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A New System of Governance For Internet: The Need For a WIF & a WIO

2014-04-22T17:51:58Z

As President Obama is stepping back from the White House previous plan to abandon U.S. asymmetric role over Internet in 2015, -the administration now says the change won't happen for years, if ever - the major issue to be discussed in Sao Paulo, beyond the Principles still to be agreed upon, is about leadership and control. Pairing a World Internet Forum (WIF) with a World Internet Organization (WIO) could be the solution to preserve roles, respect principles, balance powers, and maintain a check-and-balance approach over IG. This idea is part of the submissions made at NetMundial. It is worth to explore and see why this innovative and democratic solution is a credible alternative to the current deadlock. Among the critical challenges, how will a MS model answer to the question of leadership? Who's going to be in charge, in a MS model? Everyone? Who's going to nominate that leadership/everyone? Who's going to control it, and eventually veto it or simply refrain it? Stakeholders? On an equal footing? Here is what the Swiss based think-tank Global Geneva submitted to the NetMundial participants a few weeks ago. In essence it is an hybrid solution recognizing the reality of what Internet is about: a global commons, a market, a jungle. A WIF-WIO pair could be what is missing in today's Internet, but in tomorrow's Internet where we will enjoy more than a single US root-zone.

The full Global_Geneva submission is here, The Next Best Stage For The Future of Internet Governance is Democracy

Extract from Submission 187 to NetMundial

"We are of the opinion that there are three levels of understanding to further articulate the next system of governance related to the Internet, and its many issues and challenges:

- A: intergovernmental level, (binding agreements, national and international public regulation, international law)

- B: global citizens level, (Internet principles, consensus, best practices, empowerment, fair competition, innovation, capacity building)

- C: arbitrage and justice level (unlocking deadlocks, dispute settlement and court decision).

_2.1 : Intergovernmental level

Establishment of a World Internet Organization (WIO) able to legitimize common public policies, regulations and standards related to interconnectivity issues. Some of them could be of ‘soft power’ essence – commonly accepted but recognized by treaties -, some of ‘hard power’ – new regulations or new policies. WIO would have full legitimacy, with the largest constituency among States, their signatures duly apposed to each other. WIO would be part, and contributive to, the international law and policy making framework. Each opportunity to vote by WIO constituency (governments) could be vetoed once, and only once, by the WIF (see below). In the latter case, a new round of discussions and negotiations should take place.

The WIO executive board would have a mandate to bring initiative and suggest reforms for approval and implementation by its constituencies, and would have to forward, document and submit any suggestion approved by the WIF (see below) on both the Internet public policy level, WIO bylaws or Internet governance level. To enter the Internet governance law framework, all of these suggestions would be approved by the WIO constituency, with a 75% majority, if not vetoed by the WIF (see below), or after a second round of negotiations within WIO, if primarily vetoed. WIO would not enter daily operations of the Internet governance. Still it would be the referring authority to IANA, due to its role with regard to DNS/root zone management, encryption and IPs. It cannot be that an entity responsible for such critical functions could be regulated, or place under an authority supposed to be regulated or having just a technical perspective; putting IANA under the control of TLD registries and root servers operators sounds even more dangerous. IANA functions would be handled in a independent fashion.

Thinking of innovation, would it be more than one root zone, the WIF, and not WIO, would create a board to oversight their setting, ruling, and inter-connectivity in full transparency and independence. Once set, this board would be handled and managed with the same precaution as for IANA, under WIO authority but not under its direct handling. The check and balance would still be into the WIF’s hands.

WIO would be the right entity to handle tax avoidance issues.

_2.2: Global citizens level

Establishment of a World Internet Forum (WIF) able to defend values, (see Internet Charter or Internet Principles), public concerns and support a just, capable and thriving interconnected space. The WIF would be the venue for a permanent dialogue between global citizens and all players in the field starting with accredited civil society representatives. The WIF would suggest and promote ideas, programs, policies (to WIO and governments), working in close relation with the other UN entities from Human Rights to Climate Change, Environment, Development, Trade, Intellectual Property to fund and support approved initiatives by the WIF. The WIF would be the ‘natural’ entity able to deliver empowerment and capacity building to any stakeholder, in particular to public authorities and public servants expressing such a need. The WIF would also be able to update the Charter if needed.

ICANN would be able to pursue its role for collective service fees, edit new TLDs, under the supervision of the WIF. I would not handle global public policy matters.

Regulatory proposal to WIO or initiative driven by grouping international entities (public private partnership, public or private) should be endorsed by a 75% majority of the forum constituencies. No unanimity would be required. No veto would be allowed to one single governments – no Security council here! The dialogue within the forum would be of multistakeholder essence, but profit-oriented participants would be excluded from voting with respect to regulatory proposal to WIO and changes to the Internet Charter – no doubt, the for profit participants would keep their capacity to express their view, thanks to their powerful means.

The exact setting of the WIF constituency would be discussed thoroughly during the preparatory period (see roadmap).

The WIF would be part of the UN system, but its constituencies would not be governments (see WIO), but global citizens and civil society recognized players of the field. All continents should be equally represented.

When values would be at stake, the WIF would address an official request to the entity, government or stakeholder responsible for not respecting the Internet Charter. This could lead to a resolution by the UN, and possible sanctions.

The location of IANA at WIO, and ICANN at the WIF, have probably to do with the fact that ICANN should be assimilated to a domain development and service entity when it comes to domain name. IANA would be the technical, safety and security entity. IANA should have a special link/status/contract with WIO in order to avoid un-wanted interferences from governments. A 75% majority at WIO would be requested to act/modify/contest a IANA decision, making it difficult for governments to go beyond reasonable and consensual demands. Again the WIF could veto a potential decision by WIO, once.

Among the WIF constituencies, there should be room for an online/remote participation of global users and global citizens. A citizen initiative should be considered, if able to embrace 5 continents, and criteria to be define during the preparatory process (see roadmap) in order to suggest program or regulation at the WIF level, then possibly at WIO level. The preparatory work (see roadmap) should take this into account, so that for the very first time citizens would have a chance to voice directly their concern. The digital wonder of today allows the lawmakers to think of this democratic and inclusive process to be part of the new Internet Governance eco-system. Such an initiative could not be vetoed and the WIF would have to finalize a proposal/initiative.

_2.3 Arbitrage and justice level to address deadlocks and disputes.

Establishment of a double system of arbitrage/settlement and justice/constraint, taking into account the positive lessons from WTO and WIPO. The arbitrage operandi would be placed under WIF scrutiny, in a transparent, accountable and responsible fashion. If no arbitrage/settlement could be concluded at the WIF by a specific board, the case would be brought to the appreciation of the court of justice, seated at WIO.

The WIF board of settlement could be called in on issues/conflict related to actions by stakeholders.

Action against the WIF could be taken to WIO.

As the UN system offers many different models of governance – see ILO, WTO, ISO, WIPO, UNDP, UNEP… - it offers a lot of opportunity to adapt any governance to the specifics of any major field of concerns. The UN system is flexible enough to envision a new system of governance, taking the lessons of other systems of governance, and considering the specifics of the Internet. The UN system can bring legitimacy to new entities or mandates, having to combine both international binding agreements and treaties with efficiency and a required speed to cop with the extension of the Internet space, impact and outcomes.

3_An innovation in international governance of the Internet could impact many other field of interests.

Since 1945, after a year of preparation and 4 months of intensive discussions in San Francisco, the UN Charter was signed by 50 future member states on June 26, the UN being installed on October 24, the same year. A fascinating new governance product of the largest war ever, the second world war, a globalized one. As an innovative political space, the UN even though it has been often criticized has face many new challenges and ‘invented’ many innovative entities and programs, related to both immediate and long term issues. One major innovation within the Internet new system of governance would be the fact that WIO and WIF would both have strong capacities to act, but would also be linked through a check and balance relation. As the WIF would be the “guardian” of a charter/framework of the Internet principles, it would be legitimate to censor an agreement at WIO level, which would not be in agreement with the Internet charter. A WIF veto would oblige any such agreement at WIO level to go through one additional round of negotiations. One possible option would be having the WIF as a member of WIO, the only one with no voting rights, but a veto rights on first round. A second negotiation would have to be conducted, in a fair understanding that the same proposal could not be run again without some serious amendments. An opposition between the WIF and WIO would lead to a major crisis which makes this new system of governance interesting if citizens and leaders wish to keep it aloft.

Any dispute against WIO should be taken to the UN general secretariat.

4_Funding of the new system of governance for the Internet

4_1: WIO would be funded by its constituencies.

4_2: The WIF would be funded for its most part by service charges for Internet unique identifiers (domain naming – extension) collected globally by ICANN, and in addition, specifically by ISOC/PIR for .net, .org, .com, .ngo.... That supposed that the ISOC/PIR capacities would be transferred to the WIF. ISOC being a community based organization would, like any other civil society organization, have to fund itself within its membership, or any other appropriate system. The PIR expertise and staff could be incorporated as a WIF department, but at reasonable cost. Such a funding for the WIF would be more or less similar to the way WIPO is getting the majority of its funding.

4_3: The work over Internet Charter would be secure by the UN.

It seems consistent to think that the WIF will require more budget support than WIO, which needs a secretariat but a rather small staff.

5_Roadmap for implementing the new system of governance for the Internet

Democracies and members of the United Nations are now facing the major challenges. As NetMundial will come to a conclusion on April 26, 2014, the Brazilian government should call for the UN to launch the following process, and suggest to help and participate in the preparation and Sao Paolo follow-ups with a few other major governmental partners (Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, India, China, South Africa and the US). In 1944 and 1945, 4 countries prepared the draft of a UN Charter (China, United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States) after representatives of 26 countries pledged their Governments to continue fighting together the Axis Powers on January 1st, 1942, when the term ‘United Nations’ was first used by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Such a call to the United Nations, following Brazilian president speech in front of the UN General Assembly and the Sao Paulo meeting would show obvious and strong consistency at both local and international level by the Brazilian head of State following the Brazilian conference. The call would require to:

_5.1 : Set a process to finalize an “Internet Charter” by convening civil society, users and their representatives, the technical and researching community, and governmental and UN delegations in limited number. Many interesting contribution are already there to start with, including the Just Net Coalition Principles. No corporations or business associations should directly participate to establishing that Charter - they already have enough power to voice their views and try to influence the writers of such an Internet Charter.

