[governance] Is 'tit for tat' all that can be accomplished?

[parminder]

On 11/06/2013 10:07, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Reading the governance list, I'm struck by how little discussion there
> is on how to take the things that you presumably agree on (objection to
> overbroad surveillance, etc.) and do something productive with it; it
> seems almost all effort is spent trying to score points against factions.
>> Is this really the best that this list can do?
>>
>> Other lists - like Best Bits - are responding with statements and the
> like on topical subjects.

Sure Nick, we should do a statement too. What about the following. (The 
initial draft is submitted for Caucus' consideration.) (Nick, BTW I took 
the initial expression 'horror' from your last email on the subject.)

(Proposed text below - very rough first draft to get things rolling)

    The Internet Governance Caucus notes with horror the manner in which
    the global population is being subject to such intrusive and intense
    surveillance by the US government in complicity with US based
    companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL,
    Skype, YouTube and Apple. Apart from being against all tenets of
    basic human rights, it exposes the hypocrisy of the claims by the US
    government of a special global legitimacy based on the 'historic
    role' vis a vis the governance of the Internet.  We are further
    troubled that in US government statements on the PRISM related
    disclosures, the main defence it seems to take is to say that they
    would never do any such thing to any US citizen. What about the non
    US citizens? And what about the claims of the US government that
    they are responsible to the 'global Internet community', a refrain
    frequently heard from the US government in the global Internet
    governance space? Why the double talk across spaces where technical
    management of the Internet is discussed and where 'harder' issues of
    privacy, security and rights – from political and civil rights to
    economic and social rights - get implicated?

    We are also extremely disappointed by how the US based global
    companies - Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype,
    YouTube and Apple – betrayed the trust of their global customers in
    cooperating with the US government in such mass scale surveillance.
    Reports on how Twitter seems to have refused to cooperate show the
    kind of options that may have been available to these other
    companies as well. The denials by some of these companies about
    allowing government deep and largely indiscriminate access to
    information on their servers seem to run contrary to most news
    reports, which have not been contradicted by US authorities on these
    aspects.

    We wonder if there is a pro quid quo between the US government and
    these US based Internet companies with global operations, whereby
    these companies help further US government's political, military,
    etc interests worldwide and the US government in turn puts its
    political might in service of ensuring an unregulated global space
    for these Internet businesses? A good example of this is the
    insistence by the US government at the OECD and US-EU trade talks to
    maintain lowest possible data privacy standards, against
    considerable resistance by EU countries.

    The Internet Governance Caucus demand that the Human Rights Council
    calls for a special report and a special session on this issue. It
    should also proceed to examine ways to develop globally-applicable
    norms and principles on digital privacy and basic structures of
    legal frameworks and due process that ensures people's rights in
    online spaces – both civil and political rights as well as social
    and economic rights.




>   Would you rather score points against one
> another, or score points for the public interest?
>
> - -- 
> - ------------------------------------------------------
> anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
> executive director, association for progressive communications
> www.apc.org
> po box 29755, melville 2109
> south africa
> tel/fax +27 11 726 1692
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>
> iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJRtucJAAoJEJ0z+TtuxKew2wcH/0i8NmZCtk8GlTxtLEeIJdN5
> zxZNuF3mi7r4orpoeE9ib/qXca0hVfEWArK3m+yA1vEoW9ntOjPAaePQfhhKIavA
> fPf7kZIkGwr6dQJ/Q9vs2ZJdpb1i3sZSYMFDNBrEkodnhx9a0jRHgzHCvavRZnu/
> s1HQgqucJXvYLJzfsmhEL+Y7Gs9TzyjTrE7rbHCFiAy95jKt91uDe7VWd3IbZaBA
> uU563jfUoVwquw5MOPzfkNRJEa/3ldpWDRhMEjrWNjUKyghJhsP1EytXWKe8I0Ex
> JF7iuDQonvJ7yupeVUWOiHSXWIbL9vq8K6vEDkfXooJkOEWySgY0JWvrsr+hPBU=
> =dPgW
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130611/f29ef61b/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t