Centre for Internet and Society

Department of Telecommunications Order u/s. 69A IT Act Blocking 32 URLS (2014-12-17, compressed version)

pranesh — 2014-12-31T14:48:24Z

On December 17, 2014, the Dept. of Telecommunications blocked 32 URLs (as it was ordered to do so by the by Dept. of Electronics & IT — specifically the Designated Officer under section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and under the Information Technology (Procedures and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009), those being: 01) https://justpaste.it/ 02) http://hastebin.com 03) http://codepad.org 04) http://pastie.org 05) https://pasteeorg 06) http://paste2.org 07) http://slexy.org 08) http://paste4btc.com/ 09) http://0bin.net 10) http://www.heypasteit.com 11) http://sourceforge.net/projects/phorkie 12) http://atnsoft.com/textpaster 13) https://archive.org 14) http://www.hpage.com 15) http://www.ipage.com/ 16) http://www.webs.com/ 17) http://www.weebly.com/ 18) http://www.000webhost.com/ 19) https://www.freehosting.com 20) https://vimeo.com/ 21) http://www.dailymotion.com/ 22) http://pastebin.com 23) https://gist.github.com 24) http://www.ipaste.eu 25) https://thesnippetapp.com 26) https://snipt.net 27) http://tny.ct (Tinypaste) 28) https://github.com (gist-it) 29) http://snipplr.com/ 30) http://termbin.com 31) http://www.snippetsource.net 32) https://cryptbin.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/2014-12-17_DoT-32-URL-Block-Order_compressed.pdf

Department of Telecommunications Order u/s. 69A IT Act Blocking 32 URLS

pranesh — 2014-12-31T14:36:01Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/2014-12-17_DoT-32-URL-Block-Order.pdf

Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act

pranesh — 2014-12-19T09:01:50Z

There are currently ten cases before the Supreme Court challenging various provisions of the Information Technology Act, the rules made under that, and other laws, that are being heard jointly. Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan who's arguing Anoop M.K. v. Union of India has put together this chart that helps you track what's being challenged in each case.

PENDING MATTERS	CASE NUMBER	PROVISIONS CHALLENGED
Shreya Singhal v. Union of India	W.P.(CRL.) NO. 167/2012	66A
Common Cause & Anr. v. Union of India	W.P.(C) NO. 21/2013	66A, 69A & 80
Rajeev Chandrasekhar v. Union of India & Anr.	W.P.(C) NO. 23/2013	66A & Rules 3(2), 3(3), 3(4) & 3(7) of the Intermediaries Rules 2011
Dilip Kumar Tulsidas Shah v. Union of India & Anr.	W.P.(C) NO. 97/2013	66A
Peoples Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India & Ors.	W.P.(CRL.) NO. 199/2013	66A, 69A, Intermediaries Rules 2011 (s.79(2) Rules) & Blocking of Access of Information by Public Rules 2009 (s.69A Rules)
Mouthshut.Com (India) Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors.	W.P.(C) NO. 217/2013	66A & Intermediaries Rules 2011
Taslima Nasrin v. State of U.P & Ors.	W.P.(CRL.) NO. 222/2013	66A
Manoj Oswal v. Union of India & Anr.	W.P.(CRL.) NO. 225/2013	66A & 499/500 Indian Penal Code
Internet and Mobile Ass'n of India & Anr. v. Union of India & Anr.	W.P.(C) NO. 758/2014	79(3) & Intermediaries Rules 2011
Anoop M.K. v. Union of India & Ors.	W.P.(CRL.) NO. 196/2014	66A, 69A, 80 & S.118(d) of the Kerala Police Act, 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/overview-constitutional-challenges-on-itact

The Socratic debate: Whose internet is it anyway?

pranesh — 2014-12-09T13:35:45Z

In the US, President Obama recently spoke out on the seemingly arcane topic of net neutrality. What is more astounding is that the popular satire news show host John Oliver spent a 13-minute segment talking about it in June, telling Internet trolls to “focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction” by visiting the US Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) website and submitting comments on its weak draft proposal on net neutrality.

The article was published in the Economic Times on November 18, 2014.

Due to the work of activists, popular media coverage, pro-net neutrality technology companies, and John Oliver, eventually the FCC received 1.1 million responses. Text analysis by the Sunlight Foundation using natural language processing found that only 1% of the responses were clearly opposed to net neutrality. So millions of people in the US are both aware and care about this issue. But the general response in India would be: what is net neutrality and why should I be concerned?

Net neutrality is commonly described as the principle of ensuring that there is no discrimination between the different ‘packets’ that an Internet service provider (ISP) carries. That means that the traffic from NDTV should be treated equally by Reliance Infocomm as the traffic from Network 18’s CNNIBN; that even if Facebook wants to pay Airtel to deliver Whatsapp’s packets faster than Viber’s, Airtel may not do so; that peer-to-peer traffic is not throttled; that Facebook will not be able to pay Airtel to keep its subscribers bound within its walled gardens; and also that Airtel can’t claim to be providing Internet access while restricting that to only Facebook or Whatsapp.

