[governance] Secret Surveillance Puts Internet Governance System at Risk

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

I have actually not defended them here and I find myself uncomfortable with what is being done - though this is merely high technology doing something that has been done for years and years far better (I mean if you read a frederick forsyth or tom clancy spy novel from the 60s..80s you'll read all about some of the names that are now hitting the popular press - possibly with slightly more accuracy than the average press article too)

I'm just trying to inject a sense of perspective here.

And yes, your last paragraph is 100% correct.

--srs (iPad)

On 07-Aug-2013, at 18:37, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:

> 
> On 7 Aug 2013, at 05:39, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> 
>> there are countries where Manning would have been tortured
> 
> 
> Suresh, I really do respect the way you stand up to those who wish to make as much capital as possible from the sins of the US.  You have more fortitude than I could ever muster.  
> 
> However, several thoughts occur to me:
> 
> - when we need to resort to examples such as N. Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia or Uganda and  ...  to make excuses for our own sins and infractions, we have already sunk too low;
> 
> - when the rule of law is perverted as it has been in the US on the FISA/Prism issue and by other governments on many other issues, we are reminded of the frailty of the rule of law that always serves the regime in power and the money behind their power and are reminded that often law serves the basest instincts of people (e.g. in the US our common fears can be used to excuse anything);
> 
> - Manning was tortured to get a confession.  It might not have been anything more that what the US has defined as extreme questioning, or whatever euphemism we use, by most humanitarian definitions of torture it was torture and we need to admit that we tortured and that this is not the first tim we used torture for our security mania and we MUST stop;
> 
> Neither am I one to beatify Manning or Snowden, I think that while they did the world a favor I think they went about it quite badly and they did break vows taken voluntarily. I understand civil disobedience and the need sometimes to break a vow, but that does not excuse breaking a vow, it just explains it and mitigates it. I also strongly beleive in having good whistle blower protection and mechanism for revealing that things that need to be revealed.  We mistreated Manning and I expect we would do the same to Snowden if we ever got our hands on him.  So I understand his wanting to stay out of our reach, though I would have respected and supported him more had he stood his ground in his act of civil disobedience.
> 
> And yes I say we, for as long as I travel on a US passport and am honored to be a civil society type who occasionally serves on US delegations, I am responsible for what the US government does.
> 
> As for Internet governance being at risk, I don't buy it.  Yes it again shows us why governments can never be more than equal partners in the participatory democracy that we call the multistakeholder model.  But it again reinforces the need for all of us to be involved in Ig, and for us all to fight for transparency and accountability without vilifying the other.  Or at least that is the lesson I take from it.
> 
> avri
> 
> 
> 
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