[chapter-delegates] Request for protest against being shut out of WIPO Development Agenda Meetings

[Gene Gaines]

To more constructive issues, I hope.

Can ISOC or any of its chapters write emails of support for this
group?  I'll explain.

It appears that a number of the world's good non-profit
organizations and a number of the government delegations from
emerging countries are being shut out of attending or speaking
at the WIPO (Word Intellectual Property Organization) series of
WIPO Development Agenda meetings being held over the next few
months.

At issue is freedom from government regulation and control of
the Internet. There is a conflict here -- major corporations and
some repressive governments against the many good nonprofit
organizations all over the world working to keep the Internet
free of such restriction.

Below is a letter from one such group asking for help in their
protest of being shut out.

Writing in support of them should help all the non-profits and
countries that are being shut out.

An open Internet is a core value of ISOC, and public policy
regarding such is one of ISOC's pillars.

Please help. Read letter below and act.

Gene Gaines
gene.gaines at gainesgroup.com
Sterling, Virginia USA
VP Washington DC chapter of ISOC

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Date:    Sat, 12 Mar 2005 00:20:45 -0800
From:    Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org>
Subject: Group Request for Reconsideration to WIPO on
         Accreditation to attend Development Agenda Meetings

WIPO has officially denied IP Justice accreditation to
participate at the WIPO Development Agenda meetings in April
because we are only accredited as "ad hoc" members of the WIPO
Copyright Committee and NOT as "permanent" members of the General
Assembly.

IP Justice is preparing to send WIPO a request to reconsider this
policy and permit interested NGOs to attend.  If there are any
other NGOs that have been denied permission to attend the WIPO
meetings and would like to consider signing-on to a group request
for reconsideration to WIPO, please let me know.   I believe a
group statement from a number of NGOs denied a seat at the table
will send a powerful message that the member country delegates
can use to pressure WIPO to change this policy.

Or your NGO may want to send a separate request to WIPO, just to
make a point about the unfairness of WIPO's exclusionary
policies.  The contact person at WIPO to send NGO requests for
accreditation is Edward Kwakwa <edward.kwakwa at wipo.int>

If anyone is interested in talking about this further, please let
me know asap!

Thank you,
Robin Gross
IP Justice
robin at ipjustice.org

Note from Gene...

John Gilmore is one of the IP Justice board members. I think of
him as a noted civil libertarian. In brief, John was an early
employee of Sun Microsystems, early open source author, and
co-created Cygnus Solutions, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF), the Cypherpunks, the DES Cracker, and the Internet's
"alt" newsgroups. He's spent thirty years doing programming,
hardware and software design, management, philosophy,
philanthropy, and investment. He is a board member of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, the USENIX Association,
CodeWeavers, ReQuest, and the Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies.