March 9-10, 2001
Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Center, Otway Room 2
(Editor's note: These minutes were compiled by Kimberley Heitman, chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, on behalf of the Civil Society Internet Forum meeting committee.)
Friday March 9, 2001
The meeting commenced at 4.45pm.
David Johnson gave a talk on consensus politics and the At-large membership. He noted that the gTLD contracts with registries established the principle that contractors were bound to abide by policies adopted by ICANN following a genuine consensus-building process involving the substantial agreement of those stakeholders affected by the proposed new policy. This meant that a consultative process with the At-large membership, however constituted and represented, would have legal effect and would assist ICANN in asserting stakeholder consensus in order to bind recalcitrant registries, registrars or registrants to new policy.
Wolfgang Kleinwachter spoke on new governance models, noting that the European e-commerce initiatives were being driven by dialogue between consumers and industry with Governments being consulted "if necessary". In new areas requiring regulation, whether intra- or inter-national, industry would fill the void that Government was unable or unwilling to fill, but would need the legitimacy that came from full and genuine negotiations with other stakeholders such as consumers. By analogy, the At-large membership adds credibility to ICANN's consensus-building process and reduces the need for Governments to be directly involved in negotiations towards an agreed structure for ICANN.
Stefaan Veerhurst then spoke on the NAIS project. A team is being established in each of the 5 regions to examine the At-large election process in each region. A template of standard questions and issues is being finalised during these ICANN meetings. Rob Courtney will be coordinating online feedback through the web site and listserv, and key questions will be answered in a methodical and carefully-researched manner. NAIS had a commitment to the inherent value of public participation in ICANN and would produce its study as a contrast to the "official" At-large Study Committee that has been the subject of criticism by activists.
Andrew Shen gave a report on the Interim Coordinating Committee of the Members@large. He noted it came out of the Marina Del Ray meetings of ICANN (November 2000) as a response to the ending of the members@large movement following the elections. It was very much a coordinating committee intending to address "what to do next" with a finite life span - being until the Stockholm meetings of ICANN in June 2001 or until a structure for the future progress of members@large was agreed. One interim project may be a third study into the At-large elections, or perhaps aiding the NAIS project. ICC would offer a temporary method for members@large to have dialogue with their recently-elected At-large directors. It was noted that there was some overlap with the concerns of the non-commercial constituency of the DNSO and the proposed Users Constituency/ Users Supporting Organisation.
Paul Wilson then spoke on the Address Supporting Organisation, and technical concerns as to political decisions being made in relation to technical issues. In his role as Director-General of APNIC, he and the other ASO members had technical constraints on their policies based on IP number scarcity under IPv4 and there was a concern that an unbridled At-large organisation and/or At-large Directors would make policy for the PSO or the ASO that would harm the technical operations of the Net. He was concerned that making the members@large a dominant policy group would be against best practice, though there was a place for public participation particularly in the DNSO. It was a shame in some respects that the DSNO and the ASO and PSO were being considered together, since only the first of these had a policy viewpoint that required public stakeholder representation. He acknowledged that having members@large within ICANN would aid the ASO in contentious matters in the future - such as establishing public support for reclaiming Class A licences and the vast number of unused IP ranges.
Following the meeting, a group of CSIF supporters met and determined that CSIF would seek to make a resolution: - supporting direct election of 9 At-large directors
An appropriate wording for the points in the above resolution will be settled at the CSIF meeting on Saturday the 10th, following discussion with fellow activists at the ICANN meetings and online. The meeting was otherwise adjourned to 6.30pm, Saturday 10th March.
Saturday March 10, 2001
Chairman - Professor Toshimaru Ogura (JCA Net)
The meeting commenced at 6.45pm.
The meeting commenced with a panel discussion on civil liberties online, covering such matters as privacy, encryption and wiretapping; free speech, censorship, filtering and ratings. Kimberley Heitman (EFA) spoke on these issues as being common concerns across all nations, with the promise of the Internet in danger of being damaged by commercial and regulatory interests using the open architecture of the Internet to identify individuals.
Andrew Shen (Electronic Privacy Information Center) spoke about the CIPA legislation in the USA requiring federally-funded institutions such as libraries to install compulsory software filters to censor the Net, and the furore over the FBI's "Carnivore" software which had the capacity to monitor Internet users without due process.
Chris Bailey (Association for Progressive Communications) spoke about the British situation, horrendous new legislation for wiretapping and compulsory record-keeping (RIP) and the weak ISP response to censorship demands following the Godfrey vs Demon Internet defamation case.
Nobuo Sakiyama (a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) spoke of the Japanese situation - growing concerns about censorship, use of PICS filtering and problems with the "hotline". He explained that this had contributed to a culture of "self-censorship" and Japanese ISPs routinely took down controversial content.
In audience discussion, Andrew Pam spoke of the choice of user-empowering tools such as Freesource, Publius, encryption and self-deleting emails. He made the point that Government regulation removed rights of choice and free expression. Chris Bailey added that new tools such as "Zero Knowledge" and peer-to-peer networking offered solutions to intrusive Government regulation.
The meeting then proceeded to the second panel discussion - Digital Divide and Global Civil Society. Izumi Aizu of GLOCOM reported on the G8 framework for addressing the Digital Divide - DotForce, and discussed the recent meeting in Cape Town. He reflected that, like ICANN, the present DotForce group lacked legitimacy and coverage from all nations, and important tasks (such as the action plan due to commence in April) were not yet commenced.
Edmund Katiti from Uganda discussed the telecommunications infrastructure issues in his country and the ICT taskforce which was trying to address urgent issues. Uganda has a better mobile phone network than fixed lines, and Internet access is affordable and common in urban areas. Like many African nations, the dominant pre-colonial State posts and telephones authorities had a significant hold over ISPs by being made under law the only source of wholesale bandwidth. Like all nations, there is a digital divide between the urban and rural areas, and Edmund noted that literacy is a precondition to universal use of the Net.
In discussion, Wolfgang Kleinwachter referred to several international initiatives, including the United Nations' taskforce under Kofi Annan, the proposed 2003 ITU world conference on the Information Society and problems with these processes. He warned that there was a suspicion of Governments trying to bridge the digital divide through a "top-down" approach and favoured using NGOs instead.
Myungkoo Kang of Korea then led discussion on the next steps for CSIF. A breakfast meeting for Asia-Pacific activists was scheduled for Monday the 12th March, and more work needed to be done to engage the developing nations in CSIF. It was a form of "digital divide" that non-english-speaking members of CSIF would find it difficult to participate fully on existing lists, and that outreach would be needed.
There was support in the meeting for the letter sent by Barbara Simons, Emerson Tiller and Lawrence Lessig regarding the composition and "clean slate approach" of the official At-Large Study - though Adam Peake of GLOCOM warned against CSIF assuming an adversarial position with that group.
Izumi Aizu and Adam Peake of GLOCOM announced a "Birds of a feather" meeting on Monday evening at 6.30pm to discuss the G8 DotForce activity under the title "Digital Divide or Digital Opportunity".
Professor Kang then proposed that CSIF meet again at the Stockholm ICANN meetings in June, and preliminary priorities were:
The CSIF meeting closed at 9.45pm, and will now proceed online until the Stockholm meetings of ICANN. Wolfgang Kleinwachter will be involved in helping to arrange the CSIF meetings at Stockholm, and enquiries will be made of Ms Karen Higgs as to suitable persons to coordinate CSIF activities at the Uruguay meetings of ICANN in September.