[bestbits] Connectivity and human rights

[Brett Solomon]

Dear friends,

You might remember the two letters (here
<http://bestbits.net/finance-ministers-global-connect/> and here
<http://bestbits.net/global-connect-initiative/>)*
<https://share.america.gov/globalconnect/>* sent through Best Bits last
September and in April of this year

* on the Global Connect Initiative.
<https://share.america.gov/globalconnect/>*
The overarching aim of the Global Connect is bring 1.5 billion people
online by 2020.

The Initiative is progressing including a meeting that took place following
the April letter between US Secretary of State and the President of the
World Bank. Many Finance Ministers also participated in that event at the
World Bank designed at financing Global Connect.

Despite the letters, the IEEE Report-out document that came out from the
meeting, barely registered human rights, freedom of expression, privacy
etc.

A few of us (Access Now, Public Knowledge and APC) have started to work on
a set of HR-based principles to inform connectivity initiatives including
Global Connect.

Given the renewed attention on connectivity, we see this as a good
opportunity to develop a set of principles that addresses the human rights
dimension of access, and that guide human rights as a foundation for
rolling out connectivity - from participation of marginalized voices, to
the nature of contractual arrangements, to protection of opinion online.

Right now much of the discussion is centering around outstanding
connectivity issues being essentially an engineering problem. The risk of
course, if human rights do not inform connectivity initiatives is the roll
out of a censored, throttled, monitored, militarized internet and could
deepen inequalities within societies.

We are using existing documents (eg WSIS+10 Outcome Document, Human Rights
Council A/HRC/RES/26/13, Net Mundial, internet rights and principles charte
<http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/charter/>r), APC Internet
Rights Charter  <https://www.apc.org/en/system/files/APC_charter_EN_0.pdf>to
inform these principles.

We wanted to see if others in the community would be interested in working
with us. And we are looking specifically for those who have experience in
expanding access (including in providing access in under-served communities
and building community-based networks) and network engineers and would like
to support us in this effort with expertise.

Let us know if you're interested or if you have questions.

Hope all are well!

Brett

Brett Solomon
Executive Director
Access Now | accessnow.org

+1 917 969 6077
@solomonbrett
Key ID: 0x4EDC17EB
Fingerprint: C02C A886 B0FC 3A25 FF9F ECE8 FCDF BA23 4EDC 17EB

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