[governance] Follow-up on principles, pre-event, ECTF, WG: need for focus by IGC

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 07/07/2012, at 12:22 AM, Samuel Klein wrote:

> Some curation and coordination is needed to bring interested parties and views together, but I think a significant majority could in time settle on a consensus document.  Hopefully  including the major groups that care about and study internet governance.

Yes I think so too.

> Many groups remain isolated by their sense of identity and otherness.  Including those that aim to help and represent everyone -- like 'popular' groups and 'civil society' groups (both terms which, in their simplest form, cover most of society).  
> 
> I hope we [the largest-frame community of Internet users] can keep this from being an 'us v. them' debate for a dozen different social circles, each of which feels it is the only unbiased representative slice of society.

What worries me now is that with Ron Paul jumping in, along with other libertarian and conservative groups (like small government and tax reform groups) who previously had no involvement in these issues (much less than that of the groups behind the first Declaration of Internet Freedom), they may have no interest in going beyond the polarised position of "no government regulation of the Internet", which the rest of us moved past in 2003 or earlier.  Even if we had another 9 years to wait, I don't think that would be long enough for them.  This is fast turning into a black and white ideological battle.  People on the other side are flinging around words like "Marxist" to describe your people.  It is getting ugly, and I don't think they want to talk.

> I also hope we can separate underlying questions about internet freedom and its value in society, from Internet Governance.  The former is more philosophical and less tied to near-term current-day implementation decisions.

I don't think that they can be separated.  Talking about Internet freedom in the abstract is not useful.  It drills down into at least five quite separate principles (in your formulation, and I don't think it could get much more succinct than that), and each of those in turn drills down into a number of separate issues (for example "privacy" brings up data collection, data protection, anonymity...), and each of those have particular contexts in which they have to be addressed, and voila, that is Internet governance.

> I must say, the language you use above makes me uncomfortable, and feels... sub-optimal.  An ideal coalition or network won't be "led" or "owned" by one particular group; it will draw from many and be defined by its members.  

They can form a global public sphere on Internet governance (or Internet freedom if you prefer) issues, and that is useful in itself.  But in order to actually affect policy, these disparate contributions have to be linked back into the sphere of institutional politics at some point.

It is absolutely fantastic that SOPA, PIPA and ACTA were defeated, but not everything bad from government will be able to be spun as a direct attack on freedom, that can mobilise grassroots people in that way.  Indeed, governments and big business will be a lot more subtle from now on.  This will require a different method of engagement than head-on, brute force protest (as effective as that was in those cases).

> I hope people from all of these groups, and from "popular" groups that you feel are currently apart from civil society (including the 'net activists who are currently engaged in work like broadcasting the existence of recent declarations), will be invited to upcoming IGC/IGF discussions on the topic.  And vice-versa.

The good news is, you are all invited to the IGF!  The bad news is, it is in Azerbaijan.  But please do get as many people involved through remote participation as you can.

+1 to Norbert's reply on the Enhanced Cooperation parts.

-- 
Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
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