Let's Get Real Folks--Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] DISCLOSURE REQUEST Re: Funding Available for Strengthening Civil Society

[Gene Kimmelman]

I certainly don't want to even begin to try to solve for all the problems
we face.  And I fully understand the outrage at recent revelations, plus
the desire to focus on transparency as a means to build trust.  At the same
time, I myself am happy to "opt in" to a group like Best Bits that seeks to
take concrete steps to address important issues, and of necessity requires
me to trust that others who opt in do so in good faith.  If I find that
faith to be misplaced based on the actions of others, I will be
disappointed and seek another platform to participate on.  In the meantime,
I am comfortable working with the loose coalition of groups that has been
coming together around the Best Bits platform.  And I certainly can
understand that others may make a different decision about participating in
this endeavor.  I'm not sure I see a reason to continue the same
conversation we've had for the last few weeks.  Maybe those who want to
participate in Best Bits as it currently is constituted can do so, and
others can just drop out and quite complaining about it.


On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 3:22 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>wrote:

> As we all know the Internet Governance space is becoming a very hot topic
> and subject to increasing scrutiny, internal manoeuvering and external
> intervention.
>
> This isn't at all surprising given the vast, even world altering resources
> of wealth and power (both of the passive informational and aggressive
> cyberwar varieties) that are potentially being affected.
>
> Any adjustment, however minor in the overall (governance or other) ecology
> of the Internet now has likely ramifications impacting everyone,
> everywhere, and in a vast multitude of ways both visible and invisible.
>
> Notably, the overwhelming thrust from a variety of directions is that the
> form that this Internet Governance takes is to be "multi-stakeholder" where
> the "stakeholders" are roughly defined as governments, the technical
> community, the private sector and civil society.
>
> The recent Snowden revelations have shaken the on-going rather comfortable
> and even Pollyanna-ish sense that the overall deployment of the Internet
> was
> somehow being done in a manner and with effects that were supportive of the
> broad well-being of humanity.
>
> The revelations have for many shattered this belief along with the trust
> that underlay so many of the relationships and transactions on which the
> Internet is built and continues to operate. This framework of trust has
> been
> in in the words of many at the recent IETF meeting, "attacked",  and for a
> significant proportion of those thinking of such matters it has been
> fatally
> undermined.
>
> The Technical Community appears to be still reeling from the discovery that
> the "good faith" of many of those that they considered colleagues and
> partners was in fact "bad faith"; and the associated interventions were in
> various instances undertaken not in the interests of humanity as a whole
> but
> rather in support of narrow and self-serving national (and it would appear
> corporate) interests.
>
> The further revelations of the systematic incursions into the internal
> technical operations of certain US based Internet mega-corporations has
> evidently resulted in both anger and an associated recognition on their
> part
> that the agencies and interests involved were not operating in a manner in
> keeping with normally recognized business practices and interests.
>
> It is thus astonishing that Civil Society, in the IG context the weakest
> and
> least resourced of the "stakeholders", should be asked to accept on "good
> faith" that its activities and on-going deliberation will not have been
> subverted in precisely the same ways and in support of the same interests
> as
> have been the on-going activities of the Technical and Business Sector
> stakeholders.
>
> In fact it would be astonishing in the process of subverting the Internet
> to
> certain national and corporate interests, if CS as a key component of
> Internet Governance were to have been overlooked.
>
> The sad but I think inevitable conclusion is that  I can see no basis on
> which to have continued "trust" in the various CS institutions or
> activities
> since I see no basis on which I can determine the good/bad faith of the
> various actors/interveners in those spaces.
>
> While I can see a basis for finding collaborators and like-minded folks to
> pursue specific activities/interventions based on a clear articulation of
> shared norms/visions, beyond that I see little basis for going forward in
> the current CS formulations and significant dangers more generally if the
> current CS spaces are taken as sole or even significant representations of
> the policy positions of global CS in relation to Internet Governance.
>
> (It follows as well given the above that the overall commitments and
> celebration of Multi-stakeholderism as the preferred model for Internet
> Governance (and increasingly for governance overall in the Internet age)
> needs to be seriously re-thought as per my recent blogpost.
>
>
> http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-open-internet-society-and-its-e
> nemies-can-multistakeholderism-survive-information-dominance/<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-open-internet-society-and-its-enemies-can-multistakeholderism-survive-information-dominance/>
>
> M
>
>
>
>
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