[governance] Obama on security, net neutrality, civil

[Parminder]

Thanks Anriette,  there are very useful  insights in  your report below, 
and they present some significant dilemmas. How to best ensure and 
represent public interest at global arenas remains  a huge challenge and 
is  a long haul. What we in civil society, in my humble opinion, can 
best do is to build and strengthen civil society networks and capacities 
at the global level. It consists both in anchoring strongly a vision of 
'another world is possible' and, perhaps even more importantly, invest 
in processes of openness, collaboration and a very high degree of p2p 
and bottom-up accountability in the civil society arena. That is our 
legitimacy, and that alone can give us the needed strength to influence 
these processes better. Parminder

Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
> Thanks Adam... Friday was definitely *not* a good day at the CSTD in
> Geneva. I don't have the copy of the final resolution yet, but it is not
> particularly positive about the IGF, makes no reference to national and
> regional IGFs, and proposed text with regard to consideration being
> given to reporting on WSIS follow up from non-governmental stakeholders
> was not included.
>
> It has fairly good text on the general 'state' of the information
> society, but that is about as far as it goes.
>
> Negotiations were difficult and depressing, shaped by the narrow
> interest of particular governments and far removed, in my opinion, from
> the CSTD mandate which is oversight of WSIS implementation with
> consideration of inputs of all stakeholders and the WSIS principles in
> genera.
>
> Many of the government representatives tried extremely hard to change
> this, to be positive and proactive and open. I respect their hard work.
> Without their efforts the final resolution would be even worse.
>
> Anyone who has doubts that the IGF is an important and useful space, or
> that feels frustrated by it not 'making decisions' or 'leading to
> action' should have been here.
>
> The consensus based decision-making process of intergovernmental forums
> such as this one sometimes does more than just reduce outcomes to the
> lowest common denominator - it punishes proactivity and discourages
> collaboration and openness.
>
> Anriette - in my personal capacity NOT speaking on behalf of APC :)
>
>
> On Sat, 2009-05-30 at 15:42 +0900, Adam Peake wrote:
>   
>> Interesting things happening in the US:
>>
>> President Obama's speech "Securing Our Nation's Cyber 
>> Infrastructure", 
>> <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-Securing-Our-Nations-Cyber-Infrastructure/> 
>> includes the paragraph:
>>
>> "Let me also be clear about what we will not do.  Our pursuit of 
>> cybersecurity will not -- I repeat, will not include -- monitoring 
>> private sector networks or Internet traffic.  We will preserve and 
>> protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as 
>> Americans.  Indeed, I remain firmly committed to net neutrality so we 
>> can keep the Internet as it should be -- open and free."
>>
>> Administration supporting network neutrality, security *and* civil 
>> liberty and privacy.
>>
>> Next:
>>
>> ICANN oversight hearing in the Congress, Thursday June 4. "Event: 
>> 'Oversight Of The Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers 
>> (ICANN)' "
>> <http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=54&extmode=view&extid=47>
>>
>> Anyone know the speakers etc?
>>
>> And interesting, seems Andrew McLaughlin will join the Obama 
>> administration as Deputy Chief Technology Officer, reporting to 
>> Aneesh Chopra 
>> <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/googles-top-policy-exec-to-join-obama-administration/>. 
>> You can see Andrew talking about technology and government in this 
>> video from the Obama transition 
>> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InI5n3NTvR4>.
>>
>> Think Friday was a good day.
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
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