AW: [governance] Article: "Italy moves to place controls on Internet

Thu Mar 12 12:29:18 EDT 2009

Dear list

Here is my approach after the discussions in Mexico. 

There will be - unavoidably - a new role for governments in Internet Governance for various reasons in the years ahead. (Post JPA, enhanced cooperation in a new political and economic environment, lessons learned from the failure of self regulation of the banking sector etc.).

What are the options fort a role of governments in Internet Governance?

1. an enhanced GAC. Makes no real sense if you look which government sends whom to the GAC (low level buerocrats with no real decision making capacity at home). Additionally as long as there is no solution for the China/Taiwan issue and Russia is only an observer GAC is not really representative.

2. an international treaty (as a result of the process of enhanced cooperation among governments as part of the WSIS process) negotiated within the UN system . Makes also little sense because such treaty negotiations would last for 15 years or more. 

3. OECD (is unlikely because it is not universal)

4. An high level intergovernmental political body which inlcudes the major players and has the power to push various organisations which have negotiations power to start processes on an issue by issue basis. The G 7 played such a role under the Clinton Administration to a certain degree. They organized in 1995 the famous Brussels G 7 Information Society Summit where they invited also South African president MBeki. The US government pushed for a "Global Information Infrastructure Initiative" (GII). There was already a parallel business roundtable which signalled the multistakeholder approach. One year later was the  G7 meeting in Midrand. And inn 2000 the G 7 adopted the "Okinawa Information Society Declaration" and launched the DotForce. This process collapsed with the Bush Administration. No other G 7 member was reallz interested to continue with DotForce which became later part of the UNICTTF which now is the GAID. I could imagine that the Obama administration will come back to this in the framework of forthcoming G 7/8 meeting. But the world has changed since 2000 and the  G 7 would be todaz too narrow if it comes to the Internet. You need the G 20 which includes BRIC. The acronym which I propose for this would be IG 20. With an IG 20 you would have a gobal Internet institutional architecture where IGF, ICANN and IG 20 would be combined in form of a network where the various institutions act in their specific roles without subordination but with mutual respect. This would be one step int this new territory of unchartered water which is called cyberspace. 

Wolfgang

________________________________

Von: Lee W McKnight [mailto:lmcknigh at syr.edu]
Gesendet: Do 12.03.2009 16:42
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Elena Pavan
Betreff: RE: [governance] Article: "Italy moves to place controls on Internet

Hi,

I agree with Jovan, Elena and Bill that G-7 is unlikely to have impact on Internet regulation; and that Berlusconi's impact beyond Italy's borders will fortunately remain negligible.

G-20 as key forum I would go further and say it already is more significant, for dealing with global financial crisis and other international issues including probably IG. But its impact is also limited to heads of state consensus/agenda--setting, since other institutions would have to pick up implementation beyond the summit meeting(s).  As was noted G7 played that role in the past including for info society issues, but without BRIC these days it can do little.

Lee

For PhD student trolls on the list.
G-7 1st said  'global information society' in '94,in Naples; a ministerial followed in '95 in Brussels, but was of no great consequence, other than signifying 'global info society' issues were formally on international agenda..  At least that's my recollection from the cheap seats of academe/as a bit player/go-between for EU & US at the time. Lots of hot air but little action - gee some things don't change.

Actually VP Gore said phrase 'global information infrastructure' in keynote at ITU mtg in Buenos Aires earlier in 94 so ITU was 1st ; )

Look it up:
At the Naples G-7 Summit in July 1994, the G-7 leaders emphasized the necessity of encouraging the development of a worldwide information society and they agreed that the relevant ministers should meet in Brussels. The European Commission extended an invitation to the G-7 to convene a ministerial level conference on the Information Society on February 25-26, 1995. The Information Society Conference will include ministerial level discussions on:

regulatory and competitive frameworks
the development of the infrastructure and access to it
essential applications as well as the social, societal, and cultural aspects of the information society
Each G-7 Country, plus the European Union, will send Ministers responsible for telecommunications and information matters. The conference will include a session with private sector representatives, both users and producers of telecommunications and information equipment and services from each of the Member states participating in the G-7 conference. Technology demonstrations will be given by governments and industry during the conference to showcase the benefits and capabilities of information technology."

>From the U.S. Department of Commerce notice of public meeting on November 16, 1994, regarding the G-7 ministerial level conference on the Information Society on February 25-26, 1995, in Brussels.

________________________________________
From: Elena Pavan [pavan.elena at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 10:20 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Article: "Italy moves to place controls on Internet

Indeed,

Bill literally stole my words
 this news is not that new either. we were in hyderabad first time such an issue was raised by my government (totally overlooking the IGF... but maybe even not knowing that much about the IGF..). despite what echoes outside italy you have to consider that this "project" is part of berlusconi's & Co. lrger "project" to slowly move towards a -how can i define it without sounding drastic?- totalitarian/unilateral/individual "regime" (i guess it is more drastic than what i wanted but sounds like the truth).
he is not aware of implications of this statements and i believe preoccupations expressed abroad and by all of you should be seized down  (if this can ever be a re-sizing) to the fact that there is a "leader" who speaks as he does and is potentially dangerous. but, in this specific regard, only potentially. italian policies on data retention are pretty much strict and ujust, though but they are comlementary tot he overall limitation of civil rights in relation to the necessity to guarantee "security". after all, believe me, where he can do damages within the italian boundaries, he is already doing. nonetheless, the "worldwide threat" posed by my government is, in my opinion, more political/ethical than actual. none would follow berlusconi path... maybe russia, as bill says, but maybe even they are clever that us....at the end of the day, before coming out of the blue with such a statement at the next G8 i believe (better, hope) berlusconi will re-consider considering consequences that such a proposal might have. it is not convinient, after all, to go down this way and he might realize it before it is too late.. in other words, it is outrageous, but not realistic.
tchuss
elena

2009/3/12 William Drake <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
And the 2000 summit in Okinawa addressed the global digital divide and launched the dot force...

There's lots of forum shopping going on with respect to security (broadly/vaguely/problematically defined) and it wouldn't be entirely surprising for the G8 to be brought into play for a related statement, but it's hard to imagine most member governments getting behind something like what the Italian senate is reported to have done.  Maybe Russia...

Bill

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com<mailto:roland at internetpolicyagency.com>> wrote:
In message <6AB963BED20C4F4AA2B2F18EBC7F8543 at GINGERLAPTOP>, at 06:43:48 on Thu, 12 Mar 2009, Ginger Paque <gpaque at gmail.com<mailto:gpaque at gmail.com>> writes

I was particularly interested in any previous mention by the G8 as a group
to issue some kind of statement or guideline, as Berlusconi seems to be
suggesting.

They've done specific work on "High Tech Crime" (which is in effect more about retaining traffic data). I'm not aware of anything in the area of Content filtering - but I don't monitor it regularly.

--
Roland Perry
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--
Dr. Elena Pavan
DSRS University of Trento
Via Verdi n. 26
38100 Trento
GigaNet Secretary
http://giganet.igloogroups.org/

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