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

[David McAuley]

Gene, 

This is an important issue but let me encourage posters who wish to take
it up here to please use only the MemberPubPol list as the Chapters
Delegates list is really intended for chapter management and chapters
relations issues. 

Thanks
David

David McAuley
Membership Director
Internet Society
703-326-9880, ext 104
703-963-5887 (mobile)
mcauley at isoc.org


-----Original Message-----
From: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org
[mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Gene
Gaines
Sent: Monday, December 26, 2005 10:28 AM
To: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org; Dr. Michael Nelson;
memberpubpol at elists.isoc.org; lessig at eff.org; ssteele at eff.org
Cc: Lloyd Etheredge
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] [MemberPubPol] US/Bush global
Internetsurveillance & ISOC's emerging 2006 policy agenda


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


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