[WSIS CS-Plenary] Summary of Public Voice conference call on March 22, 2004
Frannie Wellings
wellings at epic.org
Wed Mar 24 17:27:26 GMT 2004
Summary of Public Voice Conference Call
March 22, 2004
On the call:
Deborah Hurley, Frannie Wellings (EPIC), Robert Latham (SSRC), Marc
Rotenberg (EPIC), Hans Klein (CPSR), Robert Guerra (Privaterra),
Sasha-Costanza Chock (Free Press), Nick Moraitis (Youth Creating
Digital Opportunities Coalition), Veni Markovski (ICANN), Chris Chiu
(ACLU), Milton Mueller (Syracuse University)
I. Brief Updates:
A. The first WSIS Prep meeting will probably be held the first week
in July, though we still don't know if it will take place in Geneva
or Tunisia.
B. An intergovernmental meeting just took place on Friday in Geneva.
C. Frannie met with Dick Beaird from the US Dept of State about US
Govt interaction with civil society.
They discussed ways civil society could be involved in official
meetings and explained that other governments were including and even
funding their civil society representatives. Funding appears unlikely.
He still hadn't read the civil society WSIS declaration she'd given
him, but was interested in civil society's involvement in the
process. Frannie will be sending him ideas for future interactions
and asked everyone on the call for any input. For ex: Is it possible
that civil society representatives be included on their delegation?
Robert mentioned Canada's involvement of civil society, as well as
Denmark's and Germany's. Frannie will talk with Rikke about
Denmark's situation and Robert forwarded information about Canada's.
Everyone discussed the possibility of a non-disclosure agreement, but
thought it unlikely.
It was noted that there was precedent for the State Department to
include NGO representatives both in the inter-agency meetings, which
are held in preparation for meetings of international organizations,
and in the U.S. national delegations, including specifically on
information and communication policy matters.
It was agreed that Frannie/EPIC would obtain agreement to include
NGO representatives in inter-agency meetings and on the national
delegation going forward.
II. UN ICT Task Force meeting:
A. General Discussion
About the ICT TF:
This is the 6th meeting of this UN ICT Task Force and they've
framed it to discuss the WSIS, but are not necessarily doing so.
No one knows the TF plans after this. However, it is possible that
this Task Force is positioning itself to be the Secretariat of the
Internet Governance Working Group.
Openness:
There is little to no transparency in the planning of this "open
forum" which is also invitation only; several people who have
requested invitations have been turned down.
A number of people are currently working to get invitations for
those who were either turned down or left to wonder.
For those who are not attending the UN meeting, but are interested,
there is information below about updates.
Civil Society Positions:
There has been little discussion of actual issues and positions.
Is there a preference for ICANN versus a UN body regarding internet
governance, for example? A suggested civil society position is that
ICANN isn't satisfactory, but a UN body isn't necessarily good either.
We discussed getting three main messages and for Anriette to take
to the Members-Only meeting on Saturday. We can try to work out
these messages at the Public Voice meeting at the Ford Foundation.
Agenda:
The agenda focuses mainly on regulatory issues and there's a need
to discuss institutional design.
Civil society should intervene as much as possible - there's no
mention of universal access, for example, on the agenda. Considering
measurements, there's more emphasis on efficiency than on human
centered measures.
Attendance
We need to know look at which governmental representatives are
attending, think about who we should be talking to, and work on
developing relationships.
The list of attendees is up online now at
http://www.unicttf.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1296
It was suggested that those from Canada, the French Foreign
Ministry, and Sweden and Chris Wilkinson from the European Commission
would be receptive to our comments.
Meeting conflicts:
There are unfortunately conflicting meetings: the UN internet
governance working group meeting and Public Voice meeting, both on
Friday at 2pm.
The UN meeting will be useful for a some knowledgeable civil
society representatives to present a position in front of UN and
governmental representatives. The Public Voice meeting at Ford will
be useful to meet and discuss positions with one another, to discuss
the forum, to make ground on issues such as funding and networking,
and to think about the future of this process and the broadening CS
community.
Online Forum
There will be a report presented on the online Forum so we should
participate as much as possible.
http://www.wsis-online.net/igov-forum/root/
B. Needs/Actions
to discuss the issues more concretely.
to think about 3 specific goals of this UN ICT Task Force Forum.
to attempt to affect the scheduled discussions as much as
possible, i.e. discuss universal access or human conditions where
such discussion is lacking.
to participate in the wsis_online.net forum:
http://www.wsis-online.net/igov-forum/root/
to end Frannie any ideas for requests for involvement with the US Government.
to create a roadmap for civil society participation
C. Upcoming meetings:
3/26 in New York at 2pm at Ford Foundation/Dinner at 6:30
CFP Conference April 20-23
EPIC Conference May 20-22
List of events that may be useful for networking at
http://www.thepublicvoice.org/events/2004_csonetwork.html
Coverage of the UN ICT meeting:
1) Updates will be posted at http://www.worldsummit2005.org/ and
http://wsis-online.net
2) Participants can submit news to
http://wsis-online.net/csnews/news/item-create (explanation below)
From an e-mail by Rik Panganiban discussing online coverage of the UN
ICT meetingŠ
"wsis-online.net will be available to receive your news and updates
on its Civil Society News Centre. I will post my own reports and
news that I find out about as frequently as I can. You are also
encouraged to submit news directly to the site at this link:
http://wsis-online.net/csnews/news/item-create
Or if you send it to me at rikp at earthlink.net, I will post them when I can.
I am sure other sites will post their own news and reports from New
York as well. If people want to volunteer to monitor particular
sessions, I am happy to help coordinate. The most important ones
will probably be the five break-out sessions. So at least five
volunteers for these would be most helpful."
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Frannie Wellings
Policy Fellow, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Coordinator, The Public Voice
1718 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 200
Washington, D.C. 20009 USA
wellings at epic.org
+1 202 483 1140 extension 107 (telephone)
+1 202 483 1248 (fax)
http://www.epic.org
http://www.thepublicvoice.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the Plenary
mailing list