Re: [hr-wsis] Re: draft letter to de Mello

[Bill McIver <mciver@albany.edu>]

Karen,

Thank you for pointing this out.
I agree.
I was a bit hasty yesterday in reading the draft.

I do not think (and this is my personal opinion here) that
CPSR could support that particular part of the letter. 
We should edit that part.

As you may know, our organization started in response to Reagan's
SDI ("Star Wars") program, recognizing that ICTs and computer
professionals' development of them are not value-neutral propositions.
And this was certainly not a new view back then.


Best,

WJM

karen banks wrote:

> hi
>
> i'm sure APC would be able to support this (or edited version of 
> this..) -
>
> but, i'm not sure i could agree with the observation that technology 
> in itself is value-neutral? but wondering if you mean it in the way i 
> understand it..  i believe technology (and scientific innovations) are 
> heavily value-*laden*, imbued with the values of those who create them 
> (or those who pay others to create them - for example) - but, i do 
> agree, that in the application of ICTs, there are positive and 
> negative attributes..
>
> karen
>
>>> Like all scientific innovations, information communications 
>>> technologies in themselves are value-neutral. Civil society 
>>> organizations view ICTs as having both tremendous applications that 
>>> enhance human rights, such as through the rapid dissemination of 
>>> action alerts and instant access to human rights information, and 
>>> disturbing capacities to greatly diminish human rights, such as 
>>> through enhanced surveillance and monitoring functions of 
>>> governments facilitated by ICTs.
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Putting the "Human Rights in the Information Society" issue on the 
> WSIS Agenda
> Working list of NGOs
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-- 

Bill McIver
Assistant Professor
School of Information Science and Policy
University at Albany, State University of New York
Albany, New York 12222
USA

e-mail: mciver@albany.edu
URL: http://www.albany.edu/~mciver