The counter to this by telecom companies the world over, which has little evidence backing it, is primarily two-fold: first, one of equity — that it is ‘unfair’ for the likes of YouTube to get a ‘free ride’ on Airtel networks, hogging up bandwidth but not paying them; and second, that of economic incentives — networks are bleeding money due to services like WhatsApp and Skype replacing SMS and voice, and not being able to charge them will lead to a decrease in profitability and network expansion. The first claim is based on a myth of the ‘free ride’, while the reality is that subscribers who download more also pay the ISP more, while contentemitting companies also have to pay their network providers as per the traffic they generate, and those network providers, in turn, have to enter into ‘transit’ or ‘peering’ agreements with the ISPs that eventually provide access to consumers. The second claim has little evidence to back it up. Efficient competition is the best driver of both profit as well as network expansion. VSNL complained about services like Net2Phone in the 1990s and even filtered all voice-over-IP (VoIP) traffic — and illegally blocked a number of VoIP websites — to preserve its monopoly over international telephony. Instead, removing VSNL’s monopoly only benefited our nation. As for network expansion, it is inability of networks to profit from sparsely populated rural areas that poses a major roadblock. Fixing those problems require smart pricing by telecom companies and intelligent regulation, including exploring policy options like shared spectrum, but they do not necessarily require the abandoning of net neutrality.

However, the fact that the reasons telecom companies often provide against net neutrality are bogus doesn’t mean that it’s easy to ensure net neutrality. The Trai has been exploring this issue by holding a seminar on OTT services. However, the main focus of the discussions were not whether and how India should ensure net neutrality: it was on whether the government should regulate services like WhatsApp and bring them under the licence Raj. Yes, the debate going around in the regulatory circles is whether India should implement rules to ensure net non-neutrality so as favour telecom companies! Net neutrality is a difficult issue in regulatory terms since there is no common understanding among academics and activists of what all should fall under its ambit: only the ‘last mile’ or interconnection as well?

The policy dialogue in India is far removed from this and from considering the nuanced positions of anti-net neutrality scholars, such as Christopher Yoo, who raise concerns about the harms to innovation and the free market that would be caused by mandating net neutrality. The situation in India is much more dire, since blatant violations of net neutrality — howsoever defined — are already happening with Airtel launching its ‘One Touch Internet’, a limited walled garden approach that lies about offering access to the ‘Internet’ while only offering access to a few services based on secretive agreements with other companies. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, recently toured India talking about his grand vision of providing connectivity to the bottom half of the pyramid yet did not talk about how that connectivity would not be to the Internet, but will be limited to only a few services — including Facebook.

Even if we had good laws in favour of net neutrality, without effective monitoring and forceful action by the government, they will amount to little. s. Undoubtedly the contours of the conversation that needs to happen in India over net neutrality will be different from that happening in more developed countries with higher levels of Internet penetration.

However it is a cause of grave concern that while net neutrality is being brutally battered by telecom companies in the absence of any regulation, they are also seeking to legitimize their battery through regulation. It is time the direction of the conversation changed. Perhaps we should invite John Oliver over.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-november-18-2014-pranesh-prakash-the-socratic-debate-whos-internet-is-it-anyway

NETmundial Transcript Archive

pranesh — 2014-04-23T14:31:50Z

We are archiving the live transcript from the NETmundial meeting (April 23-24, 2014).

