RE: [atlarge-discuss] Latin America and Africa

[espresso@e-scape.net]

At 12:45 -0400 2002/08/09, Judith Oppenheimer wrote:
>You want woman's interests?  This woman is interested in having her child
>inherit a cyberworld free from Orwellian constraints on liberty and
>language.

Although childless, I am with you on freedom from Orwellian constraints and would merely point out that, while you and I can speak fairly freely on or off the Net, that sure isn't the case in many parts of the world; in some countries, while men are subject to Orwellian constraints, the women are even worse off given that they're economically and politically powerless to the point where Internet communications are a remote dream. 

You can't have personal liberty and freedom of speech on the 'Net without some kind of voice in the real world. In fact, isn't that the point here -- that giving some authority (whether the current ICANN Board or a neo-ICANN run by the most powerful governments) a free hand to control access and use of the Internet without being answerable to the people is a recipe for loss of freedom? Obviously, this organization can't fix the lack of democracy and freedom for the world, but I think we ignore the rest of the world at our peril.

You and I are a lot luckier than most people in the world: we have freedom of expression (within reasonable limits...at least thus far) in the real world PLUS freedom of access to worldwide communications and expression. Access to only government-approved terminals which limit access to the outside world and risking arrest and imprisonment for sending a message to somebody on the outside are the realities in some countries; others have the freedom to speak within their own villages but no access to the outside world for technical and economic reasons. And, in our own industrialized nations, a substantial portion of the population has freedom to speak but it's virtually guaranteed nobody cares what they think until they start blocking the streets.

>That means recapturing influence on internet governance.   That's why I'm
>here.

Well, "influence" is not enough for me: that's what we were supposedly given within the framework of ICANN's At Large, and look how far it gets us! I want a real, legal right to vote on matters that affect my life, and that includes the Internet. 

>(I'm not diminishing in any way others' agendas and needs.  I'm saying this
>organization deals with internet governance.  With appropriate governance,
>I would hope others' needs and agendas can more readily be facilitated via
>the net.  That is my hope.)

Am I reading this aright?  you're saying you want this organization to concentrate on the ICANN side of things -- governance in terms of the authority over the TLD system, registrars, etc. -- on the assumption that this will keep liberty and language unconstrained for Internet users? 

If so, I'm afraid I'd have to disagree. Even in the remote eventuality that we ever reached the point where all Internet users were enfranchised to elect an ICANN Board and vote on its policies, that still leaves the issue of how a woman in a fundamentalist Islamic country or any person in a country with an oppressive government could become enfranchised, let alone cast a vote or use the Internet freely. It would be a big improvement for the existing pool of Internet users, of course, but it does nothing to address the question of how citizens of the world can join that group and exercise their freedoms.

Of course, it's possible that I've misunderstood. If so, then no doubt you include under "governance" such matters as whether governments can  lawfully prevent their citizens from reading information from sources outside their own country or buying a domain name and setting up a Web site to say whatever they want to say; or whether registrars can be fined or expelled by the governance body for engaging in deceptive and anti-competitive activities, financial malfeasance, etc., and how the domains registered with them can be transferred to another registrar without incommoding their owners and users; or... 

The problem is that such things require international agreements, not just the fiat of the U.S. government's mandated ICANN, and sticking to the technical side of things is unlikely to bring such agreements about. Without wanting to stick my neck too far out politically, I will only point out that the notion that the U.S. decides how things will be and everyone else falls in line automatically simply doesn't work. Meanwhile, an Internet governance run by all the governments of the world would be far from democratic or open to real freedom of speech, and one run substantially by the governments of the developed countries would be no fairer to people in the LDCs than the other bodies run on that model. 

In short, it's all very complicated and merely setting up a *somewhat* fairer process to deal with technical structures is unlikely to engage as many people as you'd like. I know I wouldn't be willing to devote much time to a project with such limited aims, especially since I no longer believe "somewhat fairer" organizations (like ICANN!) likely to commit themselves to becoming really fair.

Regards,

Judyth

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Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
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"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once 
they have exhausted all other alternatives." (Abba Eban)
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