[governance] Fw: [IP] DL- One Man's Freedom is Another Man's Imperialism (via Evgeny Morosov)
parminder
parminder at itforchange.net
Mon Jan 5 03:17:29 EST 2015
On Monday 05 January 2015 03:34 AM, Ian Peter wrote:
> Worth reading. Puts a lot of the debate about internet freedom into
> the context of free trade vs protectionism.
If one is to believe what is written here is correct, one has to treat
US and US delegations at global IG forums in the same way as China's or
Russia's are treated. In fact, treated much worse, as Morozov also
shows, a Chinese and Russian gov is the biggest threat to their
respective national Internets but hardly a fraction of a threat to the
global Internet as the US gov is.
But what is the reality? Has it been missed anyone here? What do we see
at all global forums? And btw whose initiative is the NetMundial
Initiative? We can of course make ourselves believe what Fadi says that
it is the 'mother of bottom up initiatives', but everyone knows that the
NM initiative, like the initial Net Mundual meeting, took shape in the
deep strategic parts of the US establishment and is meant to serve its
interests - and it will serve its interest, no doubt.
The US issued threats and sanctions against North Korea even when it is
hardly yet proven that the latter was behind the Sony episode. What
about the enormous intrusions that Snowden shows us as US having caused
against practically the entire world - and intrusions of the worst
possible kinds. But of course no one can issue threats and sanctions
against the US - they are the big boss of the world. In the
circumstances, the civil society needs to make the choice - it would
resist and oppose this biggest power with respect to, and the biggest
threat to, the global Internet, of which one of the most important
planks is of course a strong global governance system for the Internet,
which can check US's power. Or instead play the US's game, with perhaps
the apology that the US's power is just too great to be resisted and
instead one must try and get whatever little gains one can by playing
along with it. Not worth the idealism that one expects from civil
society, but that is not what many other people seem to think.
parminder
> Ian Peter
> *From:* Dave Farber via ip <mailto:ip at listbox.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, January 05, 2015 6:45 AM
> *To:* ip <mailto:ip at listbox.com>
> *Subject:* [IP] DL- One Man's Freedom is Another Man's Imperialism
> (via Evgeny Morosov)
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Mark Stahlman via Digital Life" <dl at listbox.com
> <mailto:dl at listbox.com>>
> Date: Jan 4, 2015 1:02 PM
> Subject: DL- One Man's Freedom is Another Man's Imperialism (via
> Evgeny Morosov)
> To: "Dave" <dave at farber.net <mailto:dave at farber.net>>
> Cc:
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/04/internet-freedom-china-russia-us-google-microsoft-digital-sovereignty
>
>
> Who’s the true enemy of internet freedom - China, Russia, or the US?
>
> Evgeny Morozov <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/evgeny-morozov>
> Beijing and Moscow are rightly chastised for restricting their
> citizens’ online access – but it’s the US that is now even more
> aggressive in asserting its digital sovereignty
> Saturday 3 January 201519.04 EST
>
> Recent reports thatChina has imposed further restrictions on Gmail,
> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/29/google-gmail-blocked-china-great-firewall>Google’s
> flagship email service, should not really come as much of a surprise.
> While Chinese users have been unable to access Gmail’s site for
> several years now, they were still able to use much of its
> functionality, thanks to third-party services such as Outlook or Apple
> Mail.
>
> This loophole has now been closed (albeit temporarily – some of the
> new restrictions seem to have been mysteriously lifted already), which
> means determined Chinese users have had to turn to more advanced
> circumvention tools. Those unable or unwilling to perform any such
> acrobatics can simply switch to a service run by a domestic Chinese
> company – which is precisely what the Chinese government wants them to
> do.
>
> Such short-term and long-term disruptions of Gmail connections are
> part of China’s long-running efforts to protect its technological
> sovereignty by reducing its citizens’ reliance on American-run
> communication services. AfterNorth Korea saw its internet access
> blacked out
> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/22/north-korea-suffers-internet-blackout>temporarily
> in the/Interview/brouhaha – with little evidence that the country
> actually had anything to do with the massive hacking of Sony – the
> concept of technological sovereignty is poised to emerge as one of the
> most important and contentious doctrines of 2015.
>
> And it’s not just the Chinese: the Russian government is pursuing a
> similar agenda. A new law that came into effect last summer obliges
> allinternet companies to store Russian citizens’ data on servers
> inside the country
> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/19/russia-digital-soveriegnty-nsa-surveillance>.
> This has already promptedGoogle to close down its engineering
> operations
> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/12/google-closes-engineering-office-russia>in
> Moscow. The Kremlin’s recent success in gettingFacebook to block a
> page calling for protests in solidarity with the charged activist
> Alexey Navalny
> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/30/-sp-verdict-alexei-navalny-kremlin-critic-galvanises-russia-opposition>indicates
> that the government is rapidly re-establishing control over its
> citizens’ digital activities.
>
> But it’s hardly a global defeat for Google: the company is still
> expanding elsewhere, building communications infrastructure that
> extends far beyond simple email services. Thus, as South American
> countries began exploring plans to counter NSA surveillance with a
> fibre optic network of their own that would reduce their reliance on
> the US,Google <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/google>opened its
> coffers to fund a $60m undersea cable connecting Brazil to Florida.