NETmundial Day 1

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>***LIVE SCRIBING BY BREWER & DARRENOUGUE - WWW.QUICKTEXT.COM***
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>>> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GOOD MORNING. IN SOME MINUTES WE WILL HAVE OUR OPENING SESSION OF OUR GLOBAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONES OR TURN THEM INTO VIBRATING. PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEATS. OR SHUT IT OFF. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
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>>> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEATS AND PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONES OR SET THEM INTO SILENT MODE. IN SOME MINUTES, WE ARE GOING TO START OUR OPENING CEREMONY OF OUR GLOBAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER MEETING ON THE FUTURE GOVERNANCE OF THE INTERNET.
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>>> PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEATS AND TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONES OR SET THEM INTO SILENT MODE. IN A FEW MINUTES, WE WILL START OUR OPENING CEREMONY OF THE GLOBAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE.
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>>> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IN SOME MINUTES WE WILL START OFF THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE GLOBAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE.
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>[MUSIC ] >> THIS IS MY INTERNET.
>>> THIS IS MY INTERNET.
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>>> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL, HER EXCELLENCY DILMA ROUSSEFF. THE CHAIRMAN OF NETmundial, VIRGILIO ALMEIDA, AND THE MIKE RODENBAUGH OF SAO PAULO, THE COO OF ICANN, FADI CHEHADE, AND THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE TECHNICAL SECTOR AND CREATOR OF THE WEB, TIM BERNERS-LEE. REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PRIVATE SECRETARY AND VICE PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE, VINT CERF, AND THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE -- OF CIVIL SOCIETY, COFOUNDER, NNENNA NWAKANMA.
>[APPLAUSE ] >> WE ARE STARTING OFF THIS EFFORT AND WE ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF BRAZIL.
>[ PLAYING OF NATIONAL ANTHEM. ] [APPLAUSE ] >> WE ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO THE WORDS OF THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, PAULO BERNARDO.
>>>PAULO BERNARDO SILVA: GOOD MORNING, HER EXCELLENCY DILMA ROUSSEFF, MEMBERS HERE AND PARTICIPANTS OF THIS MEETING.
>LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO BRAZIL AND TO NETmundial. WE ARE VERY PROUD AND FEEL VERY RESPONSIBLE FOR RECEIVING YOU IN SAO PAULO.
>ALL OF YOU WHO CARE ABOUT INTERNET IN THE FUTURE HAVE REASONS FOR BEING PLEASED WITH WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO TODAY.
>THIS MEETING IS THE CONCRETIZATION OF ALL OUR WISHES. WE NEEDED AN ADEQUATE ENVIRONMENT FOR THIS TO BE VOICED. WE BELIEVE THAT NETmundial IS THIS ENVIRONMENT WE NEED. FREE PARTICIPANTIVE AND PLURAL, AS WELL AS THE INTERNET WE BELIEVE IN.
>AND THIS IS SO BECAUSE THE CONCERN THAT GETS US TOGETHER IS GREATER THAN THE CONCERNS OF EACH PARTY. WE ARE DISCUSSING THIS INTERNET AROUND THIS TABLE OR OTHERWISE WE WILL HAVE NO FUTURE FOR THE INTERNET FROM THE VERY FIRST MOMENT, THE DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS GOT INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS EVENT AND THE PROOF OF THIS ENVIRONMENT IS HERE IN THE GREAT DIVERSITY OF CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED.
>WE ALSO HAVE HERE MANY AUTHORITIES AND PARTICIPANTS. WE'D LIKE TO THANK EACH ONE OF YOU AND CONGRATULATE EACH ONE OF YOU FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. WE'RE ALL PROTAGONISTS OF AN HISTORICAL MOMENT AND TODAY WHAT WE HAVE BEFORE US IS A CHALLENGE TO MAKE THE MOST FOR ALL THE DIFFERENT OPINIONS IN FAVOR OF A UNIQUE PATH.
>THIS PATH HAS A VERY STRAIGHT SENSE OF ORIENTATION, A FREE AND UNFRAGMENTED INTERNET. THAT'S THE BEST WE CAN HAVE, THE CAPACITY TO CONNECT, TO MOBILIZE, TO INNOVATE, TO CREATE RICHNESS OF CULTURE OR WHATEVER, AND RESPECT THE LINKS. SO INTERNET BEING RULED BY MORE PEOPLE COULD REACH MORE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
