Summary of Public Voice WSIS call 2/20

[Frannie Wellings <wellings@epic.org>]

Summary of the Public Voice 2nd Teleconference on "WSIS and Civil Society"
February 20, 2004


On February 20th, the Public Voice held the second meeting to discuss 
civil society involvement in the WSIS process.  Participating were 
Deborah Hurley, Rikke Frank Joergensen (EDRI), Robert Guerra 
(Privaterra), Nathan Mitchler (Public Knowledge), Marc Rotenberg 
(EPIC), Frannie Wellings (EPIC), YJ Park, Milton Mueller (Syracuse), 
Andy Carvin (Benton), Chris Chiu (ACLU), and Becky Lentz (Ford 
Foundation).  Thank you to Deborah for moderating and to Rikke and 
Robert for providing very useful updates.

The Next Public Voice Meeting will be coordinated alongside the UN 
ICT meeting in NY (both in person and via telephone). It will 
probably take place at the Ford Foundation on March 24 or 25, 2004. 
Please let me know if you will be in NY at this time - it seems 
opportune for a civil society strategy meeting.  Confirmation on 
date/time/agenda still to come.

Summary:
I. Updates
II. Report from Civil Society Plenary
III. Discussion of Internet Governance and Upcoming UN meetings
IV. Addressing issues from last meeting
V. Organizing Around Upcoming Events
VI.  Needs/Next Steps


I. Updates
Robert Guerra's reported on Recent Canadian meeting:
The Canadian government under UNESCO organized a civil society 
debriefing in Ottawa on January 23rd.  They brought together 
participants to discuss the process so far in terms of civil 
society's organizing and challenges and what Canada should do next. 
In the second phase, the Canadians see a problem in terms of 
stakeholders - Canadian business wasn't as present as they expected 
in the first phase.  It was said that the Declaration and Action Plan 
would not be reopened according to governments.  There are now only 
two concrete issues that will be dealt with, financing and Internet 
governance. There are no modalities for oversight of the Action Plan 
- the process is decentralized and there are a number of initiatives.
Coming up:
There will be an informal, brainstorming meeting on March 4-5 in 
Tunisia. They want the Bureau to attend, but there are few funds for 
travel. Very few people are able to go due to lacking funds, and 
others are avoiding Tunisia for human rights reasons.  Robert will be 
attending this meeting and will report back.
There will be a WSIS civil society meeting in Berlin, Germany in 
March, but without a funded Bureau, travel opportunities and even 
discussions are sparse.  Robert thinks the new bureau will probably 
pick a new president, though Deborah Hurley pointed out that 
Sammassekou was appointed for the entire WSIS process.
Regarding the next preparatory meeting, the Tunisians want April 
while the ITU wants June or July.  Most people involved want it to be 
held in either New York City or Geneva. 



II. Report from the Plenary
Rikke discussed the UN ICT Global Forum in New York in March.  (On 
the Human Rights Plenary list, I read that the February ITU meeting 
is an internal technical ITU workshop to feed into the UN ICT Task 
Force Open Forum in New York, 25-27 March, on Internet Governance. 
It is not directly part of the WSIS 2 preparatory process, but its 
outcome will help determine the Secretary General's appointment of 
the Internet Governance working group.)  While Saturday's meeting is 
closed, the 25th and 26th are open to public participation.  Several 
government delegates will attend, many from Europe and the US. 
Rikke mentioned frustration with the Bureau family structure, with 
the involvement of family members rather than caucus members.  The 
human rights caucus should apply for a formal role in the Internet 
Governance working group.
Robert said that the Latin America regional plenary list is very 
active, though there is a great deal of frustration that so many of 
the documents are only in English.


