more on ITU cyberspace treaty

[David Farber <farber () tmail com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Guerra <rguerra () privaterra org>
To: dave () farber net, Ip ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
CC: David Farber <farber () tmail com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on ITU cyberspace treaty
Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 11:19:47 -0500

Dave:

Being CPSR's delegate to the World Summit on the Information Society 
(WSIS) I must agree with Adam's comments.

I have issues with Yoshio Utsumi's statement that a "basic plan for the 
treaty" was presented at the European Meeting held recently in 
Bucharest. I was there - Though there was mention of it in his speech - 
no content of any kind was articulated nor discussed at any of the 
sessions.

This news really upsets me. If the ITU, nor the conference organizers 
haven't the decency to involve civil society from the start in 
initiatives like this one - then , it's clear they don't want to 
listen.

Since the  accreditation for the upcoming PrepCom2 in Geneva closes 
tomorrow it is very difficult for new groups, new organizations to get 
involved. So if you are interested in being involved - my advice would 
be to get in touch with a group that has already been accredited.

CPSR is one such group, but there are others too. Here's a few links of 
interest for those wishing to follow-up.

(1) Report to CPSR on PrepCom-1 of the World Summit on the Information 
Society, July 1 - 5, 2002, Geneva.
http://www.cpsr.org/wsis/docs/Report-PrepCom1.html/

(2) Civil Society Mailing list for WSIS
http://lists.cpsr.org/wsis-prep1/


regards

Robert


At 7:24 AM -0800 2003/1/4, David Farber wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam Peake <ajp () glocom ac jp>
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] ITU cyberspace treaty
> Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 23:02:56 +0900
>
> Dave,
>
> Seems the story is following up on a speech Utsumi made at a regional 
> meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), November 
> 7-9, in Bucharest.  See <http://www.itu.int/wsis/> --  WSIS will be the 
> UN Summit of 2003 (and 2005.) ITU is the lead agency for the Summit 
> within the UN family.
>
> And WSIS is a messy business. Launched with much promise of being a new 
> type of UN Summit, with government, civil society and private sector 
> working as partners, the outcome has been pretty much to marginalize 
> civil society (with China and Pakistan in particular adamant that NGOs 
> should not have a significant role in the Summit.) The original themes 
> of the summit were well meaning an appropriate for a UN summit: to 
> raise awareness of information society, and address the digital divide. 
> Utsumi's speech in Bucharest introduced a new theme: "to develop new 
> legal and policy frameworks, appropriate to cyberspace".
>
> Rumor is that the new theme was added to the Summit agenda at the 
> request of the US and Russia. US, in "homeland security" mode, had 
> until then been quite dismissive of the Summit (as might have been be 
> expected of the Bush administration), and Russia just emerging from the 
> Moscow hostage/gassing tragedy.
>
> I think we should be very concerned that such issues will be discussed 
> at head of state level in such a fora.  Not quite sure what the 
> intention is -- ITU as a new policy-maker for cyberspace? Not a happy 
> thought.  Particularly as Civil Society has been quite significantly 
> excluded from the WSIS process and has little or no interaction (unless 
> you pay over $10,000 ITU membership) with the ITU. The Summit "PrepCom" 
> process is well advanced, opportunities for comment and discussion are 
> not great.
>
> Partial text of Utsumi's speech in Bucharest below (full document at 
> <http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/bucharest/speech_utsumi.doc>)
>
> I hope EFF, CDT, etc., will take a look at WSIS and get involved.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Adam
>
> Adam Peake
> GLOCOM Tokyo


--
###
Robert Guerra <rguerra () privaterra org>
Privaterra - Securing Human Rights
<http://www.privaterra.org>

A project of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) 
<http://www.cpsr.org>
-- Dave

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