_5.2 : Set a common process to precisely define the two new bodies (WIO & WIF), their linkage, including check and balance between them, transparency and accountability, and their common adequate roadmap. The US will have to accommodate these requests, in order to end the asymmetric governance and market dominance of the Internet. This will take away the risks that the Internet is facing today. A non digital war treaty ratification should be a natural complementary objective to that process through the WCIT/ITRs channel. A Cyber war non proliferation treaty would be welcome.

_5.3 - Set a technical advisory group to best assess the core functions of the Internet, and see how to adequately transform them, or not, and how and where to position them in the framework of a WIO –WIF system. This process would be supported by a neutral group of engineers able to assist and advice the first two process in their reflection and capacities at a technical level. Clear criteria are needed to select the participants.

_5.4 – Such a global project needs leadership, under the neutral oversight and arbitrage of the UN general secretariat. A special appointment is necessary to have a high level diplomat or a former foreign affair minister, a former prime minister, or a personality of undisputable command, a man/woman of high reputation able to handle that process with the support of a small group of special assistants. He/she would have the support of a small multistakeholder advisory board to help him/her cope with the spirit of the overall process (WIF_WIO) and philosophy.

It seems reasonable to think that 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 could be achieved over a 1-year time frame, paving the way to another 6 months to found, fund and constitute the proposed entities and system of arbitrage and justice, and do the switch from the old system. Until then, the current system would basically be stable.

For More Internet, And More Democracy, Forget Netmundial and ICANN

2014-04-22T08:50:03Z

As the Netmundial conference on the future of Internet governance starts, rather than asking "What can we expect from it?", perhaps we might ask instead whether this future might be more promisingly reformed by political, technical and architectural innovations than by a preach to a so-called multistakeholder choir convened in Sao Paulo.

Since Fadi Chehadé, chair and CEO of ICANN, flew to Brazil in October 2013 to soften President Dilma Rousseff's outrage after her famous anti-digital-US-surveillance speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Netmundial has been part of the visible US effort to embrace Brazil into its political multistakeholder (MS) digital discourse. This narrative has provided an effective smoke screen for maintaining the status-quo, which involves, due to historical and economic reasons, asymmetric oversight of Internet Governance by the US government, through the IETF, IANA, ICANN, ISOC, and thanks their digital rubber barons. Over the last 16 years since the establishment of ICANN, a Californian nonprofit under contract with the US Department of Commerce, the MS governance model has done very little on behalf of citizens and netizens in terms of protecting digital freedoms -- from absence of competition for broadband access in the US to global surveillance by the NSA of all netizens of the planet. The MS model's major achievement has been its ability to keep things under subtle but indefeasible control.

As Rousseff, joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, launched a digital revolt following the NSA scandal, the US government recognized it was facing something more serious than a bunch of UN experts or civil society activists from the South. Rousseff's statements were bold and clear: "In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy" and "Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country." Her words still resonate for many.

Rousseff's comments were addressed primarily at the US and supporting countries for the US digital domination (UK, Sweden, Japan, Australia, etc). The ball was shot hard, and the US had no choice than to play it with the most dedicated attention. So, thanks to Chehadé's smooth assistance, Rousseff accepted to organize a conference jointly with ICANN. This proposal seemed a win-win. It provided a victory for Rousseff's external politics, by embedding Brazil in a so-called MS conference, while also giving ICANN another victory, because as co-organizer of such a conference it has been able to influence any kind of decision related to choice of content, committee, secretariat, panelists, speakers and ultimately any critical outcome. Of course, Brazil (through non-profit, CGI.br) would handle the guest list for the Brazilians invités, and help secure the coming of a few other token states to participate, including the "Twitter-friendly" Turkey, where the next Internet Governance Forum is supposed to be held... This setting would satisfy the US because the solutions that suit ICANN naturally suit the US.

With a 800-seat international conference, the co-organizers, ICANN and CGI.br still have had to make choices, even though the cost for traveling to Brazil already provided a natural selection in terms of attendance. To date, corporate delegates are to occupy more than 40 percent of the room. To make it a success a few other countries were needed to plump up the numbers of governments -- being those that were outraged in the first place, and kept at bay for so long by the US government and corporations. As the US has consistently told the world over the last three years, "governments represent a potential danger to Internet. They could seize control and deprive netizens of their rights". In the same breath, the digital jewels of Wall Street and US capitalism are, of course, requiring all the trade and intellectual property protections the world's governments can muster, as well as shying clear of tax in countries where they should. It is not part of the US narrative to speak about the detrimental impact of all of this on human rights and development in places where it would be most needed. So here we are, after six months of intense behind-closed-doors preparation, ready to attend Netmundial, a conference that claims to be 'multistakeholder', but which is really about launching the next stage of US global multistakeholder domination over the Internet, thanks to an ICANN++.

One very positive thing to come from Netmundial has been the 187 submissions expressing a large diversity of views, sometimes convergent, sometimes in strong opposition. This shows that the issues at stake are matters of fundamental importance. Collecting such a vast amount of ideas is the easy part of course; the hard part being what to do with them, especially if they are not all "converging". In a two-day conference, with so many different participants having diverse constituencies, values, roles and interests, it is hard to imagine that a dialogue can really take place. Therefore the two co-organizers began to set out a document based on the 187 submissions - a draft of which was publicized by Wikileaks -- and which was formally published on 14 April. Such a digest is not a gastronomic marvel. Some words that did not find their way to that final lap include: Democracy, social justice, and net neutrality. Some expressions have been mutilated such that we have "surveillance should be conducted..." instead of a "surveillance should only be conducted..." Still it has been suggested to everyone to comment on this document. Like with the rest of Internet governance multistakeholderism, participation is seen as an end rather than a means. Comments always make the people feel happy, even though their view doesn't make a difference on the final document.

MS is considered by its priesthood as the next best form of democracy with outcomes emerging from "convergence" (no voting here). Pick up everything that is "converging" and you get the final result. Add as many '+1' and you claim to have a legitimate conclusion. Indeed, that sounds like what the MS enhanced democracy pretends to be. It has no legitimacy, no vote, no checks and balances, no serious dialogue, no media counter power, and no trust.

Netmundial will not be a place to dialogue, nor a competition between ideas. It will just be another MS show. A jolly feast, with all invited, happily munching on their own courses, but net destruction, rather than creation. And it will come with a final statement by the co-organizers starting with a big thanks to all. Brazil, after happily devouring its Berners-Lee blessed Internet governance model-for-the-world will say "see our Marco civil for digital rights in Brazil just passed by the first Brazilian chamber of representatives and possibly, the senate. You, foreign governments, should do the same." For ICANN, the outcome will sound like: "We are so happy to see that everyone had a chance to participate and that we have a consensus over the value of a multistakeholder model of governance for Internet. Everyone at Netmundial was "converging" on that. We commend the US government for giving ICANN the responsibility to handle the IANA function, and we welcome governmental and civil society advice and support to achieve our new global mission. We have had so many participants in Sao Paulo and remotely contribute to and support the Netmundial initiative and conclusion. Please note that ICANN will fund the Internet Governance Forum in its role as a MS forum." All is well, let's have Caipirinhas.

To come to back to the very beginning of this post, I would say that there are three unseen, but very destructive, implications of this multistakeholder blessing as the outcome of Netmundial. The good news is that they take us to a clearer vision of the political, technical, and architectural possibilities that lie ahead.

The first one is simple. Netmundial will bring exactly the opposite of what the Brazilian President (and other governments and citizens) really wants: Democracy is losing ground to MSism, a Trojan horse for vested interests, especially since MSism enforces a simple idea: "equal footing" means rights for all participants, putting corporations and governments on the same starting and ending line when it comes to defining policies of public concern, in a digital space that is becoming more and more of an enclosed, corporatized version of what should be a public global commons. Even neoliberals never achieved any such a great tour de force. Netmundial is therefore currently failing democracy. It is not enhanced democracy: it is impoverished democracy.

The second implication is even more interesting. Netmundial is allowing ICANN to reinforce its power over its root zone, with little checks and balances and no oversight from anyone. By the same token it will reduce the digital space. ICANN defends a unique Internet, basically because it wants a unique root zone, under its surveillance, control and rulings; a unique space where a few private algorithms serve to dominate and collect the majority of all worldwide digital data, metadata, and revenues whether through advertising or copyrighting, more than half of it into Google's hands. It is completely physically feasible today that digital space can be expanded with very positive consequences for all citizens. However, ICANN, parroting the US government, warns us all against a balkanized Internet (and, again, echoing the "don't trust governments (except us)!" line, it says "don't balkanize (except with US monopolies)!".

Like any monopoly, ICANN argues that, thanks to its position, it preserves the Internet for the use of all, even though it really only serves for the benefit of a few. Reality could be much more refreshing. We know today that technical and architectural innovation can immediately lead to more digital space, more interoperability, more exchange, more safety and security, less spam, and less cyber-crime. And no, we are not talking of erecting national boundaries over interconnected networks. Just as we enjoy the Open Innovation, Open Source, and Open Data revolution, we are on the verge of an Open Root revolution. Among its leaders is Louis Pouzin, one of the founding fathers of the Internet.- Pouzin, an extremely distinguished French engineer, is advocating for, and building a proliferation of possible root zones. For a very reasonable budget, many extensions can be created through the Open Root project. He says: "There is a dire need to put the ICANN house in order and subject it to competition from other actors that are able to prove defend user interests in a way that ICANN has failed. In fact, starting in 1996, before ICANN was set up, there were many independent root registries created. Some were operated for several years, and a few are still in existence, e.g. Name-Space, Cesidianroot-Europe, OpenNic, Slash/dot, Name.coin, etc."

