[bestbits] Call for Transparency Process for 1Net

[genekimmelman at gmail.com]

With all due respect,  making 1net the focus of concern strikes me as a distraction from more important substantive issues. We need the Brazil conference ( not 1net) to be inclusive,  open and address civil society priorities. 

-------- Original message --------
From: michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> 
Date: 02/08/2014  10:58 PM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org,bestbits at lists.bestbits.net 
Subject: [bestbits] Call for Transparency Process for 1Net 
 
Colleagues,
 
As an instance of the kind of Transparency and Accountability that I think, at a minimum, is necessary to safeguard against the “capture” of multistakeholder processes can I suggest the following:
 
Since roughly 24 hours have elapsed since I sent the below message concerning the need for full Transparency and Accountability for 1Net, with no comments in opposition, can we take it that there is a rough consensus in support of this call?
 
Such apparently being the case can it be further suggested that “we” as Civil Society currently being represented in the 1Net Steering Committee direct “our” representatives to insist on a full Transparency account from 1Net as per the below and invite other stakeholder representatives on the 1Net Steering Committee to join us in this call.
 
Note, I will be travelling for the next 12 hours or so and will be unable to respond to emails.
 
M
 
From: michael gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2014 5:12 AM
To: 'Anne Jellema'
Cc: 'Anja Kovacs'; 'governance at lists.igcaucus.org'; 'Mike Godwin'; 'genekimmelman at gmail.com'; 'jeremy at ciroap.org'; 'bestbits at lists.bestbits.net'; John Curran (jcurran at istaff.org)
Subject: RE: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG
 
Good question Anne and let me give a somewhat lengthy reply to cover your question and several of the others…
 
My starting proposition is that “we” (let’s for the moment accept that “we” here are a stand-in for a broad-based and inclusive civil society representation) insist on, as a minimum measure, full transparency and accountability of all “multistakeholder” processes in the Internet Governance sphere and in the absence of this full transparency and accountability it is assumed that the MS process in question is illegitimate and to be rejected out of hand with the burden of demonstrating transparency and accountability being on the advocates/proponents of that MS process.
 
By insisting on this as a minimum we are at least providing the basis for a scrutiny/challenge of the possibility of capture and while most certainly not foreclosing on the possibility of capture/subversion some tools for making an effective challenge/sunlighting  of these potentials for capture/subversion would at least be available.
 
Someone asked for a practical/detailed example… (I worked as an auditor for several years (for the UN and the Canadian Government so forgive me for putting the below in somewhat of an audit format…
 
Let’s take 1Net as a MS space/process for an example….
 
1.       Where did 1Net come from?  Did it arise spontaneously one day from Adiel’s brow or was there background discussion, review, confirmation? If so who was involved in those discussions? Is there a trail of any sort linking 1Net to earlier discussions, authorizations, decision making processes. (Here one wouldn’t necessarily expect a formal process but an indication of the informal process and who was involved in that process would provide something of an “audit trail”.)
 
2.       When 1Net selected certain groupings to act as its surrogate in identifying candidates for various positions including it’s Steering Committee who determined which organizations were selected, what criteria were used, what other organizations were selected and discarded and again what criteria were used for discarding these?  Who were parties to these decisions and on what basis were these parties selected to be involved in these decisions?  What formal processes for doing this authorization were followed. Is the documentation concerning this part of the public record? If not why not? (Again there might not necessarily be a formal process but again “transparency” and “accountability” would require some form of response to these questions.
 
3.       Concerning the “Summaries” of the discussions presented by 1Net.  Who prepared these summaries? Who paid for these summaries to be prepared? Who developed the terms of reference guiding these summaries? If contracts were involved who authorized the contracts and under what budgetary authority? Who supervised the work of preparing this Summary? Who signed off on the Summary before it was distributed? Under what authority were those who did the sign-off operating? (Note that the response by Adiel to the first of these questions which was to side-step and stonewall i.e. to give no response, would to me as an auditor begin fiercely ringing bells and I would then begin to look for whatever leverage I had to insist on an answer. (In this instance there was an expenditure of resources, certainly time but very likely money so some documentation should be available and if not that is a red flag in itself.
 
4.       Concerning the creation of the “forums” website and overall conceptual and web based formats and architecture. .  Who prepared this format and designed and developed the web site? Who paid for this to be designed and developed? Who developed the terms of reference guiding this design? If contracts were involved who authorized the contracts and under what budgetary authority? Who supervised the work of preparing this site? Who signed off on the site before it was made public? Under what authority were those who did the sign-off operating?
 