>SO I WISH THAT WHEN WE LEAVE SAO PAULO, WE CAN 81BRATE A NEW AND PROMISSORY BEGINNING. THIS IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY HERE, AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH. AND HAVE A GOOD MEETING. THANK YOU.
>[APPLAUSE ] >> NOW, MR. HONKING, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS FOR BUSINESS MATTERS WILL DELIVER HIS MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY-GENERAL, BAN KI-MOON.
>>>WU HONGBO: YOUR EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT ROUSSEFF, DISTINGUISHED MINISTERS, EXCELLENCIES, DISTINGUISHED DELEGATES, COLLEAGUES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
>I'M HONORED TO BE HERE WITH YOU FOR THIS IMPORTANT EVENT. IT IS MY GREAT PLEASURE TO DELIVER A MESSAGE ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL, MR. BAN KI-MOON.
>HERE I QUOTE: I THANK THE GOVERNMENT OF BRAZIL FOR HOSTING THE NETmundial MEETING, AND I COMMEND THIS GLOBAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER NATURE. ONLY THROUGH INCLUSIVE AND BOTTOM-UP PARTICIPATION WE BE ABLE TO FOSTER AN ACCESSIBLE, OPEN, SECURE, AND TRUSTWORTHY INTERNET.
>THE INTERNET IS TRANSFORMING SOCIETIES IN ALL REGIONS. IT IS THE BACKBONE OF OUR GLOBAL ECONOMY AND AN ESSENTIAL VEHICLE FOR DISSEMINATING INFORMATION AND IDEAS.
>ONE-THIRD OF THE PEOPLE NOW HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET AND THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE TOOLS IT PROVIDES. INCREASING NUMBER OF PEOPLE NOW HAVE A PLATFORM TO VOICE THEIR OPINIONS AND PARTICIPATE IN SOCIETY FROM COMMERCE TO DEMOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING. THAT IS WHY IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT INTERNET GOVERNANCE POLICIES CONTINUE TO FOSTER FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION.
>THE INTERNET AND THE INFORMATION SOCIETY HOLD TREMENDOUS PROMISE FOR THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA.
>THE INTERNET CAN STRENGTHEN EFFORTS TO ERADICATE POVERTY, ADDRESS INEQUALITY, AND PROTECT AND RENEW THE PLANET'S RESOURCES.
>BUT REALIZING THE PROMISE MEANS EXPANDING INTERNET ACCESS TO NEARLY 1.3 BILLION PEOPLE WHO CURRENTLY LACK IT.
>MOST ARE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT GENDER GAPS.
>INTERNET GOVERNANCE MUST, THEREFORE, WORK TO BRIDGE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE THROUGH INCLUSIVE RIGHTS-BASED POLICIES.
>INTERNET GOVERNANCE SHOULD AIM FOR UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO AN INTEROPERABLE, GLOBALLY CONNECTED, AND SAFE ONLINE SPACE.
>TO THIS END, THE PRINCIPLES OF THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY REMAIN RELEVANT.
>THE UNITED NATIONS INVITES ALL STAKEHOLDERS TO JOIN IN THE ONGOING SUMMIT REVIEW PROCESS.
>CONFIDENCE IN THE INTERNET AND ITS GOVERNANCE IS VITAL. IF IT IS TO BE EFFECTIVELY CONTRIBUTING TO THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
>IN THIS CONNECTION, I WISH TO INFORM THE MEETING I INTEND TO APPOINT AMBASSADOR JANIS KARKLINS OF LATVIA AS THE CHAIR OF THE MULTISTAKEHOLDER ADVISORY GROUP OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM.
>[APPLAUSE ] >>WU HONGBO: I COUNT ON MR. KARKLINS TO PROMOTE A STRENGTHENED INTERNET GOVERNANCE THROUGH BROADER PARTICIPATION, NOT ONLY BY GOVERNMENTS BUT ALSO THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND CIVIL SOCIETY, INCLUDING THE ACADEMIC AND THE TECHNICAL COMMUNITIES.
>BUILDING CONSENSUS ON THE ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE IS CRUCIAL. THIS NETmundial IS AN IMPORTANT MILESTONE. I WISH YOU A PRODUCTIVE MEETING. UNQUOTE.
>THANK YOU VERY MUCH ON BEHALF OF UNITED NATIONS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS, UNDESA. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK BRAZIL AND THE BRAZILIAN INTERNET STEERING COMMITTEE FOR NOT ONLY HOSTING THIS IMPORTANT MEETING, BUT ALSO FOR BEING CONSISTENT SUPPORTERS OF INTERNET GOVERNMENT FORUM. THE IGF COMMUNITY LOOKS FORWARD TO RUNNING TO BRAZIL FOR THE SECOND TIME FOR THE 10TH IGF IN 2015.
>THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
>[APPLAUSE ] >> NOW, WE ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO MS. NNENNA NWAKANMA, A REPRESENTATIVE OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND CONTRIBUTOR OF THE OPEN SOURCE FOUNDATION OF AFRICA.