Open root is bringing a new life to that virgin part of digital space. Pouzin continues: "An unknown number of private registries operate outside of conventional institutions and are alive, but mostly invisible. The ICANN dogma is that what is needed is a single global (i.e. US controlled) root. Curiously Google and OpenDNS, which are not registries, use their own root, copies of ICANN's." This Open Root revolution is a great promise and lies in stark contrast to the heavily draped and ultimately highly unsatisfactory likely Netmundial outcome. The Open Root (OR) idea involves the realization of another technical and architectural innovation: interconnection, or interoperability of many root zones. No need to travel to China for your technology here: a Boston-based team (RINA) has already made it a reality. The OR will also allow each root zone to be defined under specific principles (political, societal, international), to which individual users can wittingly and proactively subscribe, such as the ones contained in the Delhi Declaration and edited by the Just Net Coalition. Right now, the ICANN root zone is a rogue in the hands of the US government and corporations. It should be put under the umbrella of a to-be-developed international law of the Internet , or what the Indian government suggests to call an 'Equinet'. By continuing to perpetuate the ICANN single root, Netmundial is failing innovation and fair competition in a so-called decentralized and open space.

Finally, this leads to the third negative implication: if new root zones are not nationally bound, but of global immediate reach, we do still remain with a major vacuum that we do not see being addressed at NetMundial: without a digital international agreement, law or framework, how could Brazil or one of its citizen sue a US, Indian, Russian or South African digital company that would not respect its right to privacy? Many in the civil society, such as the Web We Want initiative, IT for Change and others are understanding what is going wrong with the current state of Internet governance, and its MS approach. Even the European Commissioner, Neelie Kroes complained recently that NetMundial's drafted summary was not addressing in more concrete terms, the huge challenges to reform the current governance of Internet.

NetMundial's entrapping schema question may be, "Do you support (a) preserving the internet under one root or (b) Internet fragmentation? Choose either (a) or (b)." Now obviously all nice meaning, good people of the world would choose "preserving" as opposed to "fragmenting" the Internet.

But what if the above question was constructed correctly as, "Do you support (a) a monolithic, hegemonic centrally-controlled internet or (b) A distributed, open, human rights respectful democratic internet? Choose either (a) or (b)." The survey results would be opposite.

Netmundial should be deemed a failure if it fails to enshrine words like democracy, social justice, innovation, open root, competition as well as human rights. It should be deemed a failure if it simply boosts the international credibility of Brazil and ICANN and the US, but it fails to address the very real deficiencies in how the Internet currently operates. At the moment, we are going backwards, not forwards in terms of democracy, innovation and the Internet. As more and more start to see what is at stake, let us hope that they see the charade of multistakeholderism for the vacuous reality that it is, and that they recognize that to truly advance democracy and the Internet, we need to break open ICANN's monopoly, break open control of the root system, and restore real choice in the hands of citizens and all the world's governments - rather than just one.

For those who understand why to get out of the digital ICANN reservation, there is more Internet, and more Democracy to enjoy.

The Long Arm of the National Security-Communications Industry Complex

2013-11-25T16:18:19Z

This is a story about more than just the national security implications of government surveillance, but it begins there.

The New York Times reported in a front page story earlier this month that the Central Intelligence Agency is paying AT&T in excess of $10 million annually for information from the company’s telephone records, including the international calls of U.S. citizens. The article pointed out that this work "is conducted under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders compelling the company to participate, according to officials." The story adds yet another chapter to the still-unfolding revelations about National Security Agency surveillance. Every week seems to bring new reports about the close and almost seamless ties that bind the several intelligence agencies to the huge telecom and broadband companies that bestride our nation’s communications infrastructure.

When I became a Member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2001, I assumed I would be privy to at least a credible amount of information about what the companies under FCC oversight were doing behind the scenes. My expectations went unfulfilled.

Did I expect the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information to be shared with me? No, I did not. But would it have been helpful for me to know more about how the industry executives who visited me on a whole range of non-national security communications industry issues were at the same time working hand-in-glove with the White House and these secretive agencies on a far more intimate and confidential basis than I was? Yes, absolutely.

Warnings about various special interest-government complexes hearken back to President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech wherein he warned of the dangers that the military-industrial complex held for democratic government. Historians consider Ike’s admonition as a high-point of his Presidency. Since that speech almost 53 years ago, the influence of special interests and corporate power has only grown -- at the White House, in Congress, and among the federal agencies.

Maybe I’m a slow learner, or maybe I just wasn’t supposed to know, but it finally dawned on me that the CEOs and top management who came calling on me at the FCC were far better informed and connected than I was -- because their companies were the ones running these sensitive monitoring and surveillance operations in behalf of the national security agencies. It was, very often, their workers and their technologies that drove the process. Meanwhile, industry leaders themselves served on such influential but hush-hush boards as The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

As I began to grasp the power of these huge companies to leverage their influence on non-national security matters, I also began to understand that my influence as a Commissioner at an independent federal agency was more limited than I had thought. In a lengthy July 25, 2013 article in the National Journal, Chief Correspondent Michael Hirsh traced in considerable detail how our nation’s leading telecom and tech companies supported -- and even helped create -- the “surveillance state.” It is, of course, a story going back long before Iraq and Afghanistan to the days of World War II, and it’s the stuff of a thriller novel -- except it’s not that entertaining.

Hirsh tells how the NSA became an influential voice in the evolution of our communications systems, becoming a “major presence” in such seemingly non-defense decisions as industry mergers and consolidations. But these transactions weren’t “non-defense” to the intelligence agencies. On the contrary, it was easier and more efficient for the agencies to deal with huge industry players where the number of decision-makers was narrowed and where the sheer power of size helped get the national security job done.

It wasn’t news to me that these huge companies wielded far-reaching power all across Washington. I just didn’t realize how much power until I had been there a while. Then I began to think: what difference does it make if one or two Commissioners at the FCC don’t approve of a pending merger between telecom giants? (And, goodness knows, there are plenty of such transactions!) I conjured up images of a national security agency meeting at the White House and someone saying, “This guy Copps down at the FCC is opposed to this merger.” And I could envision a White House or national security type saying, “So what? These companies are working with us on all kinds of secret projects, and that takes precedence over any Commissioner’s worries about diminishing competition in communications or about consumer protection.”

And so the consolidation bazaar rolls on, companies continue to merge, and we find ourselves in a world wherein a few dominant players drive the last spikes into the coffin of competition. I am not arguing that national security concerns alone brought us to this point; there are plenty of other reasons that Big Telecom wants to grow even bigger. I am saying that both parties to this national security-communications industry complex derived great benefits (in their eyes) from this partnership. I am saying the tentacles of this cooperative enterprise reach widely and deeply into many aspects of our national life. And I am saying the American people need to know more -- much more -- about this.

We can argue the pros and cons of national security surveillance, and it is a debate worth having. But this debate needs to be informed by facts. Maybe we can’t have all the facts in all their detail, but certainly we need more than we presently possess. There is a point where national security depends upon secrecy. There is also a point where national security depends upon sunlight. The balance is sadly out-of-whack right now, and we are paying the price in the loss of government credibility both at home and abroad.

Finally, we need to conduct this discussion in a broader context because it is part of even larger issues. Every day brings non-national security revelations about companies developing and deploying new ways to invade our personal space, capture every available fact about our daily lives and habits, and share them for purely commercial benefit. This is not an issue separate from what I have been discussing in this piece. And, as deeply troubling as the privacy and consumer issues are, the implications for democracy are just as severe. Open communications are a prerequisite of self-government. Any short-circuiting of this openness diminishes the ability of free people to chart their own democratic future.

[The Benton Foundation publishes articles penned by Commissioner Copps each month for our Digital Beat Blog.]

Sacrificing the ICANN will not be enough for the US to restore its Internet Ethics

2013-11-12T15:08:02Z

We were only a few among media to realize, back in 2012, how arrogant and powerful was the US over its dominance of the Internet, and not just its control over the root servers and the domain name management. Policy making was at stake! Since December 2012, we know it as the US 120-member delegation to the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) left the room where over 190 nation states were convene to discuss terms of progress over agreement in international telecommunication connectivity. Its major reason was: "We do not want to see the word 'Internet' appearing in an updated telecommunication intergovernmental treaty. If the US accepts this, freedom of expression over Internet will be at stake." Everyone remembers how a large UN bashing campaign was orchestrated hand in hand by US officials (State Department, Department of Trade, Congress....) and the US Internet robber barons of our time, under the leadership of Google and the support of the subsidized heroic 'Internet Freedom Fighters', a naming closer to a talibanesque approach than of a human rights defender's view. Today, after Snowden brought evidence to the world, citizens have learnt their lesson: we are all terrorist, not to forget the German Chancellor, the Brazilian President, you and me as well. Who can now trust the US on respecting simple rules over neutrality, privacy, and honesty? Is this part of the 9/11 legacy and the Bush administration ethics? Indeed, had all nation states signed an international telecommunication treaty, the US Democracy would have either ruined its own diplomatic signature or stopped its global spying. So far no international treaty is protecting global citizens from such abuse, maybe a reason to understand why Edward Snowden decided to spoke truth to power. The citizens of the United States have had a few or no reaction, hesitating between a "I have nothing to hide" and a "I don't care if they look into my data; anyway I like to exhibit myself in social networks." Maybe they underestimate the price to pay for their authorities' choice and conduct.

