[Media Caucus] Internet Governance

[KM Shrivastava]

Hi, 
This is just to check if this email still works.
Let me have all the news about you.
K.M.Shrivastava
Professor
Indian Institute of Mass Communication 
New Delhi-110067

--- Ronald Koven <rkoven at compuserve.com> wrote:

> 
> RE: Internet Governance
> 
> WPFC Position Paper
> 
> INTERNET GOVERNANCE: DEFEND FREE FLOW OF
> INFORMATION
> 
> It is becoming increasingly clear that
> so-called  governance,  management
> and administration of the Internet will be the
> central issue in
> preparations
> for the second World Summit on the Information
> Society. UN Secretary
> General
> Kofi Annan was mandated to direct a study
> incorporating the views of
> diverse
> interests to be produced in time for WSIS II,
> scheduled for Tunis, Tunisia,
> in November 2005.
> 
> Civil society caucuses are already exchanging
> message traffic on how to
> determine their positions. Many of those groups
> have histories of favoring
> content controls.  Any proposals that threaten
> press freedom on the
> Internet, whatever the source, should be
> rejected.
> 
> It was clear at WSIS I that there was a general
> feeling among
> member-states,
> including US allies in the European Union, that
>  Internet governance 
> should
> not be the exclusive preserve of ICANN, the
> Internet Corporation for
> Assigned Names and Numbers, a California-based
> company under contract to
> the
> US Commerce Dept.
> 
> ICANN has allocated Internet domain names on a
> neutral, technical basis. It
> has included industry, NGOs and international
> representation in its
> governing board and committees.
> 
> Governments which want to turn responsibility
> over to an international
> body,
> presumably in the UN system, want to go beyond
> technical matters to deal
> with content questions, like pornography,
> pedophilia, fraud, hate speech,
> etc., in a way that ICANN has refrained from
> doing. The Council of Europe s
> Cybercrime Convention points the way
> governments seem to be headed. The
> United States signed that Convention, but it
> has a separate protocol on
> hate
> speech that was designed to give the United
> States the option not to sign
> onto an element that would clearly violate the
> US Constitution s First
> Amendment.
> 
> Under the US-accepted compromise of a two-year
> UN study to submit
> recommendations to WSIS II, a process has begun
> that will probably produce
> a
> UN proposal for modifications of the Internet
> governance system.
> 
> A role for ICANN should be preserved as part of
> any new system that may
> emerge under UN auspices. Supporters of a free
> and open Internet should be
> able, with the backing of allies like the UN
> Department of Information and
> Communications and the UNESCO Secretariat, to
> resist any changes that
> threaten the free flow of information and ideas
> on the Internet.
> 
>  Governance  must not be allowed to become a
> code word for government
> regulation of Internet content. The
> intergovernmental debates over two
> years
> 
> of preparations for WSIS I amply demonstrated
> that authoritarian
> governments, which already censor their own
> Internet traffic,
> 
> seek content controls internationally and/or
> legitimization of such
> controls
> nationally. The system must not be reorganized
> to permit this on an
> international level or encourage it at the
> national level.
> 
> In fact, the Internet s growth, popularity and
> integrity are based on its
> content not being regulated by governments or
> international organizations.
> 
> Bearing in mind that the Declaration adopted
> December 12, 2003, at the
> World
> Summit in Geneva provided that  freedom of the
> press and freedom of
> information are essential to the Information
> Society,  the following
> principles should guide any changes in the
> Internet governance system:
> 
> 1. There should be no controls over content,
> nor modifications of the
> Internet s technical  architecture  that
> facilitate or permit censorship of
> news or editorial opinion. Nor should 
> self-regulation  be allowed to
> become
> a surrogate for governmental regulation of
> content on the Internet.
> 
> 2. The system should explicitly commit itself
> to respect and to implement
> Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
> Human Rights, and to the
> fundamental principle of press freedom.
> National or international security
> concerns must not be allowed to limit freedom
> of expression, including news
> and editorial comment, in cyberspace.
> 
> 3. Considerations of  ethics  should not be
> allowed to become a veiled
> approach to introducing or allowing censorship.
> 
> 4. There are many forms of communication over
> the Internet, and it is
> important not to confuse them. News, for
> example, is different from such
> things as pornography, pedophilia, fraud,
> conspiracy for terrorism,
> incitement to violence, hate speech, etc.,
> although there may be news
> stories about such problems. Such matters are
> normally covered in existing
> national general legislation and should, if
> appropriate and necessary, be
> prosecuted on the national level in the country
> of origin.
> 
> 5. Any legal actions that may arise should be
> adjudicated in the
> jurisdiction where a disputed message first
> originated, or in a single
> jurisdiction agreed upon by the parties to any
> given dispute.
> 
> The Internet is a major opportunity to improve
> exchanges of information and
> ideas throughout the world. Nothing should be
> allowed to restrict this
> powerful new medium for better communications
> among people. #
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------- End Forwarded Message
> --------------------
> 
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