[Chapter-delegates] information about replacement fo Budapest convention in EU - What ISOC is doing

[borka at e5.ijs.si]

Hi,

Just one minor information concerning Veni mail: Budapest convention for 
cybercrime fight was 
initiated and adopted  by the Council of Europe. After the adoption many 
other countries 
(the number is now cca 40) joined and signed the convention.
In 2017 EU Commision 
has developed and adopted the new Directive definig  the European 
Investigation Order that 
replaces the Budapest convention and is now translated to the EU member 
state legislations (with exception of Ireland and Denmark). Further 
supporting documents were prepared as "Regulations" regarding the rules 
and the 
methods enabling direct  cross-border data collection in case of 
cybercrime investigation with newest defintions of the digital services 
and type of data (e.g. 
traffic and private). These documents are declaring  cooperation with USA 
and other countries on the same  subject addressed by the Budapest 
convention. However, their final 
adoption was delayed due to the COVID19 crise.

With regards,

Borka



On Tue, 6 Jul 2021, Veni Markovski via Chapter-delegates wrote:

> Hi, everyone.
> Andrew and I exchanged 2 emails in another list (I CC:ed my response to him
> in this group, as I believe it is relevant), but I thought this discussion
> is better to take place among the chapters and Andrew in this list.
> 
> ISOC Bulgaria is concerned when seeing attempts for moving the
> multistakeholder model of Internet governance to a multilateral one. We see
> it at the ITU, and we see it at the UN. Some major newspapers have written
> about it - see for example this article:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/04/russias-plot-control-int
> ernet-is-no-longer-secret/. Since it may require subscription, I am copying
> the text below.
> 
> It would be good to know: a) what ISOC is doing with regards to this issue,
> b) what chapters see in their respected countries, and c) how chapters could
> help ISOC, assuming that it is doing something.
> 
> best,
> v/
> 
> Russia’s plot to control the Internet is no longer a secret
> by David Ignatius
> 
> Russia’s campaign to control the Internet isn’t just a secret intelligence
> gambit any longer. It’s an explicit goal, proclaimed by Russian President
> Vladimir Putin as a key element of the Kremlin’s foreign policy.
> 
> Putin complained during his annual address to the Russian federal assembly
> on April 21 that the United States and other western countries are
> “stubbornly rejecting Russia’s numerous proposals to establish an
> international dialogue on information and cybersecurity. We have come up
> with these proposals many times. They avoid even discussing this matter.”
> 
> Asking for “international dialogue” takes some nerve, coming from the
> world’s biggest cyberbully — a country that notoriously meddled in the 2016,
> 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections, and has engaged in similar Internet mischief
> throughout the world. Controlling the “information space,” as the Russians
> sometimes call it, has long been an intelligence priority for Moscow.
> 
> Russia is waging its cyberdiplomacy offensive on two fronts: First, the
> United Nations has embraced Russia’s proposal to write a new treaty
> governing cybercrime, to replace the 2001 Budapest convention that Moscow
> rejected because it was too intrusive. And second, Russia is lobbying for
> its candidate to head the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union
> (ITU) and use it to supplant the current private group, known as ICANN, that
> coordinates Internet addresses.
> 
> These international regulatory battles sound obscure, but they will help
> determine who writes the rules for Internet communications for the rest of
> the 21st century. The fundamental question is whether the governance process
> will benefit authoritarian states that want to control information or the
> advocates of openness and freedom.
> 
> Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed on Tuesday the importance of this
> contest. “There are relatively few items that are ultimately going to have a
> greater impact on the lives of people around the world than the ITU post. It
> may seem dry and esoteric, but it’s anything but. And so we’re very, very
> actively engaged on this front,” Blinken said in an email message,
> elaborating on comments he made to me during an April 7 interview.
> 
> Russia outlined its ITU game plan in unusually forthright comments by Ernst
> Chernukhin, the foreign ministry’s special coordinator for political use of
> information and communications technology. He spoke on April 21, the same
> day Putin made his speech.
> 
> “The optimal option . . . would be transferring Internet management
> prerogatives specifically to the ITU, as it is a specialized U.N. body,
> which has the needed expertise on these issues,” Chernukhin said. “This
> strategic objective may be achieved by electing or promoting the Russian
> candidate to the position of the ITU Secretary-General in the 2022 elections
> . . . and by holding the 2025 anniversary U.N. Internet Governance Forum in
> Russia.”
> 
> Russia’s candidate for ITU secretary-general is Rashid Ismailov, a former
> deputy chief of the Russian communications ministry and a former executive
> at the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei. In announcing Ismailov’s
> candidacy on April 7, Maxim Parshin, the current deputy minister, underlined
> Moscow’s governance takeover plan: “We believe it is important to define an
> entity, within the U.N. framework, that would develop and implement legal
> norms and standards in the field of Internet governance. We think that the
> ITU could become such an entity.”
> 
> The Biden administration’s candidate for the ITU post is Doreen
> Bogdan-Martin, an American telecommunications expert who’s currently
> director of the ITU’s development bureau. The State Department, which has
> sometimes been lackadaisical in such international regulatory contests,
> is campaigning aggressively for Bogdan-Martin, and officials hope she’ll
> have sufficient support in Africa, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere to
> win the post. The election will take place at an ITU gathering late next
> year in Romania.
> 
> Internet technical governance today is managed by ICANN, which stands for
> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This gathering of
> engineers and other experts was founded in 1998 to supervise domain names
> for the Defense Department’s ARPANET system, and it operated under a
> contract with the Commerce Department until 2016, when it went fully
> private.
> 
> The American roots of the Internet seem to both upset Putin and fuel
> conspiratorial talk. The Russian leader said during a 2014
> interview translated by RT that the Internet “first appeared as a special
> CIA project . . . and the special services are still at the center of
> things.” Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, complained in a
> February interview: “The Internet emerged at a certain time, and undoubtedly
> the key rights to control are in the United States.”
> 
> Russia is ready to rumble over the rules that will shape the future of
> Internet communications. Fortunately, the Biden administration seems
> determined to fight back hard to maintain fair and open rules.
> 
>  
> 
> -- 
> 
> Best regards, 
> Veni
> https://www.veni.com
> pgp:5BA1366E veni at veni.com
> 
> The opinions expressed above are those of the 
> author, not of any organizations, associated 
> with or related to him in any given way. 
> 
>