The reality to be considered has an obvious economic origin and bias, on behalf on which the US is using its 'digital sovereignty' over foreign players. This 'sovereignty' is expected to help grab precious points of future growth and tens of thousands of jobs over the next decades. Already the mighty power of the Internet is putting the industry big players in a state of permanent stress as they battle to hide their profits worldwide starting with the UK, France, Germany, and all relevant markets. The gold Internet pipeline is bringing indecent power to companies like Google, Verizon, Apple... showing a poor CSR ranking, thanks to their ability to avoid paying due tax around the world. Public US authorities have also their own trade or debt challenges ahead. All of them whether private or public, bet that Internet will bring what they need most: profit and tax. If the US has organized its own market under the patronage of a few monopolies so precisely described by Susan Crawford in her Captive Audience book, many of the international telecom competitors are very unpleased with the same arrogant dominancy outside the US. Add global spying and abuse of power and you have the perfect Molotov cocktail for an international uproar. This is not to mention the gift made to all dictators around the world now celebrating the last US digital tread, a global affront, a present that nourishes the villainies the US soldiers are supposedly fighting at a heavy cost around the world. Democracy is the 'blond' in dictators' favorite jokes. All of this comes with a heavy price to all democrats. Any principle that a country pushes to the no-value zone is a very expensive asset to conquer back. Indeed, Internet is now part of our common geography and politics, and a mirror to any ethical failure.

Even though I am not a fervent Marxist, I would define Internet governance more as the superstructure where, beyond national policies, are established internationally, public policy, connectivity agreements, competition fairness, and digital ethics (first pack goes first...), by opposition to the base where corporations and technicians enjoy setting things by force of common technological and commercial sense. Both of them are not so concerned about public good. Their game is to enjoy the most effective code to maximize profits. The fact is that in order to be left alone 'ruling' the code, and the digital space revenue, they are keen to explain that Internet is a pure decentralized world that hates nothing more than to be governed. Jungle and Far-West are always more fun for the ones with the guns. "How to govern such a decentralized wildness?" ask the defenders of the status quo. In this world of 'Digital Freedom Fighters' of all kind, the 'enemy' is governance and regulation. "Regulation kills innovation." According to these bright minds - some of them paid by the Internet robber barons to protect and enlarge their baronies - Internet could not be governed except by the successful corporations.

Today, foreign countries realize that the US needs to be grounded. The big lie about the ungovernable digital space has come to an end, as national laws prevail and are about to conflict each other, as more investment is required for higher speed and connectivity, as digital inequalities between regions and continents are stretching - Google's pocket money put into balloons won't fill the Internet holes in Africa, when the fortune it is putting in fiber will reinforce Google's power over the US market, or emerging countries where Google, Facebook and other grab public digital space for little efforts. As any other common good, Internet public regulation is needed all over the world. International law is not the enemy. Vested interests are the enemy of the Netizens. This is getting clearer to many minds, including the ones who de facto control the digital world and its industry.

The White House and the US Internet Barons have now two major issues: how to calm down their very upset partners and/or competitors, and how to avoid a major digital spring that would ruin the current status-quo over their domination within the Internet governance - supposedly for our own good.

A first idea came regarding the economic issue and it went quite un-noticed after the last September G-20 meeting in Saint Petersburg. Published as the Tax to the Saint Petersburg G20 Leaders Declaration, this document claims that: "International tax rules, which date back to the 1920's, have not kept pace with the changing business environment, including the growing importance of intangibles and the digital economy. (...)... Issues to be examined include, but are not limited to, the ability of a company to have a significant digital presence in the economy of another country without being liable to taxation due to the lack of nexus under current international rules, the attribution of value created from the generation of marketable location-relevant data through the use of digital products and services, the characterization of income derived from new business models, the application of related source rules, and how to ensure the effective collection of VAT/GST with respect to the cross-border supply of digital goods and services." Or to put it simply, when a Turkish or Mexican netizen links to a Google ad, then the data related to that ad revenue will be taxed by the national fiscal authorities. Same idea would therefore applied in all G20 countries, as all of them signed for this to be implemented, including the US. This is quite a change, and indeed, France has been pushing hard on this idea, following the report published in January 2013 by Pierre Colin and Nicolas Collin for both the Ministère de l'Economie et des Finances and the Ministère du redressement productif headed by the vocal Arnaud Montebourg. Weeks ago, French digital economy minister, Fleur Pellerin argued in an interview given to the FT that: "The time has come to be more proactive on the European level, not to regulate the Internet but to regulate some platforms that have gained dominant positions and now use those dominant positions to make it impossible for smaller actors to develop and to challenge their positions. That's a problem." Ms Pellerin has been pushing the issue on the European agenda since then, with some success and aims at linking the tax base to the place where the profits are made, and proposing a revised EU value added tax by spring 2014. For the White House and the State department, it sounds like a minor blow, as the project targets mainly US corporations, and wealthy ones. Some new tax revenues might soften political wills around the digital planet. Dries Lesage, professor of globalization and global governance, at Ghent Institute for International Studies, at Ghent University brings a clear understanding of what is at stake in a paper published in the Saint Petersburg G20 preparatory documentation: "The transnational observation should give way to an entirely new regime, one that is based on unitary taxation. This means that multinationals' global profits are allocated and taxed per country, according to a formula that looks into real economic activity. The current regime, in contrast, allows multinational groups to engage in artificial cross-border transactions among their own subsidiaries, in order to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions and tax havens."

Regarding the Internet governance itself, a US idea has emerged in order to create a double-win situation. "Let's give away the ICANN to the rest of the world." From DC to London, Paris, Geneva, Istanbul, Rio, Bali, the idea is getting more popular according to sources at the IGF and other stakeholders who declined to be identified at this stage. What's the plan? The ICANN would become an international body, away from US control. Officially. Of course, it is hard to imagine that this would affect the 13 global Internet 'root-servers' run by entities based in the US (Verisign, USC-ISI, Cogent, Maryland University, Nasa, Internet Systems Consortium, Defense Information Systems Agency, United States Army, ICANN), one in the UK (RIPE NCC), one in Japan (WIDE Project), and one in Sweden (Autonomica). For the plan to work to 'sacrifice' the ICANN and impose a multi-stakeholder neoliberal model, the US needs to give the ICANN an international shine, still not a UN one. There enters an unexpected player: the Swiss who have been suffering much of the US tax blame, and lost their banking secrecy under its twist, have now a possibility to calm the fiscal US storm by giving to a future ICANN a nest, which would be "neutral" and "international". It would look UN-style without being UN. It would also reinforce the multi-stakeholder shine of the criticized ICANN. A clear definition of what means the later model is still unclear, and this vagueness might be its most enjoyable advantage. Such an institutional animal would have much room for improvisation and special arrangements - as ICANN did for 15 years so far. There is a danger that corporations' voice would equal if not overpass all governmental voices. Civil society would also participate but as their funding often comes from Corporations, they might not be so independent. Of course, the Brazilians whose president has turned this into a personal matter would have an easy reward to collect, as they could claim they have obtained a major change in Internet Governance. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has announced during her NY speech at the UN that her country will submit a resolution in order to change the course of the Internet governance before December 16, 2013, when the UN General assembly will take a break for 13 weeks. As the US would certainly appreciate this resolution never to surface, the president of ICANN, Fadi Chéhade visited Brazil on October 7. Chéhade met Brazilian President Roussef and Communication minister, Paulo Bernardo, and they agreed that Brazil would host an international meeting in April 2014 in Rio de Janeiro. "I understand that the Internet, as a new feature, requires active participation by governments, their respective agencies within the United Nations, but also users, civil society, and technicians, who after all make the Internet work" Chehadé defended, adding that corporations and academics should also participate to the debate. "We must not allow economic, political and religious interests to interfere in the free circulation of ideas" Bernardo commented. This is why these days, there is growing excitement in order to announce that the ICANN might move away from a Californian non profit to a more international, multi-stakeholder model, still keeping the governments and ITU at bay in a renewed Governmental Advisory Committee already existing in the current ICANN. Last week, during a UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (on Internet related public issues), an AT&T employee and representative of an Indian business chamber said: <blockquote>"Business believes that stakeholders at the future table need to be on a equal footing to make decisions related to Internet policy."</blockquote> According to one participant to the meeting, a lot of the present working group members from private sector and civil society supported this view enthusiastically. Ultimately, such a idea would lead corporations and governments to establish together the future of Internet policy making.

On December 6, in Bern, a forum will gather a group of Swiss authorities and US stakeholders such as Internet Society and ICANN representatives. They will talk about the "Institutionalization of Global Internet Governance, Multistakeholderism, Multilateralism and Beyond". Frédéric Riehl, vice-director of the Swiss Federal Office of Communications will explain the new positioning of Switzerland in the Internet Governance landscape. The participants will also assess the multilateral model such as the ones from ITU, WTO and WIPO, during a debate moderated by Tarek Kamel, senior advisor to the ICANN President for governmental engagement. Probably the best person to do so if one considers the objective of the meeting. Everything seems to go in the right direction for the new ICANN that might join soon the Internet Society, already headquartered in Geneva.

Giving away the ICANN might please a few; the Swiss, the Brazilians, and the usual faithful digital US allies such as the Swedish and British, but what's about the Germans, the French and other Europeans, not to mention the Africans and Asians. As the single market for Telecom in Europe is at stake these days, the Europeans might have a serious talk.

By the way, what are the media telling us on this huge battle and challenge? They might buy the 'internationalization' of the ICANN as a good step forward (!?). Many among foreign governments might not go for it. The first Internet political war is going to last until we get a fair and open debate.

Jean-Christophe Nothias

The Digital Wake-up Call Europe and Asia Cannot Ignore

2013-11-06T08:07:05Z

After Europe, the « Snowden » revelations virus is now spreading to Asia. Like their European counterparts, Asian governments are discovering the extent of the digital surveillance put in place by the American NSA. When they meet in New Delhi on November 11, European and Asian foreign ministers cannot ignore Washington’s digital wake-up call.

For once, the incoming annual Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM) ministerial conference can make a difference. Expected to convene in New Delhi, India, on November 11 and 12, foreign ministers of the 51 Asian and European countries involved in this forum created in 1996 may have a shared outrage to debate.

The subject of this diplomatic anger is the extensive digital spying network put in place by the United States and revealed by the now Moscow-based NSA leaker Edward Snowden. On October 24-25 in Brussels, the documents he released, proving that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's electronic communications were intercepted, dominated discussions at the European Union (EU) leaders’ summit. And now, it is Asia's turn to experience such a digital storm: China and South East Asian countries have loudly protested after new revelations about Washington's secret electronic data collection program in their part of the world.