>[APPLAUSE ] >>NNENNA NWAKANMA: OOH-LA-LA. YOUR EXCELLENCIES, COLLEAGUES, PRESENT AND REMOTE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, (NON-ENGLISH WORD OR PHRASE). MY NAME IS I COME FROM THE INTERNET. I ALSO COME FROM DIVERSE CIVIL SOCIETY TEAMS AND NETWORKS, ONE OF WHICH IS THE TEAM THAT WORKS WITH THE WORLD WIDE WEB FOUNDATION.
>AT THE WEB FOUNDATION, WE ARE ENGAGED IN THE ALLIANCE FOR AFFORDABLE INTERNET. WE'RE ENGAGED IN THE WEB INDEX AND OPEN DATA INITIATIVES. ONE THING I DO FOR A LIVING IS TO ESTABLISH THE OPEN WEB AS A GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD AND A BASIC RIGHT, ENSURING THAT EVERYONE CAN ACCESS AND USE IT FREELY. THAT'S WHAT I DO.
>I ALSO BELONG TO THE (INDISCERNIBLE) CIVIL SOCIETY PLATFORM, THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE CAUCUS FOR THE PAST 12 YEARS, AND THE AFRICA INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM.
>SO FOR ME, NETmundial, IN CONVENING US TO TAKE A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE PRINCIPLES AND ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE AVAILS ME WITH AN OPPORTUNITY TO RAISE THREE KEY ISSUES.
>THE FIRST ISSUE IS ACCESS.
>AS MUCH AS TWO-THIRDS OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION IS NOT YET CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. THE PENETRATION RATES IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AVERAGE AROUND 31%, BUT IN AFRICA WHERE I COME FROM, WE ARE ABOUT 16%.
>IN THE WORLD'S 49 LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, OVER 90% OF THE POPULATION ARE STILL NOT ONLINE.
>WE HAVE 1 BILLION PEOPLE LIVING WITH DISABILITY, AND 80% OF THESE LIVE IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. EACH ONE OF THESE DESERVE ACCESS.
>ACCESS TO INFORMATION, ACCESS TO LIBRARIES, ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE, AND ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE INTERNET.
>MY SECOND ISSUE IS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE.
>THE INTERNET IS FAST BECOMING THE DOMINANT MEANS OF WEALTH CREATION, SO THE RIGHTS TO DEVELOPMENT, I THINK, SHOULD INCLUDE SOCIAL JUSTICE.
>FOR ME, IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO DO A SUPERFICIAL CAPACITY-BUILDING JUST FOR A FEW PERSONS. I'M LOOKING FOR THE MECHANISM THAT ALLOWS THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF PERSONS TO BE INCLUDED, THE LARGEST NUMBER OF VOICES TO BE HEARD, THE WIDEST EXTENT OF ACCESS TO INNOVATION, AND THE DEEPEST CREATIVITY FOR THE HUMAN MIND TO FLOURISH.
>FOR THIS, I THINK WE NEED TO START CONSIDERING THE INTERNET AS PUBLIC COMMENTS.
>MY THIRD ISSUE IS HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOM.
>NOW I WILL INVITE YOU TO LISTEN THROUGH MY VOICE TO SOMEONE THAT I GREATLY RESPECT.
>THIS PERSON IS A "SHE." SHE WAS SPEAKING AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN NEW YORK ON THE 25TH OF SEPTEMBER RAFT YEAR. DO YOU WANT TO HEAR WHAT SHE SAID?
>>> YES!
>>>NNENNA NWAKANMA: SHE SAID, "I CANNOT BUT DEFEND IN AN UNCOMPROMISING FASHION THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY OF INDIVIDUALS. IN THE ABSENCE OF THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY, THERE CAN BE NO TRUE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND OPINION AND THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE DEMOCRACY." AND THAT WAS DILMA ROUSSEFF.
>[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ] >>NNENNA NWAKANMA: OKAY. THANK YOU. RIGHT. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IN LOOKING FORWARD TOWARDS THE ROADMAP, I ALSO NEED TO RAISE THREE KEY ISSUES.
>MY FIRST ISSUE IS PARTICIPATION. WHEN WE STARTED, WE KICKED OFF WITH THE BASIC UNDERSTANDING THAT ALL STAKEHOLDERS HAVE A PLACE, A ROLE, A CONTRIBUTION.
>BUT AS WE'VE MOVED FURTHER DOWN THE LINE, THE IDEA OF MULTISTAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT IS GETTING MUDDLED AND IT'S LOSING A BIT OF ITS MEANING, SO I WOULD REQUEST THAT WE GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD AND WE REVISIT IT, AND IF IT NEEDS TO UPGRADE, PLEASE LET'S DO THAT.
>BECAUSE WE NEED TO ENGAGE ALL STAKEHOLDERS AT A GLOBAL, REGIONAL, AND NATIONAL LEVELS.
>WE NEED TO ESTABLISH RESPECT AND VALUE FOR ALL CONTRIBUTIONS COMING FROM ALL STAKEHOLDERS, AND WE NEED MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION FROM INDIVIDUALS COMING FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS.
>MY SECOND ISSUE IS RESOURCES.
>HOW DO WE ENSURE THAT RESOURCES ARE MOBILIZED AND MAINTAINED FOR A VIABLE INTERNET GOVERNANCE MECHANISM?