III. Internet Governance
Milton Mueller led this very informative discussion of Internet 
governance and the upcoming UN ICT Task Force forum.  He feels that 
the only concrete accomplishment of WSIS I was the establishment of 
an Internet governance working group.  The two documents, the 
Declaration and the Plan of Action, won't be reopened.  He feels that 
the broad range of information and communication concerns will have 
to be, and can be, addressed through the question of Internet 
governance.  The concept of Internet governance is very broad and can 
concretely address issues such as Voice Over IP, Spam, and content 
controls.  We're looking at an International framework/agreement for 
the governance of the Internet. 
The ITU meeting will take place on February 26th and 27th with 
experts presenting, most of whom are critical of ICANN.  Milton will 
also be presenting.   The UN ICT Task Force will become the 
secretariat of the working group, which Kofi Annan will select.  The 
UN ICT forum is shaping up to be a big meeting. Milton's not sure how 
they selected invitees, but said some invitations must have channeled 
through the WSIS civil society groups such as the Internet Governance 
caucus.  He said it doesn't appear to be horribly selective.  Deborah 
Hurley suggested the working group might be supplanting the Tunisia 
phase.
Milton stressed his belief that Internet Governance issues touch on 
more than just the ICANN question, but also most other issues 
involved in the World Summit, such as privacy and censorship.  All of 
the human rights issues may be brought into the framework of Internet 
Governance.  Progressive communities are not unified on IG, with 
divergence on model of representation, for example.  Milton stressed 
the need for a more unified strategy. 
People on the call agreed that many issues may be tied up in Internet 
Governance, that the working group is extremely significant, and 
civil society needs to be involved pushing a human rights perspective 
in the working group.  It is unknown whether this will be the only 
point of significance, however. The CS Internet governance caucus has 
already sent a letter to Mr Kofi Annan to express its willing to 
participate in the Internet governance working group.  (As far as I 
know right now, the Human Rights caucus is considering doing the 
same.)
There is still an Internet Governance civil society caucus list, 
though most discussion is not on there, but is on the plenary list. 
Anyone from civil society who is following the Internet governance 
working group process can get involved with the Non-Commercial Users 
Constituency of ICANN.  The NCUC is civil society's body there. The 
NCUC will be holding a meeting in Rome on March 2nd (more information 
below).

Goals for the UN ICT Task Force Global Forum in New York in March
… Consensus of principles
… Openness of Internet Governance working group process
… Involvement of civil society caucuses including internet governance 
and human rights caucuses
… A Civil Society meeting alongside the forum

IV. Addressing issues from last meeting:

-Additions to the current list of allies
We discussed the list of allies (Samessekou, Tunisian Human Rights 
League, Geneva, Youth, Governments such as Canada, Switzerland, and 
others, International organizations such as UNESCO, UNHCHR, Council 
of Europe, and the EC, Media activists, Human Rights groups).  Robert 
suggested we recruit some smaller business interests who may have 
like-minded thinking to show we too can put together a 
multi-stakeholder approach.


-Prioritization of Issues:
We decided to organize the list of issues under a human rights 
framework.  Robert suggested we add linguistic diversity to the list 
of issues.

Human Rights:
… Š Access to technology
… Š Access to information
… Š Cyber Security
… Š Digital Divide
… Š Freedom of expression
… Š Freedom of movement
… Š Freedom of association
… Š Internet Governance
… Š Linguistic Diversity
… Š Media ownership and concentration
… Š NGO empowerment and participation in international governance
… Š Privacy
… Š Public Domain/Intellectual Property
… Š Right to education
… Š Right to work
… Š Right to development
… Š Surveillance




V. Organizing Around Upcoming Events -
The calendar of events that may be useful for civil society 
organization, networking, promotion, presence, etc. has been updated. 
See below.  It is now also displayed on the Public Voice web site: 
http://www.thepublicvoice.org/events/2004_csonetwork.html.  Please 
send me any other events and I'll continue to update it. 