When they meet in New Delhi, ASEM foreign ministers will have a choice. Either they remain officially silent on this common issue, to avoid reopening a delicate rift on privacy, security, and citizen's electronic rights between Asia and Europe, or they face the music and admit the blunt reality: in today's digital world, in the shadow of American Internet giant corporations, time has come to address, at both a bilateral and a multilateral level, the strategic question of Internet governance and data protection.

Interestingly, part of the preparatory work to such a crucial discussion has already been done. This subject of extensive US data interceptions and the current impossibility for countries to protect their digital sovereignty by and large dominated the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Bali, Indonesia, 21-25 October. This coincidence is telling in itself: while European leaders in Brussels were feeling somewhat betrayed by the extent of the Obama administration’s spying apparatus, digital experts and stakeholders from around the globe were gathered in Indonesia's most famous resort island to exchange ideas on the best way to achieve a correct balance between digital freedom, digital sovereignty, and cyber security.

The IGF was never supposed to make decisions or to draft formal conclusions. But what came up out of dozens of panels in Bali was telling. Asia and Europe are now bumping into the very same digital wall. With immense quantities of Asian data being stored on US servers, and with hundreds of millions of Asian consumers hooked on Google, Apple, Yahoo !, or Microsoft, the East is equally threatened by the over-arching American digital empire. Most Asian « dragons » and « tigers » have no means of protecting the digital assets of their citizens and institutions; they shall take this diplomatic and economic digital wake-up call seriously. Data is not only a public and an individual asset to be protected; it is the oil of the digital business and the key to future profitability for thousands of companies and start-ups all over the East. No single country can be left to control it alone.

The similarities end there. If the ASEM meeting has the courage to address this issue, cultural differences will certainly surface. In Asia, the group often remains above the individual, and Asian states are still reluctant to modify their internal security acts. In addition, some countries may not want to reopen this freedom vs. security debate, especially at a time when wars on terrorism and religious fundamentalism continue to rage throughout South-East Asia.

Another difference is that Europeans and Asians have diverging commercial interests in this digital economy. In Asia, American Internet giants are either welcomed or kept at bay by openly protectionist legislation. The debate in this part of the world is not to replace or to emasculate Silicon Valley’s offspring, but to protect the huge regional digital market, and eventually to make lucrative commercial transpacific deals with the US mastodons. With thriving digital economies, countries like Singapore and Korea are already positioning themselves as competitive and safe destinations for data storage. Business comes first. Digital security breaches may be seen as acceptable collateral damage.

Soon after the ASEM ministerial conference in New Delhi, the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecom World Conference will take place on November 20-23 in Bangkok, Thailand. Thousands of experts and key players in the digital world and regulating bodies (from governments to UN organizations) will again debate this global digital deadlock, even if very few stakeholders are in favor of seeing the ITU play a bigger role.

As the NSA ball continues to roll, ASEM countries have an opportunity to make their voices heard. The confrontational path taken initially by Brazil vis à vis the United States - though it advocated a more conciliatory approach during the IGF in Bali - demonstrates that a lot is at stake. For a forum too often in search of a meaning, the choice to remain silent would be a very wrong signal addressed to digital enterprises and citizens from Asia and Europe. END

An international correspondent for the Swiss daily Le Temps, Richard Werly is an associate fellow of the EU Centre in Singapore and DiploFoundation in Geneva.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

And Now The Second Battle Of The Internet

2013-06-13T17:28:14Z

The Verizon or PRISM or Snowden affair, revealed by The Guardian, marks a turning point in the history – a very young history – of the Internet and its governance within the international landscape. With the facts as overwhelming as they are frightening, they show above all the mighty power of the United States (US) over the Internet and its users. This issue not only concerns the information of American citizens, but also all ‘foreigners’ who have a Google account and other Internet industry heavyweights. We are talking about the very core of Internet governance currently under American domination.

The rules in question, such as respect of personal information, net neutrality or digital public policies whether national, regional or international, are at the heart of an ongoing 15-year battle. During the last two years, this fight has taken a more aggressive turn, with the US government, American companies and their close allies pitted against those who demand more international and multilateral governance. The US government is clinging to its power via a so-called “multi-stakeholder” model, lumped together with the believers in an autonomously-ruled Internet, the so-called digital freedom fighters who reject all governmental regulation, the masked anonymous vigilantes who act as law enforcement, the kings of spam or porn, the Internet money makers, the rebel hackers or former hackers, now intelligence officers.

Not a week goes by without an enlightened mind cursing governments or recounting the story of the Internet as a pure product of 1960s counterculture, born from LSD or the desire to live in a commune. According to such individuals, the founding fathers of the Internet offered the world this new space beyond the control of national powers. The reality of the Internet is actually more pragmatic, industrial and economic. And to be honest, the Internet has now become a very political field of battle.

As opposed to a phenomenon linked to a form of counterculture, the Verizon affair has shed new light on the reality of Internet control. Worldwide, every state plays, whether chosen or not, a role within its own borders, fortified by traditions, law and industrial heavyweights. One country in particular has the power to not only impose its Internet laws on its citizens, but also on ‘foreign citizens’ – that is, the US. This is exactly what the Verizon affair has demonstrated. Indeed, it is further evidence there is a need to redevelop and rebalance Internet governance. And this is the very thing US officials and large US digital corporations have refused to discuss in Dubai, Geneva or elsewhere.

The computer scientist inventors of interconnected networks belonged to an academic elite from MIT, Berkeley, Stanford and USC. As early as the 1960s, they enjoyed a significant amount of financing provided by the Pentagon, NASA and other governmental agencies. These pioneers not only drove scientific and technological development but also Internet ‘policies’ – at least until 1998. Until this time, the roots of the Internet were in the hands of academic pioneers. They had a humanist, pragmatic, neutral and open vision.

One such founding father was Dr Jonathan Postel, himself a computer scientist and editor of the famous Request For Comments (RFCs) that served as a model for open discussion and improvement of Internet rules and processes. With John Lennon glasses and long hair, Postel was nevertheless celebrated as “Colonel Postel” upon his arrival at the Pentagon – quite impressive since this free man was considered by pioneers as responsible for Internet rules being defined outside the governmental sphere. Somewhat more worrying for Postel himself was the Clinton administration’s desire, led by Al Gore and his emissary Ira Magaziner, to take control of the Internet. Postel understood this from very early on, back in 1997. Of the 13 servers that today still constitute the backbone of the Internet, Postel attempted to unlink the 8 “civilian” ones from the reach of the government. The mathematician pointed them toward a 14th server, a new master he set for the purpose, in January 1998. A vigorous phone call from the White House put this digital insurgency to an end.

By the end of January 1998, the Internet and its governance fell completely into the hands of the US government and those who accepted this forced move. In a thwarted attempt, Postel sought without success to entrust Internet governance to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Not to panic Internet stakeholders, the US government decided to delegate the authority given to universities to an association incorporated in California three weeks after the death of Postel on an operation table in Los Angeles in October 1998. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was inaugurated at his grave, with future board members reuniting for the first time at the cemetery in memory of the scientist who fiercely protected the development of the Internet.

Since its creation, ICANN has been a controversial organization characterized by abuse, non-transparency, lack of representation and conflicting interests. The greatest concern remains its guardianship – ICANN is under contract with the Department of Commerce and a change in 2009 meant a renewable three-year agreement became indefinite. This is contrary to a guarantee of independence. Like other organizations instrumental to Internet governance, ICANN cannot be considered a neutral international body. Its new president Fahi Chehadé aims to improve this perception – a delicate task even for this specialist in multi-stakeholder governance recalling that the Department of Commerce recently contradicted a decision by ICANN. Who has total authority over the management of the Internet backbone? The Californian association or its guardianship authority?

From the very beginning, the famous 13 servers forming the Internet’s backbone (the DNS Root Servers) have been in American hands, or in the hands of close allies. The two not located in American territory are in London (LINX/RIPE) and Stockholm (NORDU). That is, the two capitals most vocal alongside Washington in favor of the status quo. The strongly anti-United Nations campaign that followed the Dubai conference in December 2012 worried many who saw there a resurgence of the Cold War. Not quite so, I would say. The PRISM affair demonstrates the problem was not so much the danger represented by China or Russia in regards to our exchanges, accounts and personal information, but the fact of having a state and some of its digital juggernauts enjoying control of the Internet.

Yes, the economic issues are major, especially in terms of high-speed broadband, critical to accelerating the economic development of entire countries. Who should pay for this significant investment? Each single user whatever means they have? Public or private national operators? The Internet Service Provider that benefits from the connection of these networks? The Internet robber barons such as Google and others? What are the two thirds of the world population to do who have no access to the Internet? For two years, Americans have pushed to defend the status quo, even inventing ‘digital’ human rights.

A more pragmatic and responsible approach can be seen right by the southern border of the US. Mexican President Peña Nieto is among those advocating for greater equality, working to enshrine a right to broadband access in his country’s constitution. He turned this into reality on 10 June, when he signed the Constitutional Reform Regarding Telecommunications and Economic Competition. In the same breath, his initiative will break the monopolies that controlled Mexico for years. The fortune of the current owner of the New York Times, Carlos Slim, comes from this previous state of things. So it goes in the US with ATT, Verizon and Comcast, which shared the market under unconcerned eyes – indeed, an approving government. Some voices are speaking out, such as former White House official Susan Crawford, who advocates for more competition and more public policy, not just regulation obscured by a market. Interviewed last April, Alec Ross, the former Special Digital Advisor for the State Department declared to me: “digital human rights do not exist in legal terms, but it is a unifying theme that pleases users.”

Months before the WCIT was held in December in Dubai, American lobbying groups attacked the ITU and its proposals for internationalized Internet governance incessantly, with unconditional support from Google. What plot were they denouncing? What crime was the ITU guilty of? Simply, asking for an international treaty update that all signatories would be bound to endorse and respect. One of the driving forces behind the hysteria was the idea that diplomatic negotiations occurred behind closed doors, away from civil society and industrial stakeholders. Critics invoked the specter of a takeover hatched by Russia and China and, in a general manner, by governments.