>THE QUESTION IS NOT JUST AT THE GLOBAL LEVEL. IT'S AT CONTINENTAL, REGIONAL, AND EVEN NATIONAL LEVELS.
>WHO'S RESOURCES ARE WE GOING TO COMMIT?
>MY FIRST THOUGHT IS THAT THE INTERNET SHOULD BE ABLE TO PROVIDE RESOURCES FOR ITS OWN GOVERNANCE. MAYBE PART OF THE DOMAIN NAME FEES SHOULD BE REINVESTED IN THIS AREA.
>[APPLAUSE ]
>>>NNENNA NWAKANMA: NOW, MY THIRD ISSUE IS CHANGE.
>NETmundial IS OFFERING US A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE. CHANGE FROM ONE STAKEHOLDER HIJACKING THE PROCESS TO AN OPEN AND INCLUSIVE PROCESS. CHANGE FROM ONE OFFICIAL ISSUING ORDERS TO COLLABORATION. CHANGE FROM JUST REPORTS TO REAL TRANSPARENCY.
>CHANGE FROM POWER TO ACCOUNTABILITY. CHANGE FROM MONOLOGUES TO DIALOGUES AND DEBATES. CHANGE FROM THE RHETORIC OF CYBER-WAR TO THE NOTION OF INTERNET FOR PEACE. CHANGE FROM CYBER-THREATS TO DIGITAL SOLIDARITY. AND I DO BELIEVE THAT ALL OF THESE PRINCIPLES WILL ALSO GUIDE US IN IANA TRANSITION.
>LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THERE IS ONE MESSAGE I MUST LEAVE WITH YOU TODAY, IT IS THE MESSAGE OF TRUST.
>WE'RE IN BRAZIL BECAUSE WE TRUST THE PERSON OF DILMA ROUSSEFF. WE ARE HERE BECAUSE WE TRUST THE NETmundial PROCESS. WE TRUST THE MULTISTAKEHOLDER APPROACH OF BRAZIL IN ITS OWN IGF, AND WE HAVE FOLLOWED THE STORY OF MARCO CIVIL AND I WANT TO SEE CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL BRAZILIANS ON THIS.
>[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ] >>NNENNA NWAKANMA: HANG ON. HANG ON. HANG ON.
>THE TRUST THAT WE HAVE IN BRAZIL IS NEEDED AT ALL LEVELS. BUT THIS TRUST HAS BEEN DESTROYED BY THE COLLECTION, PROCESSING, AND INTERCEPTION OF OUR COMMUNICATIONS.
>[APPLAUSE ] >>NNENNA NWAKANMA: YES. SURVEILLANCE ON INTERNET SECURITY AND OUR TRUST IN ALL PERSONAL BUSINESS AND DIPLOMATIC COMMUNICATIONS. THAT'S WHY WE SAY "NO." THE WEB WE CAN TRUST, THAT IS THE WEB WE WANT. THE WEB THAT CONTRIBUTES TO PEACE, THAT IS THE WEB WE WANT. THE WEB THAT IS OPEN AND INCLUSIVE, THAT IS THE WEB WE WANT. THE WEB OF OPPORTUNITIES AND SOCIAL JUSTICE, THAT IS WHY I AM HERE.
>LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, NETmundial, I THINK, IS THE WORLD CUP OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE. WE NEED A ROBUST STADIUM THAT CAN HOLD US. THAT IS INFRASTRUCTURE. WE NEED TO ENJOY THE GAME. THAT IS PARTICIPATION. WE SHOULD NOT DISCRIMINATE. THAT IS NET NEUTRALITY. EVERYBODY'S FREE TO SUPPORT THEIR TEAM. I SUPPORT (SAYING NAME) OF NIGERIA. THAT IS FREEDOM. I SUPPORT BRAZIL AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT PLAYING AGAINST AFRICA, ANYWAY.
>[LAUGHTER ] >>NNENNA NWAKANMA: WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO WEAR OUR COSTUMES AS FANS AND THAT IS DIVERSITY. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, WE NEED TO KNOW THE RULES OF THE GAME AND PLAY BY IT. THAT, FOR ME, IS TRANSPARENCY.
>SO IT'S NOT GOING TO BE ABOUT POWER AND CONTROL FOR GOVERNMENTS. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE JUST INTEREST FOR THE INDUSTRY. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE NAMES AND NUMBERS FOR TECHNICAL COMMUNITY. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE FOR OR AGAINST FOR CIVIL SOCIETY. I THINK THAT WE NEED HUMILITY. THE HUMILITY TO LISTEN TO DIVERSE VOICES IS ESSENTIAL FOR AN AUTHENTIC DIALOGUE. LET US TALK TO EACH OTHER AND NOT AT EACH OTHER. BECAUSE SOMETIMES WE CAN BE SO DROWNED IN OUR OWN VOICES THAT WE DO NOT HEAR THE OTHER STAKEHOLDERS.
>JUST BEFORE I SIT DOWN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, TOMORROW IS GIRLS IN ICT DAY, SO I'M GOING TO SPEAK TO LADIES.
>GIRLS, IT IS UP TO US TO SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY THAT THE INTERNET HAS GIVEN US. LET'S SEIZE IT AND LET'S ROCK THE WORLD! LET US GET WOMEN ONLINE. LET US GET US ONLINE.
>AND THIS, I WANT TO SAY A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO ALL THE GIRLS IN MY WORLD FOUNDATION TEAM. ALEXANDRA IS HERE, RENAT AVILA, SONIA GEORGE, ANGELA, AND NOT JUST NETmundial BUT GIRLS ACROSS THE WORLD WORK ON THE INTERNET EVERY DAY. DEBORAH BROWN IS IN THE U.S. MARION FRANKLIN IS IN EUROPE. ANNA IS IN INDIA, (SAYING NAME) IS IN LATIN AMERICA HERE, (SAYING NAME) IS IN AFRICA, JOY LID I COT IS IN NEW ZEALAND, AND SALANIETA IS SOMEWHERE IN THE ISLANDS OF FIJI. GREAT WOMEN WHO DO THIS WORK. AND EVEN HERE IN BRAZIL, WE HAVE GREAT LADIES. ONE IS (SAYING NAME) AND THE OTHER IS (SAYING NAME) BUT COME ON, IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT WOMEN. THERE ARE GUYS, MEN, WHO WORK EVERY DAY, WHO PUT IN THE ENERGY, WHO PUT IN THEIR LIFE, WHO PUT IN ALL THEY HAVE, PUT IN THEIR EXPERTISE, SO THAT WE CAN HAVE A GLOBAL, TRUE, OPEN AND RESILIENT. AND TO ALL OF US WHO LOVE THE INTERNET AND TO ALL OF US WHO ARE HERE AND TO SOMEONE CALLED EDWARD, EDWARD SNOWDEN, THANK YOU.
