[governance] Program for IGC at IGF

[George Sadowsky]

All,

I welcome McTim's response; it goes right to the heart of the matter. 
In my view, it highlights one of the unspoken and politically 
incorrect truths of the entire WSIS process, i.e. that many (the 
great majority in my opinion) of the issues under discussion with 
respect to the Internet are national and sub-national issues, not 
international issues.  Raising them in an international context may 
allow governments to superficially abdicate their responsibility for 
dealing effectively with these issues at home.  It could, however, 
have the beneficial effect of putting a spotlight on the issues, but 
this will only help if the responsibility for solving them is placed 
directly and explicitly on national governments, not on any 
international community.

The ISOC and GIPI Access workshop, starting first thing Tuesday 
morning, will try to separate these issues with respect to access. 
My own organization, GIPI (www.internetpolicy.net) has been active in 
about 20 countries trying to influence national legislation and 
regulation in favor of the increased availability, access, and 
affordability of the Internet, and yes, with an emphasis upon 
consumer protection and confidentiality of information.  Let me tell 
you that it is difficult work, requiring full time resources on a 
continued basis.   Governments, especially those in non-democratic 
countries, to give up control.  that is where the battles must occur.

If you want to do something about non-transparency, let's start by 
working on the most blatant examples of it: governments such as North 
Korea, Myanmar and Kazakhstan, and quite a few more, not on 
institutions that are trying, even if only tangentially, to do 
something positive with respect to them.

There clearly are issues that are international in scope that that 
are good candidates for intelligent discussion in international fora. 
It remains to be seen how much of that will occur at the IGF.

Let's also stop accepting revisionist history as anything but an 
admission of ignorance or unwillingness to accept the truth.  Good 
examples of this are contained in the recent Linguistic Diversity 
workshop outline.  As Stephane Bortzmeyer points out, and as those of 
us who have worked in ICT for quite a few years know, linguistic 
diversity has been an issue of active concern since at least the 
1970's.  If workshops and other discussions are not based upon an 
accurate understanding of history and an accurate assessment of the 
nature of the problem and ongoing efforts to solve it, then their 
proceedings and conclusions will be ignored, and correctly so, as a 
silly waste of time by people who don't know any better.

George Sadowsky

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


At 5:55 PM +0300 10/20/06, McTim wrote:
>On 10/20/06, Jeremy Malcolm <Jeremy at malcolm.id.au> wrote:
>
>>
>>Not having a go, Tim - I appreciate the feedback - but I know that you
>>speak for a lot of others, and so I have to ask, do those other bodies
>>you refer to make decisions about:
>
>I speak for myself, tho others may share my views.
>
>>
>>* Freedom of expression on the Internet
>>* Responding uniformly to cybercrime
>>* Data protection and privacy rights online
>>* Equity in interconnection costs
>>* Consumer protection such as anti-phishing
>>* etc, etc, etc
>
>not directly, but neither will the IGF.
>
>>
>>Do you not care about these issues (fair enough), or do you think other
>>bodies are dealing with them adequately, or do you think they are
>>ungovernable?
>
>Those issues will be dealt with in national laws and regulations.  Not
>that that is a *good thing*, but that is the way it is.
>
>>
>>Because speaking for myself, I do care about them, I don't think any
>>other body is dealing with them in a transnational and inclusive way,
>>and I think that the IGF is our first, best chance to do so.
>>
>>But I am worried that the opportunity will be squandered and the IGF
>>become just another intergovernmental body in which the non-state
>>stakeholders serve no purpose but to feed input into independent
>>governmental policy-making processes.
>
>I'm not sure it will even do that!
>
>--
>Cheers,
>
>McTim
>$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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