Yet the so-called ‘closed’ Dubai doors were largely wide open. Each ITU member state was free to establish its delegation without limits to numbers or quality, and especially to inform whomever they wished without restraint, before, during or after the conference. The American delegation alone included almost 120 delegates selected from the elite of the US Internet industry, civil society and government. Two watchwords were given to this multitude: “the word Internet shall not be included in the new treaty” and “do not talk to journalists without authorization.” All this in the name of web freedom.

More surprising was the European position in Dubai. No mandate was given for the delegation to vote or engage the signature of the European Union (EU). Cyprus, occupying the rotating presidency of the EU, monopolized the microphone, with other member states far less vocal, including France and Germany. In contrast, the Swedish and British representatives were working in full swing. Were the compromises negotiated following WCIT so dangerous for Europe? No. Tellingly, the absence of conditions preventing EU agreement was confirmed in a confidential internal memo (DS 1335/13) from the EU Council on 24 February. “At this stage, there is or remains no obvious reason justifying a conflict between the new Treaty (proposed in Dubai) and the benefits.” It was already known as such before Dubai.

The argument put forward by the EU to not support the Dubai update of the International Telecommunications Regulations was linked to the proposal to use in the new treaty the expression “all operators” rather than “recognized operating agencies.” The reason for this – non-authorized extension of the treaty. Seeking to maintain good diplomatic relations, it was possible to sign the treaty while imposing a “reservation” on the point of disagreement. Its radical strategy led the American delegation to totally reject this proposal, while signing instead some of the treaty proposals that its own delegation approved during the session.

This May in Geneva, hostilities continued. In more limited terms but still very clearly, the US opposed any involvement by the ITU and its committee of member states in the system of Internet governance. Such a perspective would allow for the definition of universal principles akin to those already in operation for telephony and satellites. Accepting this logic would shift some of the Internet power away from Washington’s authority. With any such international law ratified by the US, the request from the CIA to transfer all user information from private operators like Verizon, Google and others to intelligence services would be made more difficult. However, the US has never embraced multilateralism and remains amongst those counties ranked lowest globally in regards to the number of treaties or conventions ratified.

A few days ago, during a WTPF session – an intergovernmental forum under the aegis of the ITU – Brazil submitted an opinion for endorsement, which was met with consensus. “Governments worldwide should discuss Internet governance in the framework of the ITU, as a crucial element in the multi-stakeholder system.” The American response, supported by Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany was, in essence, “come see us in Washington, we will see what we can do for you.” The committee remained calmed, but was clearly outraged by this arrogance. What place do governments have in connection to the Internet under international law? The US and its digital industry dominate in every respect. The Verizon affair becomes ever more important because it is this same US administration opposed to a dialogue between states to settle universal rules and principles.

The worldwide digital space is in danger. We, the citizens of the world, are equally in danger. We need a better and truly democratic multi-stakeholder model and governments to be bound by robust international law when most needed – to start with, the US government and its industrial champions.

Photo © DR

The Role Of Governments In Internet Governance

2013-06-12T16:48:34Z

Ivo Ivanovski is the Republic of Macedonia's Minister of Information Society and Administration, and was appointed as Chairman of the Fifth World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum that took place in Geneva from 14-16 May. In an exclusive interview with The Global Journal, Ivanovski explained the importance of the role of governments in the multi-stakeholder system of Internet governance.

You chaired the last edition of the WTPF in Geneva. What were the major outcomes?

The major outcome of the latest WTPF edition is that all six draft opinions were unanimously adopted. They were revised and endorsed by the working groups and proposed in front of the member states and sector members before the start of the forum.

In Dubai, it was almost impossible to discuss anything related to the Internet, so some progress has been made since then. During the WTPF, the role of governments in the multi-stakeholder system of Internet governance was recognized by most delegates, even from the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Germany. Yet, there is still a major divide on the role of governments within this model – should the ITU or ICANN committee have authority?

The role of government in the multi-stakeholder system of Internet governance continues to be a hot topic. We were able to hear from the CEO of ICANN, Fadi Chehade, and ITU Secretary-General, Hamadoun Toure, that both institutions are open to further discussions and suggestions to find an appropriate role for governments. None of them are trying to extend their roles in Internet governance. These statements gave confidence to the members that no one institution is trying to monopolize the Internet and that there is a place for all stakeholders.

The Brazilian proposal, which received quite broad support, sought to have the role of governments debated within the WTPF. Some countries suggested the ITU was not the appropriate venue and the US invited Brazil to engage in a bilateral discussion on the improvement of Internet governance practices. Do you feel this approach is the right way to reach a better understanding?

The term bilateral means that only two sides are involved. Multi-stakeholder means multiple parties are involved. Bilateral meetings are always welcome, especially when two parties cannot agree on a particular issue so that other parties are not restricted. The role of the government is not only to have one-to-one discussions. It is a good start, but the discussion should occur in multiple forums, conferences and meetings that include multiple parties and not just a select few. That is why most of the members during the WTPF 13 suggested appropriate venues so that this question could be discussed openly. But the list was not finalized, since everybody should be talking about this.

The Council of the European Union (EU) recognized the treaty changes proposed in Dubai in December were not contrary to European interests. Even though the EU issued no mandate to negotiate or vote during WCIT-12, member states nonetheless argued the changes were not acceptable. Could you elaborate and does this concern you?

This issue was not raised during the WTPF and I cannot comment on it.

Over the next 12 months, what significant progress do you anticipate in the sphere of Internet governance?

I think in 12 months we will see continuous increases in broadband connectivity around the world, especially by utilizing 3G and 4G technologies. The Broadband Commission for Digital Development has set new goals, regarding affordability and accessibility of broadband for countries in order to accelerate the progress of the Millennium Development Goals. These goals will materialize if there is fair play in the market place.

Another impact that can have positive results in European countries is the initiative of the European Commission regarding flat rate roaming charges for all countries in Europe. This will increase mobile usage when people travel abroad. Currently these charges are very high. That is why the Republic of Macedonia has proposed an initiative before the EU regarding roaming charges together with the Republic of Serbia and Republic of Montenegro.

I also think that in the next 12 months we will see more consolidation of telecom operators in the EU. This can produce stronger telecom operators, which will foster innovation and aid the European economy.

Click here to view other related articles on Internet governance.

Fighting Censorship: An Interview With Grigoriy Okhotin

2013-04-16T17:46:34Z

Tell me a little bit about your project: OVDinfo.org. What do you hope to achieve? And what role does the Internet play?

Our project came into existence after the first major protest against mass election frauds in December 2011 during which a lot of people were arrested. We realized that something needed to be done after many of our friends were arrested – so we started gathering information about who was being incarcerated, where they were taken, and what was being done to them. Very quickly, however, it became clear that we could do something more interesting and practical than simply an emotional project.

OVDinfo.org was what we came up with. At the beginning, we had two leaders; I was responsible for the media part, whereas, my friend and colleague programmed our database and was responsible for the technological aspect. We decided that we would be the liaison between the media and the detained activists. We would gather the information, gain credibility and have the media use our information. Then, in order to liberate people, we would enable lawyers to use this information. Finally, the third stage – which evolved independently – was to demonstrate the level of political repression in Russia.

The information we gather daily shows the extent of the problem. The goal is to eradicate detentions, but if they do happen, they must be safe and legal. We scare the police with our evidence. As soon as their departments and their names show up in our database, the police become scared to physically abuse detainees. Law enforcement is scared to violate the law because they understand that they are being watched. This is our main vision.

Along the way, we’ve come up with new ideas. For example, we interview the detainees. These are psychological, not media interviews, that reveal how the system is structured – how the police, prisons and courts function and interact. This understanding is necessary for reform; we are collecting this information to be able to make our own suggestions and improve the system. Perhaps, this will not happen now, not in the current political situation, but someday, it will be possible.

Your second question was regarding the Internet. In many ways, I am not a supporter of the theory that the Internet significantly changes one’s life, nor that it changes activism in the sphere of politics or human rights. Because for me, one of the main roots of our movement are the chronicles of the samizdat; which were produced by soviet dissidents and human rights defenders of the 60s and 70s. The Internet did not exist during their movement, but they too gathered information and protected political detainees – these chronicles then became known in all the foreign embassies and all the foreign correspondents whom had offices in Moscow. As a result, the Soviet regime could no longer easily suffocate or kill or imprison these detainees. Of course, the Internet changes the circumstances, but mostly it speeds up and eases our tasks. Our main instrument is a hotline, so when someone is detained, people can call this phone number, but they can also do this via Twitter or an online form. However, this is only a question of speed, it does not make a principle difference. Of course, information spreads online much faster than the cycle of a daily newspaper. We publish a piece of news 15 minutes after we find out about it, and within 30 min it is already published in all Internet news publications. But if this was a newspaper; within 24 hours, the public may no longer be interested. However, the Internet is not the biggest factor. Media is media and the Internet is just another media.

More seriously, the Internet influences all kinds of instruments like crowdsourcing. We can say that crowdsourcing would not be possible without the Internet; it would just be too expensive. In this way, we can gather information from other cities without having our own branches and staff in those locations. For example, we made a video service with the help of crowdsourcing. [We put out a call] that if you have a video of people being detained at demonstrations, you can easily and comfortably upload it to our site. From there, lawyers or journalists can use it for their purposes. Of course, without the Internet, such services are impossible.

We want to use this aspect of the Internet to enhance coordination. For example, right now we are coordinating legal help by sending e-mails and making phone calls. This takes a lot of time. So we want to create a simple service where you can request legal help and this electronic request would automatically go out to ten human rights-defending organizations; one of them would then agree to help. This would all happen online without extensive moderation/efforts. These kinds of technologies and services are how the Internet contributes to human rights. What is surprising is that this is still very underutilized. Everyone is talking about it but there are so few in reality. We’ve searched many sites of international organizations and very few of them are using online instruments and online rights defense. This is truly new ground, everything else is just a question of speed; fifteen minutes instead of a day.