>[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
>>> ---
>>>VINT CERF: PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF, EXCELLENCIES, DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT IS AN HONOR AND A PRIVILEGE TO PARTICIPATE IN NETmundial. THIS DIALOGUE IS TIMELY AND MUCH NEEDED AS THE INTERNET CELEBRATES THE 40th YEAR OF ITS PUBLIC UNVEILING AND THE 31st YEAR OF ITS OPERATION. IN MAY 1974, THE DESIGN OF THE INTERNET WAS PUBLISHED IN THE IE EX-E PUBLICATIONS. ROBERT KAHN AND I FELT STRONGLY THE DESIGN AND THE PROTOCOLS OF THE INTERNET NEEDED TO BE FREELY AND OPENLY AVAILABLE TO ANY INTERESTED PARTIES AND WITHOUT ANY BARRIERS TO ADOPTION AND USE.
>OVER FOUR DECADES BY WORKING TOGETHER AND INCLUDING THE EXPERIENCES GATHERED FROM OTHER GLOBAL NETWORK EXERCISES, AN INFORMAL COALITION HAS BUILT FROM THE BOTTOM UP THE SUCCESSFUL, FREE AND OPEN INTERNET AND THE POPULAR WORLDWIDE WEB. SOME 3 BILLION PEOPLE ARE ALREADY ONLINE WORKING TOGETHER TOWARDS GROWTH IN A POWERFUL ECONOMIC ENGINE AND POSITIVE SOCIAL FORCE.
>THIS INTERNET GOVERNANCE MEETING COMES AT A TIME WHEN THE INTERNET AND ITS USE REFLECTS THE FULL RANGE OF INTERESTS OF A GLOBAL AND INCREASINGLY ONLINE SOCIETY.
>IN ADDITION TO APPRECIATING THE ENORMOUS BENEFITS ALREADY OBTAINED THROUGH THE COOPERATIVE CREATION, DISCOVERING AND SHARING OF INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET, IT IS ALSO APPARENT THAT USERS AND GOVERNMENTS ARE BECOMING CONCERNED ABOUT POTENTIAL HARMS THAT MAY BE ENCOUNTERED IN THIS DIGITAL WORLD.
>A SMALL FRACTION OF THE INTERNET'S USERS DELIBERATELY SEEK TO BENEFIT THEMSELVES AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS OR JUST SEEK TO DO DAMAGE THROUGH A KIND OF DIGITAL VANDALISM, AS ALSO HAPPENS OFFLINE.
>MOREOVER, IT IS APPARENT THAT THE RICH SOCIAL NETWORKING APPLICATIONSES THAT ARE RAPIDLY PROLIFERATING ALSO HAVE A POLITICAL POTENTIAL THAT MAY BE ALARMING TO SOME REGIMES.
>GOVERNMENTS UNDERSTANDABLY SEEK WAYS TO DEFEND THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS AGAINST HARM, SUCH AS FRAUD, MALWARE, IDENTITY THEFT AND BULLYING. OTHERS VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS BY USING THE INTERNET TO CENSOR, MISINFORM, CONDUCT SURVEILLANCE AND RESTRICT SPEECH OR USE IT AS A MEANS TO IDENTIFY AND INCARCERATE THOSE WHO SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER.
>THE OPENNESS OF THE INTERNET HAS BEEN THE KEY TO ITS GROWTH AND VALUE. PERMISSIONLESS INNOVATION IS THE MAIN SPRING OF INTERNET'S ECONOMIC POWER. WE MUST FIND WAYS TO PROTECT THE VALUES THAT THE INTERNET BRINGS, INCLUDING THE RIGHTS OF ITS USERS WHILE ALSO PROTECTING THEM FROM HARM.
>THESE PRINCIPLES, TOGETHER WITH GROWING ACCESS TO THE INTERNET WILL PROVE TO BE OF LASTING VALUE TO THE DEVELOPING WORLD THAT CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE POSITIVE BENEFITS OF AN EXPANDING INFORMATION ECONOMY.
>OUR WORK IS NOT NEARLY DONE UNTIL THE INTERNET IS ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE AND IPv6 IS ACCESSIBLE EVERYWHERE.
>BRAZIL HAS SET A POSITIVE EXAMPLE IN NETmundial. IN A MULTIPARTY INITIATIVE LED BY CONGRESSMAN ALESANDRO MALONE, THE COUNTRY HAS JUST LEGISLATED MARCO CIVIL WHICH OFFERS IMPORTANT SAFEGUARDS TO PROTECT INTERMEDIARY INTERNET PROVIDERS AND PROTECT USER RIGHTS. ITS INTERNET STEERING COMMITTEE, CGI.BR, IS A MODEL OF NATIONAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER GOVERNANCE.
>THIS MEETING, AMONG MANY OTHERS, REPRESENTS AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY TO EXAMINE A MULTISTAKEHOLDER MODEL FOR INTERNET GOVERNANCE BASED ON THE PARTICIPATION OF ALL STAKEHOLDERS, INCLUDING ROLES FOR GOVERNMENT, ACADEMICS, CIVIL SOCIETY, PRIVATE BUSINESSES AND THE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY. THIS CONFERENCE HAS BROUGHT TOGETHER A RICH AND VARIED GROUP OF INTERESTED PARTIES TO EXPLORE PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES FOR FUTURE INTERNET GOVERNANCE AS IT REACHES THE OTHER 4 BILLION STILL UNCONNECTED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
