[governance] NSA sabotage of Internet security standards

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 17.09.13 10:32, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>
> This relates to the very fundamental question about what is “civil
> society”. My view is that only people and organizations are qualified
> to be considered “civil society” who are truly independent of all
> industry and government interests in regard to the topic areas on
> which they engage.
>

This is a very good question, but unfortunately not an acceptable 
definition.

What you suggest is that individuals (by themselves or grouped in 
organisations) essentially without any qualifications in the field (by 
virtue of not being involved in any entity in that industry -- because 
they are not "companies") are to decide how that very industry should 
develop.

The "industry" consists of all parties that are active in that 
particular area, be it individuals or groups of individuals.

Let's take as example the ISP industry. This is certainly an activity 
that has been practiced by both individuals and groups of individuals 
(companies). If you exclude those who are in the trade from the "civil 
society", what is left is those who have never been involved in the ISP 
industry and therefore have no clue what the challenges there are. Yet, 
those people are tasked to shape it?

For me, "civil society" has always been anything that is not 
"government". Now, "government" is a very wide term and therefore, a 
member of the civil society who then becomes "a governor" of any kind is 
automatically excluded from the "civil society".

Now, any "civil society" that participates in "Internet Governance" 
should either cease to be "civil society" or cease to participate in 
"Internet Governance".

Pretty complex, eh? :-)

Daniel


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