[governance] stakeholder categories (was Re: NSA sabotage of Internet security standards...)

Wed Sep 18 16:10:22 EDT 2013

Hi JFC, 

I hear what you are saying and it implies that things must be black and white. 

 In a former life I was legal counsel for a Telco which would have made me private sector but I was advocating matters of public interest and not just looking out for the best interests of my employer then. In fact being involved in civil society from as early as 1987 have helped me to have a more balanced worldview when dealing with the corporate world. I used it to engender awareness within my own organisation on multiple issues.

I have since left to form a Think Tank which is independent, self funded. I consider myself to be civil society. I was the inaugural chair of our National Cyber Security Working Group which is actually Multistakeholder in composition but reports to My country's Ministry of Defence. Following handing over, I am now Chairing the Legal Sub Committee of the Working Group and advise the Government but am NOT on their payroll. 

I don't see any merits that can come from policing the current subscribers on this list and pigeon holing them into categories. If people want a pure civil society list, they can easily start one. I don't like anyone telling me what I am and what I am not. The test of the matter should be in the levels of contribution on substantive matters, policy, statements, influence etc. Similarly, the attacks on Peter Hellmonds are uncalled for. Whilst there is a way to highlight your point but you need to be able to raise it without resorting to attacks.

For the record, I object to any type of pigeon holing.  

Kind Regards,
Sala

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 19, 2013, at 7:10 AM, JFC Morfin <jefsey at jefsey.com> wrote:

> At 18:43 18/09/2013, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>> Peter H. Hellmonds <peter.hellmonds at hellmonds.eu> wrote:
>> 
>> > Perhaps we need to make a phone call to clarify
>> > things. I'll send you my number in a private mail. We can then
>> > discuss offline and inform the list of the outcome. 
>> 
>> Update: Peter and I have talked and have amicably resolved the
>> issue between us.
> 
> I am glad of that. However, the matter raised key general issues that have to be discussed outside of friendly phone talk. I concatenate them.
> 
> On 09/17/2013 06:22 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> > Civil society is necessarily amorphous. 
> 
> There would then be NO interest in it, except for some to try to manipulate it or use it as an alibi for their own agenda. The Civil society (cf. proposed definition below) is a collective IQ, a source of precious transcendental critics and suggestions and a pool of competent lead users who form the people's last line of defense and protection reserve when an aggression against their common rights crosses the limits their normal life entitles them to. 
> 
> > Trying to force it into a definition will lead to its just not existing. 
> to what Karl commented; I agree with this 100%. Each person is a bundle of self interests and self conflicts.  Each person works that out in his/her own way.
> 
> I am sorry, but I 100% disagree with all of this subjectivism introduced by Peter Hellmonds sentence “When I served in the IGF MAG as a business representative I've always also considered myself a part of a civil society”.
> 
> Peter, being able to understand other stakeholders’ certainly is of some help toward inter-comprehension, but what you express was a cause for you to resign as not being trustable. What you express here is exactly the same as the NSA engineers being trusted in a normative meeting as engineers, but behaving as NSA employees, with the aggrieving factor that their colleagues could know who their employer was, and the other MAG representatives had no way to know your motivations. 
> 
> Your position was perfectly ethical had you been a Judge, an expert, or a member pronouncing himself in his heart and soul. However, you were not. You were a business stakeholder’s group representative. In your heart and soul you should have represented the best interests of businesses. Otherwise, how could you negotiate with other group resilient sustainable agreements, if these agreements are biased in favor of Civil Society? No side can trust you and your deliverables.
> 
> This is the difficulty of multistakeholderism and the difference between its polycracy and democracy.
> 
> In democracy, you are a person representing people through your vote by majority. In polycracy, you are an authoritative competence advocating the interest of a constituency toward a consensus that is to be uncovered (a consensus is to actually pre-exist under conditions to clarify and agree, otherwise it will never hold). In democracy, you are a person, in polycracy you are an advocate.
> 
> 
> This is why I 100% agree with Norbert, except when he proposes: “A logical consequence of this is the need for a new category “multi/other”. I think that the introduction of such a “multi/other” category (which by definition does not have a specific “respective role” in Internet governance, but which is needed to ensure that everyone who does not neatly fit into one of the categories with specific “respective roles can still fully participate in the discourse) violates neither the spirit nor the letter of the Tunis Agenda.”
> 
> A barrister has his own opinions, and can express them outside of the court in wearing his own cap. What we share is to reach robust, sustainable, efficient consensuses, the esthetic of which is people centered. Our ethic is to do whatever is transparently good to that end. I see no problem if an NSA member tells me: “here is my proposition as an NSA employee”, and adds “as a civil right expert I advise you to try to find something stronger”. Different caps. 
> 
> Peter, when you say “Just like yourself, I have an ethical and moral conscience. And I do not leave all that behind me at the doorsteps of the company just by virtue of drawing a paycheck from a business that is involved in laying the physical underpinning of the Internet.”, I am sorry but if you keep my respect, you lose my trust. Your paycheck draft by this business is for helping them to make the internet work better so that they make more money. 
> 
> -  Either this is not their target and if you wish to stay with them you are to refuse to represent them, 
> -  or this is actually their target and you do to them and us a disservice in not trying as much as you can (including in publishing it as long as you did not obtain it, so that they know if they want to keep you as a representative) to have them share your ideas, so that their ideas that you represent are also yours.
> 
> Another point that I would like to make in addition to Norbert is that you took one of the representative places. Who put you there? Why? Who would have been picked otherwise? With the same ideas? 
> 
> jfc
> 
>  
> ____________________________________________________________
> 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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130919/9e771d22/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