[bestbits] Civil Society Letter on IANA Transition

Gabriel Ramokotjo gabriel at isoc-gauteng.org.za
Wed May 25 08:06:15 EDT 2016


+1 Anja and Pranesh.

Regards
Gabriel

Gabriel Ramokotjo
President
Internet Society Gauteng Chapter
083 742 2005
www.isoc-gauteng.org.za

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 1:47 PM, Anja Kovacs <anja at internetdemocracy.in>
wrote:

> Hi Matthew,
>
> I share Pranesh's concerns about how this was handled. I appreciate tight
> deadlines sometimes complicate matters, but if the letter was posted on the
> site, shouldn't at least an email have been sent to the entire group to
> flag the existence of the letter after it was finalised? Why is it
> circulating on twitter, but not here?
>
> As a refresher for everyone, I'm posting the BB rules regarding statements
> below this email (they can also be found at
> http://bestbits.net/wiki/main/procedures/). Please note that they say:
> "we would seldom agree to post a text that is final and that only a few
> groups from one part of the world drafted". They also note that if the
> "process and timetable have not been complied with", this is an acceptable
> ground for opposition to the statement being put up on Best Bits.
>
> Clearly, Pranesh is completely in his right to raise the concerns that he
> does. It would be good to hear opinions from others on this as well.
>
> Thanks and best regards,
> Anja
>
> *Producing Best Bits Statements*
>
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>
>
> On 25 May 2016 at 14:40, Matthew Shears <mshears at cdt.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Pranesh, all
>>
>> This letter was an effort by a small number of US and intl civil society
>> groups to address some unfortunate characterizations and spin related to
>> human rights and free expression issues associated with the IANA Transition
>> that have arisen over the past month in the media and on Capitol Hill.
>>
>> The letter was intended to be available for the Senate hearing yesterday
>> and to be entered in the record.  It addresses a number of concerns that
>> were raised in the hearing.  The statement was only finalized Monday
>> night.
>>
>> I understand that you have concerns about the power dynamics at play in
>> the IANA transition but that is not the purpose of this letter.
>>
>> It is up on the BestBits site for sign on.   For those who agree with the
>> contents of the letter I encourage you to sign up.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>> On 5/25/2016 9:11 AM, Pranesh Prakash wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>> I recently came across this:
>> http://bestbits.net/iana-transition/
>>
>> However, I never saw its contents being discussed on this list.  Did I
>> somehow fail to receive those messages?
>>
>> I am quite concerned about the way the letter takes an uncritical global
>> North approach to the IANA transition, and refuses to contend with the
>> power dynamics at play.
>>
>> The undersigned civil society and public interest groups believe that the
>> IANA transition is a positive development for the Domain Name System and
>> for the Internet at large, and that the process to develop the transition
>> proposal has been a successful expression of multistakeholder approaches to
>> Internet decision-making.
>>
>>
>> I have pointed out in the past that this IANA transition process fails
>> the requirements of the NetMundial Statement, and was primarily led by
>> corporate interests in the US, and men:
>>
>> http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-multistakeholder-community-neither-global-nor-multistakeholder
>>
>> Regards,
>> Pranesh
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>> --
>>
>> Matthew Shears | Director, Global Internet Policy & Human Rights Project
>> Center for Democracy & Technology | cdt.org
>> E: mshears at cdt.org | T: +44.771.247.2987
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Anja Kovacs
> The Internet Democracy Project
>
> +91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs
> www.internetdemocracy.in
>
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