[Chapter-delegates] [MemberPubPol] US/Bush global Internet surveillance & ISOC's emerging 2006 policy agenda

[Gene Gaines]

T think an unhappy but necessary to ISOC's policy focus for 2006

Lloyd Etheredge make a serious, important statement (below).

 1) I hope that U.S. Internet professionals will make
    statements concerning such secret Internet surveillance.

 2) Here is a chance for ISOC to speak out simply and with
    clarity.

(A personal observation. By thoughtlessly conducting wiretap/
Internet surveillance outside the legal legislative and court
system, I suspect that the Bush administration will have started
a disclosure process in the CIA/NSA intelligence electronic
surveillance activity that will do great damage to those
agencies. I expect those on both sides of the issue will lose --
those concerned with freedom and also those concerned with
protection through surveillance.)

Gene Gaines
gene.gaines at gainesgroup.com
Sterling, Virginia USA


On Wednesday, December 21, 2005, 12:34:02 PM, Lloyd wrote:

> Dear ISOC Public Policy Members:
>      A speculation: There may be new global issues in 2006 that require
> hard thinking and a high level of statesmanship.

>      The Bush Administration's current public justifications about why they
> cannot use a secret US court system for case-by-case wiretape/Internet
> surveillance orders don't add-up. I suspect that we will discover, in early
> 2006, that a global digital-age surveillance system without legal
> constraints is being constructed, and may already be operating at an
> advanced level. E.g., full computer-assisted monitoring & initial scans for
> all email, Internet & phone traffic involving the Arab world, "suspect"
> addresses in Europe, etc. And perhaps large-scale monitoring of domestic
> Internet & telephone traffic from (and between?) people in a substantial
> list of non-US countries (without court orders, and perhaps without
> permission of the governments, even of allies.)

>      De facto, Europeans & other foreigners (including students) never have
> had an enforceable right to privacy (etc.) from the National Security
> Agency and other US intelligence agencies, tho' the emerging revelations -
> the US-deployed technology & design of what will be seen as global police
> state surveillance in the digital age - may help awaken everyone to how
> most of the $42 billion/year budget is being spent. And, in addition to
> these expenditures, there are going to be data-gathering dummy & cutout
> corporations involved, if normal tradecraft is observed.

>       If this is right, the ISOC (and EFF?) issues in 2006 will be bigger
> and deeper than our normal ISOC public policy discussions/negotiations
> about legislated laws.

>       - The credibility of American Internet-related corporations also may
> be at risk because the Bush Administration has asserted that an American
> President has inherent rights beyond a rule-of-law American system.
> According to the NYTimes, it already issues "secret warrants" requiring
> libraries (for example) to turn-over all records and prohibits them from
> telling anyone, even their lawyers, about the orders. Do the world's
> Internet users know whether corporate carriers of the major Internet
> backbones in the US [with DOD contracts (etc.)] have been compromised and
> forced to cooperate, here and re global Internet traffic across the backbones?

>       - Could this quickly become war - the global hacker/user community v.
> the Bush Administration? Will anger and cyberwar be limited to symbolic
> targets (global denial of service attacks against whitehouse.gov)? Will
> major American-based corporations involved in Internet-based services face
> economic damages and new regulatory requirements in the EU and many
> individual countries? Or be unable to grow internationally?

>       The US Executive branch seems to be creating the alarming nightmare
> scenario that Pool's pioneering Technologies of Freedom (1983) tried to
> prevent via legislated public policies. Internet users, worldwide, will
> want more effective protection. And Internet governance [based in
> Switzerland?] that gives more political independence and (if possible)
> rule-of-law rights that can be enforced.

>       Can ISOC & people who want the Internet to thrive as a "technology of
> freedom" chart a better future?
> Lloyd Etheredge

> Dr. Lloyd S. Etheredge
> Policy Sciences Center Inc.
> 127 Wall St., Room 322 - Box 208215
> New Haven, CT 06520-8215
> URL: www.policyscience.net
> 301-365-5241 (v); lloyd.etheredge at yale.edu (email) 
> _______________________________________________
> Memberpubpol mailing list
> Memberpubpol at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/memberpubpol


--