2004

*	February 26-27: ITU Internet Governance Workshop »
*	February 27-29: New York City Grassroots Media Conference, New York »
*	March 2-6: ICANN meeting, Rome, Italy »
*	March 2: Meeting of ICANN's Non-Commercial Users 
Constituency, Rome, Italy »
*	March 2-3: Disney Shareholders Meeting, Philadelphia, PA »
*	March 13: "Can Media Artists Survive Media Consolidation?" 
Conference, Beverly Hills, California »
*	March 15 - April 23: Commission on Human Rights, Geneva »
*	March 17: FCC Hearing, Monterey, California »
*	March 22-23: "Implementing the WSIS Action Plan" Conference, Nairobi »
*	March 22-26: Kenya ICT National Convention, Nairobi »
*	March 24-25: Internet Commons Congress, Washington, D.C. »
*	March 25-26: UN ICT Task Force Global Forum on Internet 
Governance, New York City »
*	March 25-27: Nonprofit Technology Conference, Philadelphia, PA »
*	March 26-28: "Designs on Democracy: Communication for 
Liberation," Berkeley, California »
*	March 26-28: Yale Law "CyberCrime and Digital Law 
Enforcement" Conference, New Haven, Conn. »
*	April 2-4: Labortech 2004 Conference, San Francisco, California »
*	April 17-22: National Association of Broadcasters Meetings, 
Las Vegas, Nevada »
*	April 19-23: 4th World Summit on Media for Children and 
Adolescents, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil »
*	April 20-23: Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, 
Berkeley, California »
*	April 21-24: National Federation of Community Radio 
Broadcasters Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico »
*	April 22-25: Union for Democratic Communications Conference, 
"The Axis of Empire," St. Louis, Missouri »
*	April 26-28: Council on Foundations 55th Annual Conference, 
Toronto, Ontario »
*	April 30-May 1: "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond 
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex," Santa Barbara, CA »
*	May 2-4: Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit 2004, Washington, DC »
*	May 20-23: EPIC's 10th Anniversary Conference, Washington, DC »
*	May 27-31: 54th Annual Conference of the International 
Communications Association, "Communication in the Public Interest," 
New Orleans, LA »
*	June 7-8: Organization of American States General Assembly, 
Quito, Ecuador »
*	June 18: Conference of Scholars on Human Rights and the 
Information Society, Montreal »
*	June 18-20: Allied Media Conference, Bowling Green, Ohio »
*	June?: Media Justice Summit »
*	July 1-4: "Declaring Media Independence" ACME Summit, San 
Francisco, California »
*	July 7-10: The Alliance for Community Media, International 
Conference and Trade Show, Tampa, Florida »
*	July 13-16: 8th International Conference of the International 
Society for Knowledge Organization, London, England »
*	July 20-25: OURmedia Conference, Porto Alegre, Brazil »
*	July 25-30: Intl'l Association for Media and Communication 
Research Conference, Porto Alegre »
*	July 25-30: 1st Americas Social Forum, Quito, Ecuador »
*	November ?: European Social Forum, London »

2005

*	November: WSIS Phase 2, Tunisia »


We discussed holding a Public Voice meeting alongside the UN ITC 
meeting in New York on March 24th or 25th, as many civil society 
groups will be in New York for the this forum. The Ford Foundation is 
willing to give us space - we're waiting for the ITC Task Force to 
put up an agenda for their forum before we discuss a time/day.
In addition, a proposal has been submitted to the Computers, Freedom 
and Privacy 2004 conference in April in California for a workshop on 
civil society participation in the WSIS. There is discussion of a 
meeting alongside the event or possibly workshops at universities in 
the area.
EPIC's annual conference will be held in Washington, DC on May 20th 
to 23rd, which will also include a concentration on WSIS issues. 
There is an opportunity to meet then as well.
The Non-Commercial Users Constituency of ICANN, the civil society 
representatives, will be meeting in Rome on March 2 at the ICANN 
conference. More information is available at 
http://www.ncdnhc.org/meetings/2004/2004_meeting.htm - anyone in Rome 
at that time should join the meeting, if possible.  The NCUC is 
another way for NGOs to keep involved in the Internet governance 
process/discussion.  ICANN's at-large committee will be holding a 
forum on WSIS on March 4th at the Rome meeting, in cooperation with 
the business community.


