatever doubt you may have, you can write directly to
> _camino.MANJON at ec.europa.eu
> <mailto:camino.MANJON at ec.europa.eu>_(copying our functional mailbox
> _CNECT-D1 at ec.europa.eu <mailto:CNECT-D1 at ec.europa.eu>_). We will do so
> for transparency reasons and to guarantee equal competition, making
> publicly available both, question and answers.
>
>
> The *opening of received tenders*will take place on *10/10/2013*at
> /*10.00h* /in the Commission building located in Avenue de Beaulieu
> 25, Brussels. One authorised representative of each tenderer may
> attend such opening. Tenderers who plan to attend the opening session
> have to inform me (/Ms Camino Manjon Sierra) /by e-mail
> camino.MANJON@,ec.europa.eu; by fax (+32 2 296 89 70) or letter at
> least 72h in advance.
>
>
> I advance a *clerical mistake*in the section referring to the
> information to be stated in the outer envelope when you send us over
> your tenders: "INVITATION TO TENDER *SMART *2013/N004 / *FULL OJ REF"
> "NOT TO BE OPENED *BY THE MESSENGER/COURIER SERVICE" *"NOT TO BE
> OPENED *BY THE OPENING COMMITTEE BEFORE 16/9/2013", where 16/9/2013
> should be 26/09/2013.
>
>
> As a closing, I would like to sincerely thank my colleague and mentor
> Andrea Glorioso for his support in the firs steps of this complex
> project and for conducting our European Capability Situational
> Awareness workshop celebrated in November 2012, when due to a
> contractual pause before my current position in the European
> Commission I could not be on the driving seat or provide any out of
> the box thinking!
>
>
> I take the opportunity to also sincerely thank all those organizations
> which took part in the workshop (Agenda available
> at _http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf//document.cfm?doc_id=1094__)._
>
>
> We look forward to receiving your proposals and we thank you all for
> the good inspiration that your work has meant for us.
>
>
> 1
> <https://remi.webmail.ec.europa.eu/owa/14.2.342.3/scripts/premium/blank.htm#sdfootnote1anc>http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/eu-fighting-cybercensorship/
>
> 2
> <https://remi.webmail.ec.europa.eu/owa/14.2.342.3/scripts/premium/blank.htm#sdfootnote2anc>http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/131181.pdf
>
>
>
> Best regards
>
>
> *Ms Camino Manjon Sierra*
>
> European Commission - DG Communication Networks, Content and Technology
>
> Unit D1 (International relations)
>
> Internet Governance; ICANN GAC; dot.EU; Internet and Human Rights
>
> Desk Officer Iran, Syria, Sudan, Iraq & Yemen
>
> Avenue de Beaulieu 25 (5/98) / B-1049 / Brussels / Belgium
>
> T: +32-2-29-78797
>
> M: +32-488-203-447
>
> Twitter @msprotonneutron
>
> Linked-In https://www.linkedin.com/pub/camino-manjon/50/b20/240
>
>

-- 
Erik Josefsson
Advisor on Internet Policies
Greens/EFA Group
<http://www.greens-efa.eu/36-details/josefsson-erik-138.html>
GSM: *+32484082063*
BXL: PHS 04C075 TEL: +3222832667
SBG: WIC M03005 TEL: +33388173776
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