>
> The aim was to ensure that Google’s own services run better for users
> in Brazil, but it is a potent reminder that extricating oneself from
> the grasp of America’s tech empire requires a multidimensional
> strategy attuned to the fact that Google today is not a mere search
> and email company – it also runs devices, operating systems, and even
> connectivity itself.
>
> Given that Russia and China are not known for their commitment to
> freedoms of expression and assembly, it is tempting to view their
> quest for information sovereignty as yet another stab at censorship
> and control. In fact, even when the far more benign government
> ofBrazil toyed with the idea of forcing American companies to store
> user data
> locally<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/brazil-dilma-rousseff-internet-us-control>–
> an idea it eventually abandoned – it was widely accused of draconian
> overreach.
>
> However,Russia <http://www.theguardian.com/world/russia>, China and
> Brazil are simply responding to the extremely aggressive tactics
> adopted by none other than the US. In typical fashion, though, America
> is completely oblivious to its own actions, believing that there is
> such a thing as a neutral, cosmopolitan internet and that any efforts
> to move away from it would result in its “Balkanisation”. But for many
> countries, this is not Balkanisation at all, merely de-Americanisation.
>
> US companies have been playing an ambiguous role in this project. On
> the one hand, they build efficient and highly functional
> infrastructure that locks in other countries, creating long-term
> dependencies that are very messy and costly to undo. They are the true
> vehicles for whatever is left of America’s global modernisation
> agenda. On the other hand, the companies cannot be seen as mere
> proxies for the American empire. Especially after the Edward Snowden
> revelations clearly demonstrated the cosy alliances between America’s
> business and state interests, these companies need to constantly
> assert their independence –occasionally by taking their own government
> to
> court<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa-lawsuit-documents-fine-user-data-refusal>–
> even if, in reality, most of their interests perfectly align with
> those of Washington.
>
> This explains why Silicon Valley has been so vocal in demanding that
> the Obama administration do something about internet privacy and
> surveillance: if internet companies were seen as compromised parties
> here, their business would collapse. Just look at the misfortunes of
> Verizon in 2014:uncertain of the extent of data-sharing between
> Verizon and the NSA, the German government ditched its contract with
> the US company <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28047877>in favour
> of Deutsche Telekom. A German government spokesman said at the time:
> “The federal government wants to win back more technological
> sovereignty, and therefore prefers to work with German companies.”
>
> However, to grasp the full extent of America’s hypocrisy on the issue
> of information sovereignty, one needs to look no further than
> theongoing squabble between Microsoft and the US government
> <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/14/privacy-is-not-dead-microsoft-lawyer-brad-smith-us-government>.
> It concerns some email content – relevant to an investigation – stored
> on Microsoft’s servers in Ireland. American prosecutors insist that
> they can obtain such content from Microsoft simply by serving it a
> warrant – as if it makes no difference that the email is stored in a
> foreign country.
>
> In order to obtain it, Washington would normally need to go through a
> complex legal process involving bilateral treaties between the
> governments involved. But now it wants to sidestep that completely and
> treat the handling of such data as a purely local issue with no
> international implications. The data resides in cyberspace – and
> cyberspace knows no borders!
>
> The government’s reasoning here is that the storage issue is
> irrelevant; what is relevant is where the content is accessed – and it
> can be accessed by Microsoft’s employees in the US. Microsoft and
> other tech giants are now fighting the US government in courts, with
> little success so far, while the Irish government and a handful of
> European politicians are backingMicrosoft
> <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/microsoft>.
>
> In short, the US government insists that it should have access to data
> regardless of where it is stored as long as it is handled by US
> companies. Just imagine the outcry if the Chinese government were to
> demand access to any data that passes through devices manufactured by
> Chinese companies – Xiaomi, say, or Lenovo – regardless of whether
> their users are in London or New York or Tokyo. Note the crucial
> difference: Russia andChina
> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/china>want to be able to access data
> generated by their citizens on their own soil, whereas the US wants to
> access data generated by anybody anywhere as long as American
> companies handle it.
>
> In opposing the efforts of other countries to reclaim a modicum of
> technological sovereignty, Washington is likely to run into a problem
> it has already encountered while promoting its nebulous “internet
> freedom” agenda: its actions speak louder than its words.
> Rhetorically, it is very hard to oppose government-run digital
> surveillance and online spin in Russia, China or Iran, when the US
> government probably does more of it than all of these countries combined.
>
> Whatever motivates the desire of Russia and China to exert more
> control over their digital properties – and only the naive would
> believe that they are not motivated by concerns over domestic unrest –
> their actions are proportional to the aggressive efforts of Washington
> to exploit the fact that so much of the world’s communications
> infrastructure is run by Silicon Valley. One’s man internet freedom is
> another man’s internet imperialism.
>
> *Digital Life* | Archives
> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/236460/=now>
> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/236460/26287180-34081d9d>
> | Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&> Your Subscription
> [Powered by Listbox] <http://www.listbox.com>
>
> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now>
> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/853646-9b3abb6d> |
> Modify
> <https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=853646&id_secret=853646-9b832eb9>
> Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
> <https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=853646&id_secret=853646-56396bc0&post_id=20150104144543:3DF9F91E-944A-11E4-8686-A82DFF76CA12>
> [Powered by Listbox] <http://www.listbox.com>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20150105/3752e1ca/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
More information about the Governance
mailing list