VI.  Next Steps/Needs

Outreach/Coordination
We still need to check in with other Civil Society groupsŠ improve 
outreach to and mobilization of NGOs and networking with developing 
countries.  It was suggested people begin to take responsibility for 
coordinating with people from other countries.
We still need to engage with Social Justice Groups.
The list of events around which NGO / civil society work could be 
furthered is now on the Public Voice web site, but in its current 
form it is heavily focused on those involved in ICT's rather than 
other social justice events.
We need to circulate the Civil Society Declaration and the Sourcebook

Effectiveness of Civil Society Participation:
We need to coordinate with Plenary the best way to improve our 
structure/representation in the next phase - Robert's going to 
initiate this coordination on the Plenary list.   We need to discuss 
structure, involvement, particularly of candidates from CS itself, 
and funding.	Unfortunately we're still looking at process rather 
than substance, which will have to change shortly if we're going to 
be effective.  But, related to process, we discussed three issues 
related to the structure/make-up of Civil Society: the need to be 
better organized within civil society, representation of the civil 
society secretariat, and representation within the Bureau.
Robert mentioned we could suggest to the secretariat that we 
coordinate ourselves this time.  It's important that civil society 
runs 'itself' and is not managed as much, but this hasn't been dealt 
with yet.  We need to grasp all possibilities of funding for travel, 
such as foundations and governments.  We also need to look ahead to 
trade talks, etc.  We need to better understand how to interact with 
the UN.  In New York, networking will be difficult, constrained by 
the physical access to people due to building structure/security.  We 
should do some intelligence seeking - what's going on and where's the 
support.  We need to work on outreach and analyze our limitations. 
Where do we dedicate resources if Tunis isn't ever going to happen?
Many folks are currently working to articulate how civil society can 
participate more effectively - we need to keep this up, build on it, 
and coordinate it.  The Human Dignity in the Information Society 
group will follow-up in June at the Montreal academic meeting. 
Deborah Hurley said the Human Rights Caucus has been bringing 
standards forwardŠ economic, social and cultural rights.  She brought 
up the question of global research projects digging into these 
aspects, but again, coordination is necessary.
Robert suggested we start recording this process and compile a civil 
society report detailing our intervention and assessing the results. 
It could be connected to the academic work and a summary of our 
movement, meetings, and actions.

In Terms of Current Process:
We need to be significantly involved in the Internet Governance 
working group process, with participation by civil society caucuses 
such as the human rights caucus.  As mentioned previously, the CS 
Internet governance caucus has already sent a letter to Mr Kofi Annan 
to express it is willing to participate in the Internet governance 
working group.  We need to make sure that this is the case, and try 
and make sure that the human rights caucus is also involved.
We also need to get together and identify specific needs for 
resources, such as travel funds.  Becky Lentz said this would be 
useful for foundations such as Ford.  While it would not guarantee 
that any funds would be distributed, it would identify needs and help 
map their future funding.

Future meetings:
UN ICT Forum: Public Voice meeting alongside the UN ITC meeting in 
New York on March 25th or 26th.  Many civil society groups will be in 
New York for the this forum so it will be both a physical meeting as 
well as via telephone. The Ford Foundation is willing to give us 
space - we're waiting for the ITC to put up an agenda for their forum 
before we discuss a time/day.
CFP meeting: Organize side-by-side meetings with people in the areaŠ 
San Francisco based organizations, students and maybe even businesses.

-- 

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Frannie Wellings
Policy Fellow, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Coordinator, The Public Voice
1718 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 200 
Washington, D.C.  20009   USA 
wellings@epic.org
+1 202 483 1140 extension 107 (telephone)
+1 202 483 1248 (fax)
http://www.epic.org
http://www.thepublicvoice.org
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