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

Tue Jun 11 10:52:08 EDT 2013

Parminder,

On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 3:54 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>wrote:

>
> Also noteworthy - about the point of willing cooperation or not - that
> Google fails to mention this stuff in its so called transparency report...
> What is the justification for that...
>
> Unfortunately the answer is pretty simple: they are prohibited by US law
to mention this kind of requests. Whether this is something appropriate is
another matter, but it is US laws.

B.

>
>  On Tuesday 11 June 2013 07:13 PM, michael gurstein wrote:
>
>  The difficulty Kerry and all is that even if the US companies were
> ``cooperat(ing) within the boundaries of the law``, it was (necessarily) a
> US law bounded by, but enforcing US jurisdiction.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> The Internet dominant companies involved are of course companies with
> global reach, global markets, global users and among the most active
> purveyors of an open and free/boundaryless Internet and what your post and
> the bulk of the discussion on these matters does not address is that the
> other (non-US) users of these services have essentially no protection under
> these laws. They/we are `fair game`.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> In some cases/places we have some protection under our own national laws
> but given that these laws have no jurisdiction (or truly effective
> influence) over the companies themselves (as has been demonstrated in
> various matters particularly in the European context and as is currently
> being articulated to her credit by our Canadian Privacy Commissioner) we
> are truly naked in front of these surveillance mechanisms (and given the
> current state of the US security panic we are all under suspicion until
> proven innocent); with by the way no evident means of authenticating one`s
> innocence in any lasting way.****
>
> ** **
>
> M****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [
> mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org<governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org>]
> *On Behalf Of *Kerry Brown
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 11, 2013 8:54 AM
> *To:* governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> *Subject:* RE: [governance] Is 'tit for tat' all that can be accomplished?
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> The language is too confrontational (i.e. “notes with horror”). It will
> never be taken seriously.****
>
> ** **
>
> There is no proof that any of the companies you mention cooperated
> willingly. I think that they all have cooperated within the boundaries of
> the law but that is opinion. I haven’t seen any proof. I think a far more
> likely scenario is that the NSA uses a variety of methods, some possibly
> illegal, to collect data that probably includes data from the mentioned
> companies. That is speculation. If we are going to express opinions and
> speculation we need to call out that we are doing that.****
>
> ** **
>
> Kerry Brown****
>
> ** **
>
> (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. ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
>
>
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-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle
Internet & Jurisdiction Project Director, International Diplomatic Academy (
www.internetjurisdiction.net)
Member, ICANN Board of Directors
Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

"Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de Saint
Exupéry
("there is no greater mission for humans than uniting humans")
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