[bestbits] Time-sensitive: 24 hour sign on period for ITU Plenipot joint recommendations

[Norbert Bollow]

Although my request and this entire process so far as been open in
public, the negative response which I have today was sent off-list.

Since this falsifies claims which were made or implied here in the
public discussion, I would suggest that the negative response and its
official justification should be posted here too.

Specifically I'm referring to the following claims which I believe were
implied in previous postings:

(a) Openness of the BestBits “fluid working group” on the ITU to all
interested civil society colleagues.

(b) That the reasons for not publicly opening the email archives of that
“fluid working group” have nothing to do with hiding things from civil
society colleagues.

Nota bene my personal interpretation of the negative response differs
from the official justification (which, as I wrote, I think should be
posted.) Specifically, I strongly suspect that the true reason is that
key leading people in BestBits consider JNC to be a political opponent.

By the way in my view there is nothing wrong with creating a coalition
or alliance and closing some or all of its processes to access from or
review by people who are considered to be actual or potential political
opponents. I would have thought that a bit of honesty about that kind
of situation would have been appropriate though.

Greetings,
Norbert



On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 21:22:45 +0200
Anne Jellema <anne at webfoundation.org> wrote:

> Dear Norbert,
> I have forwarded your request to the list members and I am waiting for
> their replies.
> Best
> anne
> 
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 1:17 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> 
> > Many thanks, Anne, for your detailed response and explanation.
> >
> > I would like to hereby request permission review the archive. I'm
> > willing to promise to not disclose or discuss with any third parties
> > any information of the kind that you have referred to below as being
> > sensitive and the reason for not having a fully open archive, unless
> > and until said information also becomes available to me through some
> > other channel (such as e.g. WCITleaks.) [Nota bene my willingness to
> > agree in this particular situation to such a non-disclosure
> > commitment should not be read as an agreement in principle to some
> > BestBits type processes being less than fully open. It's just
> > because I don't intend to start a general public discussion of that
> > issue of openness at the current point in time.]
> >
> > In case an introduction is needed: I'm a German citizen, living in
> > Switzerland since a long time, and I'm an advocate for human rights
> > and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). I've participated in many
> > Internet governance related discourses since a long time, for
> > example as a participant in the DRUMS working group at IETF which
> > led to RFCs 2821 and 2822, as a participant of the first two
> > BestBits meetings (but not the most recent one), as the initiator
> > of the process that led to the formation of the Civil Society
> > Coordination Group (CSCG), and more recently as a co-convenor of
> > the Just Net Coalition (JNC).
> >
> > Greetings,
> > Norbert
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:51:11 +0200
> > Anne Jellema <anne at webfoundation.org> wrote:
> >
> > > The pre-IGF BB meeting in Istanbul (report on the BB website)
> > > agreed on the creation of three fluid working groups. Carolina's
> > > note on the outcomes of this meeting, sent to the Best Bits list
> > > on 9 September, outlined these groups and who to contact if you
> > > wanted to join. Snippet below:
> > >
> > >
> > > >    - *ITU working group:* A group of volunteers (see the list in
> > > > the BB report) has been formed. If you'd like to join, please
> > > > contact Anne Jellema <anne at webfoundation.org> and myself.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >  About 30 people requested to join the ITU working group, were
> > > duly added and introduced themselves to the group; no one who
> > > asked was turned down.
> > >
> > > The group decided not to open its email list archive. Many of the
> > > group members are participating in government delegations, which
> > > is a valuable source of information and intelligence that CS
> > > needs for effective advocacy (especially in the ITU context where
> > > access to documents is highly restricted), but requires that you
> > > accept a duty to treat that information with great care. Those on
> > > delegations felt that there was some of this information that
> > > they could responsibly share with a group of 30 people whose
> > > identities, affiliations and reasons for participating in the
> > > group they knew, but not with an open mailing list of 370 people.
> > >
> > > Second, as mentioned above and also stressed in my note to the
> > > list the other day, this was a group of volunteers who prepared a
> > > statement and opened it to the wider BB list for endorsement (or
> > > not). The statement has not been issued in the name of "civil
> > > society" or "Best Bits" but only in the name of the organisations
> > > who chose to sign it.
> > >
> > > I hope that answers your questions but feel free to follow up.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Anne
> > >
> > > On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 1:38 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 22:38:08 +0200
> > > > Anne Jellema <anne at webfoundation.org> wrote on the BestBits
> > > > list:
> > > >
> > > > > As you know, a fluid working group was formed after the IGF to
> > > > > try to come up with joint recommendations for the ITU
> > > > > Plenipot.
> > > >
> > > > May I ask some questions about this?:
> > > >
> > > > Was this an open process which any interested civil society
> > > > person would have been accepted to join upon request?
> > > >
> > > > Are there publicly accessible mailing list archives somewhere?
> > > >
> > > > Greetings,
> > > > Norbert