[governance] Civil Society (was Re: caucus contribution, consultation and MAG meeting)

[michael gurstein]

Suresh, I'm not the CS police or any sort of arbiter but FWIW to my mind
simply saying that you "support good antispam laws and on public / isp
education on Internet security" doesn't really make it "civil society"... 

The question is what are the underlying values/public interest that you are
trying to achieve with or through "good antispam laws and on public / isp
education on Internet security".  

It seems to me that achieving increased corporate efficiencies (and thus
corporate profits) is as, or more likely the "interest" that is driving
your/your employers actions as anything to do with enhancing the public
good.

M 

-----Original Message-----
From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:suresh at hserus.net] 
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 7:18 PM
To: michael gurstein; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; 'Roland Perry'
Subject: RE: [governance] Civil Society (was Re: caucus contribution,
consultation and MAG meeting)

In my case, my activism so far has been on good antispam laws and on public
/ isp education on Internet security. Here, funnily enough, my interests and
views are actually congruent to the interests and views of my current and
past employers on a number of occasions. Though I obviously leave my work
affiliation behind me when I participate anywhere in my personal capacity

--srs (htc one x)



On 17 February 2013 1:44:17 AM "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com>
wrote:
> My own opinion on this would be that folks such as you are describing 
> would in fact need to become somewhat pro-active to be "of" civil 
> society -- whether they joined a specific group would depend on the 
> circumstances. But if they were concerned that certain norms were 
> being expressed (for example
> anti-stalking) or that normative based actions (anti-stalking 
> measures) were being proceeded with they would probably need to become
part of some "group"
> or other. However, the specifics of that "becoming part of" or of 
> those particular "groups" would vary dramatically all the way from 
> "likes" on a Facebook group to joining issue based organizations/demo's
etc.etc.
>
> As for the person from the industry group... as I understood it, he 
> was arguing that as a citizen he was "in" civil society at least for 
> part of his personal "situationalization" (grr... not a good word but 
> I can't think of another at the moment...
>
> The question of his being "of" civil society really came down to 
> whether there was a personal normative alignment with his articulation 
> of, and identification with his corporate interests (wearing his 
> corporate situationalization hat) or with his "interests" as a 
> citizen, wearing another hat.
>
> Personally, at this point I would see whether someone was able and 
> willing to, for example, sign on to the normative (and programmatic) 
> positions as articulated by CS in WSIS 2003 and WSIS 2005 as a 
> reasonable indication of whether they were in alignment with CS in the 
> IG space i.e. whether they were "of" CS in the IG space. If yes, 
> "yes", if no, "no"... (and for the record, I see updating and adapting 
> those normative (and programmatic
> positions) as being the primary mission for CS going forward at least 
> to WSIS 2015).
>
> Others may (and very likely will) want to develop their own normative 
> position going forward toward WSIS 2015 (without an initial agreement 
> to align themselves with CS WSIS 2003 and 2005) or whatever, and they 
> may also choose to call their postioning as CS, and who is to stop 
> them; but for the purposes of my own activities in this area that is 
> how I will look to proceed.
>
> M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
> [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Roland 
> Perry
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 11:13 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Civil Society (was Re: caucus contribution, 
> consultation and MAG meeting)
>
> In message <00ef01ce0c6e$60a5fd70$21f1f850$@gmail.com>, at 09:52:11 on 
> Sat,
> 16 Feb 2013, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> writes
> >To be a wee bit philosophical here... We should probably be talking 
> >about those who are "in" CS (as for example, as a descriptive 
> >category for those not in government, business etc.etc.) in contrast 
> >with those who
> are "of" CS (i.e. those who have ascribed themselves or could be 
> ascribed to sharing/advocating in support of some set of normative 
> principles/values associated with CS...
> >
> >In this determination, "stalkers" could be seen as "in" CS without 
> >necessarily be "of" CS (unless there was a grouping supporting 
> >"stalker rights" as part of a large CS rights and principles 
> >initiative :)
>
> I understand the distinction you are trying to make, but how does it 
> work in practice?
>
> Recently a contributor here who is "in" a trade association was in 
> effect accused of being inextricably "of" that trade association 
> (although he very plausibly denied it).
>
> On the other hand, we all know about the professional difficulty 
> Government employees have with trying to express "a personal view"
> divorced from their day-job.
>
> The group of people I'm trying to place somewhere within the 
> eco-system are those "in" civil society who have been affected by 
> "something bad happening on the Internet". Do they have to join some 
> sort of lobbying group in order to become "of" something, and is that 
> something within Civil Society, or one of the other stakeholder groups (if
the latter, which...)?
> --
> Roland Perry
>
>
>



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