In comparison to television and printing press, the Internet is relatively uncensored in Russia. Of course, sometimes there are DDoS attacks that are carried out by groups who may have links to the government. In your activities, have you come across such attacks on your site?

No, our site has not been attacked. I don’t know why. But we did experience something that was more unpleasant for us, which was a DDoS attack on our hotlines. For example, when 500 telephone calls come in per minute, it is no longer possible to get through. Our site hasn’t been DDoS’ed [this is a verb], but this is a very widespread tool for fighting free media. Perhaps it hasn’t happened, because we are still a very new organization. Larger organizations, such as Memorial or Human Rights Watch, have yet to be DDoS’ed. They really do tend to attack mass services, such as blog platforms.

Furthermore, this doesn’t just happen randomly, but usually on the eve of some important event - to overload a site two days before a big demonstration, for example. They just take out the blog platforms completely so that people can neither communicate nor coordinate. Over the last two years, the instances of DDoS attacks on independent media have increased. As you rightly noted, this is somehow tied to the government yet it hasn’t been proved. Since it is the Internet, everything is quite anonymous, but the impression is that a budget is set aside in advance. Perhaps, they haven’t had enough time to include our website in their budget.

In relation to Internet media compared to television.

In response to your question regarding the difference between Internet and television as a form of media; we monitor very carefully who cites our website and uses our information. Surprisingly, our data is used by everyone, including government-owned newspapers, but mostly in the Internet versions, not the print versions. Television companies also use our information occasionally, but, once again, on their internet releases rather than on air.

Besides DDoS attacks, do you foresee more serious threats to Internet freedom in Russia now or in the near future?

Yes, the situation is rapidly getting worse. Indeed, the Kremlin became scared of Internet freedom after the revolution in Egypt and the killing of the Libyan leader. They believed the tall tale that the revolution was a result of Twitter and Facebook, which is, of course, not the case. Without grassroots activity, it would have been impossible. Internet is just an amplifier of activity. Without that activity, there would be nothing.

Despite this however, the Russian government started to adopt new legal measures to curb Internet freedom, such as black lists. In Russia, we love children, they are almost holy, so under the guise of protecting children from pornography, drugs, and suicide, the government created a black list which was formed via very non-transparent conditions. Yet what is most interesting is that the system used IP addresses; by using one IP address, there could be a pornographic site or my site, drug propaganda or a blog post. This is absurd. Everyone was very much against this law, including Yandex, the search engine. The government promised that it would take all this into consideration, but of course it didn’t.

Within one month of its creation, our Pirate Party released an analytical report that 95% of what goes into the Black List does not relate to pornography or drug propaganda. So far, this list hasn’t been used in political battles, but the government can close an IP address forever simply by registering a pornography site to the same IP address.

There is another negative development. Right now we have GONGOs, or so-called civil society organizations created with the help of the government. In one of the provinces the GONGO conducted an experiment to create a White List. This means that when you buy an Internet package, you will have access only to the White List of websites, which have been checked for the absence of “bad” content. Currently, in this list are 5,000,000 websites, which is less than 1% of all world websites. This is a Russian innovation. This doesn’t even exist in China. So this all happens when you sign a contract with your Internet provider. But if you don’t want this, you have to sign a separate contract saying that you don’t want to protect your children from pornography. This experiment is only in one province and remains unofficial – but still, it’s an alarming development.

Yet more than the above problems, there exist several other issues. For instance, companies that are close to the government acquire social platforms to exert control. Livejournal – originally owned by an American company - was the most popular blog service in Russia; and the government simply had it bought up by a Russian company.

Moreover, social media is being put to criminal trial for spreading extremism. This is just another tool for putting pressure on activists. The latest example was against activism to close a school – an activist organization posted a quote by Hitler that stated, “If you wanted to control your population, close your schools.” They were then blamed for spreading extremist propaganda. Of course, it had nothing to do with real extremism.

Another incident was somewhere in the provinces. A political activist received a warning that he was noted for extremist activity because another user put a photograph with extremist content onto his vKontakte [Russian version of Facebook] wall. But it was the owner of the wall that was blamed. Of course, this is a very alarming episode, especially in the provinces. In Moscow, such an act would not have been possible – people protest such human rights violations, and activists can usually get good lawyers. In the provinces, however, there are very few activists – it’s a difficult moment.

Yet the DDoS attacks remain the most common activity. It is very difficult to protect your site from them. Even the biggest sites cannot protect themselves. It is just too cheap to overload a site, about 200 USD for even the most heavily-securitized IP addresses. At the same time, to be DDoS’d is not catastrophic.

You mentioned the difference between Moscow and the provinces. But there is also a difference between generations. For example, the International Research and Exchange Board’s Media Sustainability Index of 2012 indicated that the younger generation has a bigger expectation of freedom because they use the Internet, which is less censored than television. What effect might this generational difference have on the situation in Russia?

There is a general sense that Russia is changing on a societal rather than political level; but they are mostly related to consumer behavior. Automobile insurance works quite well in Russia and people are becoming more used to following a contract. They know that if they are paying for insurance, they are promised a certain service and they will receive that service. Since we have a lot of drivers, this affects a big part of society. They become used to signing contracts and following through with them. This carries over and now people demand the same from the government with whom they feel that they are in a binding contract. They pay taxes, after all.

Another factor is that now in Russia you can buy 40 different types of cheese, 40 different types of jeans and so on - so people are used to choices. But despite this variety, we have Putin over and over again. So people who have become used to consumer freedom are beginning to carry this over to the political sphere. Internet works in the same way, when you can look at this site or that site and compare different sources of information, you begin to question what you’re told. You’re told something from the “box” [how Russians refer to the TV] but you say “I will check that on Wikipedia”. So those who are used to using the Internet have stopped trusting the “box.” It is true that the Russian television audience is aging and decreasing. In 2012, for the first time, daily Yandex users in Russia surpassed television viewers. This change clearly effects the way society thinks and behaves in regards to its rights.

Yet, I don’t think that this is such a difference in age. For example, I was an observer at a voting station and there were some elderly official that said “be careful because whatever you say, he will find something about it on the Internet”. They think the Internet is one, big wasteland. So this understanding [of checking information] is not just among the younger generation but everywhere.

What do you hope to achieve as a Freedom Fellow? You have come to Geneva and will continue on to Washington, D.C. What effect do you hope this will have for your activities in Russia?

Our project’s team is very interesting - we have journalists and programmers. We believe that throughout the world, NGOs do not fully utilize modern technologies for spreading their agenda. We are quite good at doing this in the context of Russian NGOs and we are interested in sharing our competences, to show them how to better utilize the Internet to spread their agenda. We would like to create trainings that emphasize knowledge sharing –that outline how an NGO site should look, and what activities that site should develop.

During this Fellowship, I will meet a large number of professionals in the NGO world. Their experiences will enrich my understanding and allow me to network. We then hope to collaborate in the future and help NGOs to modernize their websites and Internet activity. I ended up here unintentionally- I was invited to come here, so I came here. In the end it was timely and exactly what my colleagues and I believe we need.

Besides networking, do you hope to exert any pressure on a political level?

This fellowship was created to network and share experiences. There are many other forums that exert political pressure. We also engage in this by translating all of our reports into English and sending them around the globe. This fellowship is more about learning from each other. We are not alone - there are many people facing similar problems in other countries.

We love data and we love to make this data available to others for their use. This is, of course, only possible with the help of the Internet. This is the feature of the Internet that will change the world.

What is next for OVDinfo.org?

Besides software development of NGOs, we are expanding geographically - covering big cities outside of Moscow. We also want to expand our topics. Currently, we cover mostly detentions, but we want to also cover all types of political repression. We already cover police and freedom of assembly, so now we want to cover courts, prisons, and political migration. We are planning to do this in the next year or two. In a way, we want to become like propublica.org, an American, independent, non-profit media which produces investigative journalism on public interests by working with open data. They then distribute it via the Internet and by re-publishing at the partners’ traditional, off-line media.

Cybersecurity: The Toughest Diplomatic Challenge Is China’s Weakness

2013-04-05T11:07:16Z

The last two months have seen unprecedented friction between the United States and China over allegations of attacks by the latter on the computer networks and sensitive information of American business and government. The public commentary in the United States has frequently painted China as an enemy -- as if there were no other context. There has been almost no attention paid to the underlying asymmetry in cyber power between the two countries. This imbalance of power has helped to fuel insecurity for both countries and to drive the aberrant behavior.

Here is a brief chronology of recent diplomacy. On 12 February, United States President Barack Obama, without naming China, alluded to it as an enemy of the United States for seeking to occupy its critical infrastructure through cyber operations. The remarks came two days after leaks from a U.S. intelligence estimate named China – again – as the most serious menace in the cyber domain. On 11 March, National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon issued three demands on China, which responded the next day saying it was prepared to talk. The next day, the Director of National Intelligence identified cyber threats to the United States as the number one threat, and talked of a “soft war” against the United States in this domain. On March 14, Obama raised the issue with President Xi Jinping in their first telephone call as heads of state. On March 18, China’s Prime Minister surprisingly called on both China and the United States to stop making “groundless accusations” about cyber attacks against each other. On March 19, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew discussed the issue when he met Xi in Beijing. One week later, President Obama signed a bill that will exclude the purchase of IT products by U.S. government agencies if any part of them is made by a Chinese corporation.

The United States has never mounted such a robust diplomatic campaign against China in this field, nor has it ever appeared to stake so much of the entire U.S/China relationship on cyber issues. A disinterested bystander could be forgiven for believing that China’s cyber power and actions are a serious threat to United States national security and that a confrontation between the two countries is inevitable unless China changes course.

Yet in overall capability, China’s armed forces remain weak relative to those of the United States. In the cyber domain, in spite of successes in peacetime espionage, China is simply not competitive with the United States for the full range of cyber combat operations during wartime. That is what is what China’s leaders think. And it is what the United States government and the best-informed American analysts (from the intelligence community) think.

