[Chapter-delegates] Call with Chapters in advance of the ITU Plenipotentiary 2018 (18 Oct, 10:00 and 20:00 UTC)

[Richard Hill]

Dear Alejandro,

 

I agree with much of what you say, but, as usual, the devil is in the details, please see embedded comments below.

 

Thanks and best,

Richard

 

From: Alejandro Pisanty [mailto:apisanty at gmail.com] 
Sent: lundi, 5. novembre 2018 21:42
To: Dave Burstein
Cc: Nadira Alaraj; Richard Hill; ISOC Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Call with Chapters in advance of the ITU Plenipotentiary 2018 (18 Oct, 10:00 and 20:00 UTC)

 

Dave,

 

the concerns of Internet users in developing countries are not better served by their governments' participation in the ITU. 

 

>RH: I think that that depends on the country. In my experience, many of the representatives of developing countries are well informed and are trying to do the best for their citizens.

 

Many of the resolutions under discussion cement the power of repressive and user-unfriendly governments, both in-country and internationally.

 

>RH: I think that you mean that some of the proposals might have such effects. But I don’t think that such proposals will be accepted.

 

A big, solid block of countries that negotiates endlessly - literally till the light of the next morning - has a model of deep collusion between telco and government, be it that the telco is government-owned, or owned by a prince who is a cousin of the country's ruler, or that the government actively supports a mostly monopolistic telco. 

 

>RH: Yes, but there is an equally big, solid, block of countries that also negotiates endlessly to prevent such proposals from being adopted. And, in my experience, there is considerable collusion between big companies (including the Internet giants) and governments in developed countries also.

 

Others in the list of unfriendlies are countries with strong citizen surveillance, at least one of them with a system such that you may lose your right to board a train if your social-networking behavior is considered improper; countries that jail or kill or maim journalists, bloggers, and activists. *They* don't want anybody's interference in their internal issues any more than the country you mention; and they want the same freedom to meddle in others'. 

 

>RH: True, but let’s not forget that several Western countries practice mass surveillance, not just their own citizens, but of the entire world. And that at least one such country has been found to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

 

That's what the ITU does for them. 

 

>RH: Can you please explain exactly what ITU decision/resolution you are referring to? And please recall that there are ITU decisions/recommendations that have facilitated, and continue to facilitate, the development of the Internet, in particular the 1988 ITRs (which ended monopoly pricing for international leased lines and thus opened the way for private networks such as the Internet), X-509 certificates (which are used in HTTPS), compression standards such as MPEG,  end-user access standards such as xDSL, and the use of harmonized unlicensed spectrum for WiFi.

 

The way the votes are garnered is not insignificant either; one of these countries makes huge investments in infrastructure in a continent, then has 70% of that continent's votes; any surprise there? (of course the candidate may come from a developing country; it may further the telecommunications agenda but NOT the Internet agenda.)

 

>RH:  I’m sure that you noticed that the US candidate won the election for Director of BDT, and the UK candidate won the election for Deputy Secretary-General, so vote influencing works both ways.

 

SNIP

 

having the Red Cross, the International Astronomical Union, and ISOC seated in the back row with no electricity. 

 

RH: Zaire, Zimbabwe, etc. are also in the back row, and Switzerland is pretty far back. But all seats have microphones and headphones, and there are big screens, so sitting in the back is not a big issue. At present there is electricity in all rows. I have heard that, at the beginning, electricity was missing in the back rows of one of the big rooms, but that was a mistake and it has been corrected.

 

SNIP

 

Since the ITU does not provide insights into the devlopments during the conference, 

 

>RH: the big meetings are audiocast and captioned, and archived, see:

 

  https://www.itu.int/web/pp-18/en/page/202-webcast-and-captioning 

 

we are better served by following the Twitter feed of Samantha G. Dickinson, https//twitter.com/sgdickinson - read just a few entries to see madness and anomy ooze out.

 

>RH: I have long been impressed by the breadth of your vocabulary, but I don’t think that anomy is the right terms here, given these definitions:

 

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anomy 

 

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/anomy

 

>RH: What I see is hypocrisy on all sides. I will cite here only one example: the countries that most vociferously call for Internet governance discussions to take place only in multi-stakeholder forums and that say that treaty-level provisions are not needed, are the very same countries that have agreed and/or are proposing treaty-level provisions in WTO and in free trade negotiations, which are the least open and the least transparent processes that I know of. See:

 

http://www.apig.ch/Inconsistencies.pdf 

 

 

SNIP .  .

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