[Chapter-delegates] What ISOC is doing

[Dave Burstein]

Mike

I didn't say ITU is wonderful. It deserves two cheers at best.
Nothing of substance has come out of the big meetings in the ten years I've
been involved. After the US walked out at the WCIT, it's become mostly a
talkfest because they don't want to take on the US. China decided to just
bypass it and Russia doesn't have the votes.

Multistakeholder/democratic is great. But that's not on the table here. On
Security, as big an issue as possible, the US is going multilateral,
government to government. Here, Biden (not just Trump) is going direct to
the Russians and also Lithuanians, etc. The big US security move, the
Prague Proposal, is just governments. On Internet giants paying taxes, a
huge concern in the developing world, the US went to governments. On
unreasonable royalties driving up the cost of mobile phones, only the ITU
tried to do anything. (US shot it down on Qualcomm's behalf.) Nothing is
more important to connecting everyone than cheap cell phones.

ISOC itself is looking more to the UN and its Internet agency, the ITU.
Andrew responded to Veni's note with how we are working with the UN. Our
IGF keynote is from ITU.

I do a lot of windmill tilting myself, but also like to get things done
when I can. Neither the US nor the EU really cares about
"multi-stakeholder" and on important issues goes government to government.
So we can advance the idea, but in our work we should concentrate on what
can work.

ISOC should not be taking sides in the cold war. I do not think India,
South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico are less free than say,
Hungary, much less the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.

Internet policy ultimately will fail if it effectively excludes Asia. India
alone has more Internet users than the US, Canada, and Western Europe
combined. The majority of the Internet is now Asian. Add Africa and Latin
America and 70% of the net is in the Global South. ISOC deserves to be
sidelined if we are dominated by the Global North. *8 of 12 board members
and US, 1 European. The strong majority of senior staff are US and
European. The strong majority of the Internet is other.

So we should be playing a major role in ITU. Things definitely can happen
in the Study Groups. Have you looked at the India proposal for lower cost
5G?
ITU has better representation, including NGOs, than 3GPP, IEEE, the Group
of 20, and the other relevant power loci. ICANN doesn't go beyond DNS type
things, not crucial to the substance and cost of the Internet.
And ISOC can really make a difference there. In a Study Group, I personally
made a difference.

What organization in our field has strong representation of all Internet
users? Toure reached out to us and slews of NGOs virtually begging us to
get more involved. The US had been attacking him for not being
multi-stakeholder and he saw us as allies to deflect that attack. He did
things like ask me to arrange a meeting with all the NGOs at the WCIT. NGOs
also could give him strength against Russian power plays, which he
privately didn't like.



On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 8:57 PM Mike Godwin via Chapter-delegates <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> My personal view, which does not reflect any institutional affiliation I
> may have, is that the ITU will never be an adequate venue for
> multistakeholderism that adequately includes non-governmental stakeholders
> (such as NGOs). Consider just this one factor, for example: many of the
> people whose interests will be directly affected by things the ITU cannot
> afford to take off two or three weeks every four years to hang out in a
> plenipotentiary meeting in Dubai and Romania. ITU by its very nature will
> always favor multilateralism over multistakeholderism. I can't speak for
> the Trump Administration's handling of its relationship with the ITU, but
> the USG has not been the primary motivating impulse behind multilateralism
> and privileging the ITU as somehow having innate power and authority over
> the internet despite having originated in the era of the telegraph and
> partaking of a century and a half of monopoly wireline traditions before
> belatedly realizing that the internet was turning into something important.
> It's the non-free nations (as defined by, e.g., Freedom House) that prefer
> multilateralism, and they make up a majority of members of the ITU.
>
> Let's not nurse fantasies of the wonderfulness of the ITU as an arbiter of
> tomorrow's internet.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 3:26 PM Andrew Sullivan via Chapter-delegates <
> chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 06, 2021 at 08:10:21AM -0400, Veni Markovski wrote:
>> >
>> >It would be good to know: a) what ISOC is doing with regards to this
>> >issue
>>
>> I think there is little doubt that the Internet model is under some
>> threat.  In addition, in my view merely talking about some of the
>> traditional nation-state threats misses the other threats.  As a practical
>> matter, any attempt to erode the Internet way of networking is a problem –
>> whether that comes from a nation-state that has never embraced the Internet
>> way (such as those with "great firewalls"); a nation-state that
>> traditionally _did_ embrace the Internet way (such as countries that have
>> tried to specify "clean networks" by issuing orders that specify which
>> other networks may not be connected to directly); or a corporation that,
>> whether through sheer commercial inertia or through competitive strategy,
>> ends up controlling and closing off too much of the network infrastructure.
>>
>> That's why we adopted the strategic objectives to build the Internet
>> ("Extend the Internet to communities that do not have it and need it
>> most"), promote the Internet ("Promote the Internet model of networking as
>> the preferred model"), and defend the Internet ("Shape the policies of
>> leading governments in favor of the growth of independent networks, which
>> are free to interconnect", "Counter attempts by leading governments to
>> undermine encryption", and "Defend against shutdowns by increasing
>> cross-border connectivity and resiliency").
>>
>> Here are some of the ways we've been doing that:
>>
>>      • The Internet Society staff monitor and participate, when possible,
>> in UN discussions that may impact the multistakeholder model of the
>> Internet (e.g. CSTD, HLPDC, OEWG).  We will not, however, get involved in
>> politics around the election of the next ITU Sec Gen.
>>         • We maintain our position on the future of the IGF, our support
>> for the general multistakeholder approach for Internet governance, and are
>> attending to discussions of WSIS Renewal leading up to 2025.
>>      • We advocate for the Internet Way of Networking principles, which
>> are a response to top-down multilateral attempts to take over the
>> governance of the Internet.
>>      • We coordinate informally with colleagues from the technical
>> community, who are also engaged in these
>>         • We have been active in the work of the Christchurch Call, as a
>> way of illustrating that multistakeholder efforts that affect the Internet
>> can respond to government-originating issues and concerns.
>>         • We are monitoring and analyzing proposed cybercrime treaties.
>>         • We have developed targeted messages, consistent with
>> limitations on our lobbying capacity, to meet legislative proposals that
>> are attempts to control the Internet in political jurisdictions where we
>> believe we can be effective. We sometimes collaborate with other
>> organizations in an effort to make our voice stronger.
>>
>> There is current work on a plan to engage chapters interested in these
>> topics. (Elizabeth Oluoch and Christine Saegesser are leading that
>> activity.)  So, we are keen to hear what chapters have to say about issues
>> of importance to them.
>>
>> I hope this helps.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> A
>>
>> --
>> Andrew Sullivan
>> President & CEO, Internet Society
>> sullivan at isoc.org
>> +1 416 731 1261
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> _______________________________________________
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