(Note that the audit process is one that uses (imposed if necessary) transparency to ensure accountability.  Without making any suggestion concerning the nature of the 1Net processes or their background and funding the questions that I’ve posed above are rather basic ones that any auditor for a public authority would ask in this context.)
 
So why does this matter?
 
Given the potential current and long term significance of the processes with which these activities and 1Net are engaged achieving this minimum level of transparency is surely necessary and warranted.  And before anyone suggests that these matters/activities are trivial and that what is important is the outcomes I would simply point in the direction of this
The way in which we frame an issue largely determines how that issue will be understood and acted upon (Dr. Birjana Scott as quoted on the Diplo website)
 
and the very extensive documentation of this process of controlling an argument (or discussion) by controlling the framing of that argument by Prof. George Lakoff and others.
 
1Net has been in the business of “framing” the Internet Governance discussion at each point in the process—its arrival on the scene and its interposing itself as the space for multistakeholder discussion in the Internet Governance area, its selection of who it will allow into the discussion and who will be excluded, its provision of a “summary” of the discussion, and of course its “framing” of the discussion through the establishment of a set of pre-structured forums.
 
This process of “framing” of the Internet Governance discussion by 1Net and whoever is paying for/directing 1Net’s activities has been done with no oversight, no transparency and no accountability but is now taken as the accepted practice for civil society (and other?) participation in the Brazil meeting (and beyond?).  
 
I’m not at this stage attributing any motives to this “framing” process… We don’t have enough information to attribute motives or intentions but what we have in front of us is I believe sufficient to insist on a full accounting and full transparency at which time a judgment could be made.
 
I see no reason why the information requested above could not and should not be made more or less immediately available?  If these are “public” processes operating in the “public interest” as is being indicated, then they should be expected to be as accountable and transparent as any other public processes.
 
In the audit biz it is only when information is not made available that the red flags start going up and the suspicions are aroused.
 
Mike
 
 
From: Anne Jellema [mailto:anne at webfoundation.org] 
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 5:29 PM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: Anja Kovacs; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Mike Godwin; genekimmelman at gmail.com; jeremy at ciroap.org; bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG
 
A salutary reminder Michael. Personally, I'd have to be the first to admit charges of naïveté, although neither Andrew nor Anja strike me as especially tarrable with that brush. Nevertheless it's always useful for aspirations to be informed by a hard-edged analysis of realpolitik. And vice versa. So: what's your starting proposition for a defensive strategy? And: what do you think we should be defending?
Best
Anne

On Friday, February 7, 2014, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
As I’m reading the various messages and suggestions concerning Brazil and following the discussion on this list and others I’m struck by one overwhelming observation…

 

Folks here seem to be assuming that whatever develops with respect to Internet Governance (and their own interventions) are taking place in a world of benign and selfless actors (stakeholders) whose only interest is in the public good and the well-being of the Internet. 

 

Thus proposals for this type of “decentralized” governance structure and that proposal for the “management of decision making through MSism” all are making the completely unwarranted and dare I say, naïve and even dangerous assumption that there are not significant, well-funded, very smart and quite likely unscrupulous forces looking to insert positions that serve and ensure the dominance of their own corporate/national/institutional interests into whatever emerges from whatever process.

 

It really is hard to take any of this discussion very  seriously unless there is an attendant discussion on what measures can/will be taken to ensure that these forces do not prevail… that these processes are not captured and subverted… i.e. what are the defensive strategies and institutional mechanisms that “we” (CS) are advocating as part of whatever package we are promoting.

 

Is no one in these CS discussions taking into consideration the overwhelming resources of wealth and power that will be impacted by whatever might emerge from these discussions and the similarly overwhelming temptation (even in some cases the responsibility) to do whatever it takes to twist the result to support one’s own narrow (corporate/national/institutional ) interests and what the significance of this observation has to be for these discussions and their outputs.

 

This isn’t paranoia or USA or whatever bashing.  This is simple common sense.

 

Has no one here heard of Mr. Snowden and what he has been telling us?

 

M

 

From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net [mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Anja Kovacs
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2014 6:43 AM
To: Anne Jellema
Cc: Mike Godwin (mgodwin at INTERNEWS.ORG); genekimmelman at gmail.com; jeremy at ciroap.org; bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG
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