The analysts say fairly uniformly that the United States has an unmatched military cyber power for several reasons. First, it has been able to build off its pre-eminence in the civilian information technology sector. Second China lacks the necessary testing ground for strong military cyber capabilities, especially the capacity for integrated command and control of joint operations. The analysts cite in the U.S. case a strong tradition of such operations refined in combat around the globe for at least 25 years. Third, and most importantly, the United States has unmatched human and technical intelligence collection capabilities needed for effective cyber offensive operations against military targets.

It is China’s weakness relative to the United States that determines its military strategy of disabling some critical information infrastructure in the United States in the event that a war with it seemed imminent.

If both countries want stability, and an end to current cyber practices, the over-arching policy question then becomes one of comparing insecurities and vulnerabilities, and later eventually addressing them. The two countries appear to need a strategy for managing a very big asymmetry of military power in cyber space. There is little hint of that consideration in the bilateral diplomacy so far. A heavier emphasis on how concepts of common security can be applied in the bilateral cyber relationship may be needed.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

Reading Dubai: Internet Governance and WCIT-12

2013-01-30T19:26:55Z

At WCIT-12 in Dubai in December, the 193 member states of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) met to review a treaty that has formed the global framework for telecommunications regulation for almost 25 years. A flashpoint in the battle over the future of Internet governance, events at the conference have been the subject of intensely varying interpretation. Responding to an account published by a member of the United States delegation, former tech executive and ITU official Richard Hill offers an alternative perspective.

The following Global Minds contribution responds directly to Eli Dourado’s WCIT-12 analysis ‘Behind Closed Doors at the UN’s Attempted “Takeover of the Internet” published by Ars Technica.

Eli Dourado’s article begins with an incorrect statement. According to him, “the purpose of the meeting [WCIT], claimed ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, was simply to update the treaty that governs international phone calls.” In fact, the 1988 International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) do not govern international phone calls. As anybody can tell by simply reading the Purpose and Scope of the ITRs, they “establish general principles which relate to the provision and operation of international telecommunication services offered to the public as well as to the underlying international telecommunication transport means used to provide such services.” In particular, the ITRs establish principles for data networks as well as voice networks: they replaced the previous Telephone Regulations and Telegraph Regulation. The ITRs do not “govern” anything. Instead, they merely establish general principle.

Dourado goes on to state “the ITU, it was said, had no agenda of its own.” It is not clear what is meant by this statement. The ITU is its membership. If the membership agrees something, then the ITU has a clear agenda. If the membership does not agree, then the ITU cannot have a clear agenda. The agenda for WCIT-12 was agreed by the membership, and it was clear – to revise the 1988 ITRs. There were differences of opinion amongst the membership regarding how best to revise the ITRs, and the purpose of WCIT-12 was to discuss those differences with a view to finding a consensus. That was the agenda.

Dourado states: “the proposals for the updated treaty stayed secret, however, the public had no way to judge the claims of the ITU and its critics.” As the ITU Secretariat has repeatedly stated, all proposals are made available to all of the ITU’s members, and the members are encouraged to share them within their constituencies. As a United States (US) citizen, the author could have had access to all of the proposals, simply by asking the US government. The proposals were by no means secret.

Dourado states: “within hours, we had our first leak – a draft of the new treaty containing several options for revisions to each provision, including some that addressed Internet issues.” In fact, the document in question was a compilation of proposals, not a draft of the new treaty. Some of the proposals did indeed address Internet issues that are within the mandate of the ITU, in particular the issue of costs for international Internet connectivity, which have long been studied in ITU-T Study Group 3. There was no reason for Dourado to wait for a leak. He could have obtained the document in question from the US government, simply by asking for it.

Dourado fails to note that the document approved for public distribution by the ITU Council was the main output of the WCIT-12 preparatory process and contained all proposals that were considered for further study. The council was of the view that this document sufficiently well summarized the preparatory process, so it was not necessary for the ITU Secretariat to publish any other documents. All other documents, however, could be obtained from any ITU member, including of course national governments. Indeed, other organizations obtained the full set of WCIT-12 documents and published them, unlike the author’s site WCITLeaks, which continued to publish only selected documents.

Dourado states: ”as a result of criticism over transparency, Plenary and COM5 meetings were webcast and open to those who only had observer status.” This statement is inaccurate in two respects. Firstly, meetings of plenaries and decision-making committees of ITU conferences are usually open to the public and webcast: WCIT-12 merely followed established precedents. Secondly, all WCIT-12 committees, working groups and sub-working groups (ad hoc groups) were open to all members, including those having observer status.

Dourado states: “finally, around noon on Saturday, WCITLeaks received and posted a version of the multi-regional proposals.” The document posted on WCITLeaks was not a document submitted to the ITU Secretariat – WCITLeaks posted a non-authentic document.

Dourado states: “despite the ITU’s claims that WCIT was not going to be about the Internet, there we were, halfway through the conference, and the Internet was still on the table.” Indeed, proposals regarding the Internet were still on the table, because they had been submitted by the ITU membership. The author appears to conflate the ITU Secretariat with the ITU itself. As noted above, the ITU is its membership. While the Secretary-General was of the view that Internet issues should not be discussed at WCIT-12, not all members agreed, so indeed some issues related to the Internet were on the table. As part of a compromise proposal, those issues were dealt with in a non-binding resolution, rather than in treaty text.

Dourado states, regarding the compromise text proposed by the Chairman of WCIT: “its term for the covered operators – those companies who would be subject to the regulations – failed to clearly limit the scope of the treaty to traditional telecom companies, thus allowing the interpretation that Internet companies from Google to Tumblr were covered.” Indeed, in accordance with no. 38 of the ITU Constitution, which takes priority over the ITRs, the ITRs must apply to companies other than “traditional telecom companies.” The language proposed by the Chairman was an inevitable consequence of what had been agreed in the 1998 Plenipotentiary Conference – a fact accepted by almost all the delegations present in Dubai.

Dourado states that the draft compromise “included provisions on Internet naming and numbering... and text that could have enabled sender-pays and other pricing mechanisms that would fundamentally alter the Internet.” These statements are incorrect. The compromise language specifically excluded such proposals.

Dourado states: “every time the US objected to a provision in Plenary, the Chairman would chide us, saying that the text had been agreed to already in the closed-door meeting.” This is not correct, as anybody can tell by listening to the archived webcasts of the plenary discussions.

Dourado states: “at one point, US lead negotiator Richard Beaird pleaded that only one additional word – ‘correspondence’—was necessary to make the definition of a key term acceptable. This appeal was rejected (the term ‘public correspondence’ would have limited the applicability of the treaty roughly to the traditional common carriers, while ‘public’ alone could have implicated any company providing telecommunication services to anybody).” This statement contains many inaccuracies. The US proposal was to use the term “public correspondence” which is defined in the ITU Constitution as “any telecommunication which the offices and stations must, by reason of their being at the disposal of the public, accept for transmission” (emphasis added). Since, at present, there are essentially no offices or stations which must be at the disposal of the public, adoption of the US proposal would have resulted in a treaty that applied to essentially nobody, as this would have been inconsistent with the ITU Constitution. Since the Constitution prevails over the ITRs, the treaty would anyway have been applicable to the “authorized operating agencies” mentioned in the Chairman’s compromise text. Further, the ITRs apply only to entities that operate a telecommunication installation intended for an international telecommunication service (emphasis added). Entities that do not operate installations intended for international services are not covered by the ITRs.

According to Dourado, “the US had privately expressed concerns to the Secretary-General that the Internet resolution made the treaty unacceptable.” This statement is hard to understand, given that the non-binding resolution in question is not part of the treaty itself.

According to Dourado, the decision to approve the resolution in question was not made by consensus. The author apparently misunderstands ITU (and United Nations) practice regarding consensus. Consensus does not mean unanimity – it means that no formal objection is made to a decision. If a chairman announces that something is approved, and if no delegation objects formally to that announcement, then the issue is considered as having been approved by consensus.

Dourado states: “after last night’s performance, the ITU could never again deny that it had designs on the Internet, it could never again imply that those who were concerned about the possibility of a takeover of some aspects of Internet governance by nation-states were misinformed conspiracy theorists.” As noted above, the ITU is its membership. While some ITU members have indeed advocated a greater role for the ITU in certain aspects of Internet governance, there is no agreement on the matter. It cannot be said that the ITU, as an institution, has “designs on the Internet.” Indeed, many nation states control many aspects of the Internet (most notably the US), so this topic is hardly one for conspiracy theorists. Various countries have made very public proposals to bring certain aspects of Internet governance under the control of some to-be-created inter-governmental mechanisms. Again, this topic is hardly one for conspiracy theorists. No such proposals were presented to WCIT, however, so indeed it takes a conspiracy theorist to imagine that WCIT-12 could result in increased inter-governmental control of the Internet.

Dourado states: “while we were able to make some WCIT documents public, the group’s formal processes remain arcane and fundamentally closed.” As noted, other actors made all the WCIT documents public, after having obtained them from an ITU member. The ITU’s formal rules of procedure are indeed complex, but WCIT-12 was fundamentally open. All decision-making sessions were open to the public and webcast, and the national delegations included many representatives of the private sector and civil society. No other treaty-making conference has ever been as open as WCIT-12.

Finally, Dourado states: “and the months of false assurances that the Internet would not be up for discussion at the WCIT represent the opposite of transparency; they look in retrospect like simple obfuscation.” As already outlined, the ITU Secretary-General was of the view that it would have been better not to have raised Internet issues at WCIT-12. The membership, however, felt otherwise. It is possible that the membership felt otherwise because of the orchestrated press campaign prior to the conference that suggested WCIT-12 was going to result in a United Nations takeover of the Internet. Without such a misleading campaign, perhaps the Internet-related proposals would not have been presented to WCIT-12 at all.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

The Great Internet Governance Swindle

The Hypocrisy Threatening the Future of the Internet

NANOG Rhetoric and WCIT-12 Reality