>THE INTERNET HAS BEEN BUILT ON THE BASIS OF COLLABORATION AMONG A DIVERSE AND CONSTANTLY EVOLVING SET OF INTERESTED PARTIES. AND THIS IS A FOUNDATIONAL IDEA THAT MUST BE PRESERVED. NEW INSTITUTIONS AND OPERATIONAL PLAYERS HAVE BEEN FORMED AT NEED, SUCH AS THE INTERNET ARCHITECTURE BOARD, THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK, THE INTERPRET SOCIETY, THE INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS, THE REGIONAL INTERNET REGISTRIES AND THE NUMBER RESOURCE ORGANIZATION, OTHER REGIONAL TLD ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS CENTR AND LacTLD, THE ROOT SERVER OPERATORS, REGIONAL NETWORK OPERATION GROUPS, THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAMS, INTERNET EXCHANGE POINTS, THE TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN REGISTRIES AND REGISTRARS AND THE NETWORK INFORMATION CENTERS SUCH AS THE BRAZILIAN NIC.
>OUT OF THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY HAS COME THE ANNUAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM AND ITS REGIONAL AND NATIONAL ANALOGS. WE CREATE INSTITUTIONS AT NEED.
>AS WE GATHER HERE FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, WE HAVE TWO SPECIFIC CHALLENGES TO CONSIDER. THE LARGER ONE IS THE GENERAL DESIGN OF A GLOBAL, MULTISTAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK THAT PRESERVES THE FREE AND OPEN INTERNET AND PROVIDES TRANSNATIONAL PROTECTIONS FOR THE RIGHTS OF USERS.
>THE FRAMEWORK HAS TO ENABLE THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET AND BE ABLE TO ADAPT TO IT. THE MORE FOCUSED CHALLENGE IS TO DEVISE A RESPONSE TO THE U.S. INVITATION TO ASSURE THAT WHEN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND ITS CONTRACTUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ICANN, THE MULTISTAKEHOLDER FRAMEWORK FOR ICANN'S MANAGEMENT OF UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS AND PARAMETERS WILL ADHERE TO THE PRINCIPLES THAT HAVE MADE THE INTERNET A REMARKABLE, GLOBAL AND BENEFICIAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
>I BELIEVE THAT THE CHALLENGE BEFORE US, ASSURING ICANN'S ADHERENCE CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED BY REINFORCING ITS ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY MECHANISMS. THE LARGER CHALLENGE, PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF USERS WHILE ASSURING THEIR SAFETY WILL REQUIRE LAYERED, LOCAL, NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL ENABLING MECHANISMS. WE CANNOT PRETEND TO KNOW THE SOLUTION TO ALL THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES THAT THE INTERNET POSES. WE CAN, HOWEVER, CREATE STRUCTURES THAT WILL ALLOW MULTISTAKEHOLDER COLLABORATIONS TO DISCOVER AND EVALUATE POSSIBLE ANSWERS.
>AMONG THE MECHANISMS THAT SHOULD BE REINFORCED AND SUPPORTED, I WOULD SINGLE OUT THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM. IT NEEDS FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND A PROPERLY STAFFED SECRETARIAT. IT HAS ILLUMINATED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS ARISING FROM THE GLOBAL GROWTH OF THE INTERNET.
>MOBILE TECHNOLOGY RAPIDLY DROPPING COSTS FOR INTERNET-ENABLING EQUIPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS, AND BOUNDLESS DEVELOPMENT OF NEW APPLICATIONS HAVE CREATED A RICH PALATE FROM WHICH TO PAINT A BENEFICIAL DIGITAL FUTURE. THE GLOBAL IGF AND ITS REGIONAL AND NATIONAL COUNTERPARTS CAN BECOME AN EVEN MORE HELPFUL MECHANISM FOR HIGHLIGHTING ISSUES BY TRACKING THEIR SOLUTIONS IN A VARIETY OF FORUMS AND ENABLING THE EMERGENCE OF NEW APPROACHES WHEN THESE SEEM NECESSARY.
>WE WOULD HAVE TO BE A PRETTY SILLY SPECIES NOT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE GIFT THAT THE TECHNOLOGY HAS GIVEN US. THOSE OF US PARTICIPATING IN THE NETmundial -- WELL, I HAVE A VERY INTERESTING PROBLEM HERE, MY SPEECH ENDS BECAUSE THE REST OF IT WASN'T PRINTED OUT.
>[LAUGHTER ]
>SO I WILL END BY THANKING YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE TIME ON THIS STAGE.
>[APPLAUSE ]
>>>TIM BERNERS-LEE: TECHNOLOGY IS PERFECT THEN.
>45 YEARS AGO VINT CERF AND BOB KAHN PUT TOGETHER THE IDEA OF THE INTERNET, DESIGNED THAT, AND MADE THAT OPEN. 25 YEARS AGO -- A LONG TIME LATER, THE INTERNET WAS RUNNING. THERE WAS REMOTE --- . THERE WAS EMAIL RUNNING OVER THE INTERNET. BUT THERE WERE NO WEB, NO WEB SITES, NO WEB PAGES, NO LINKS. I FELT IT WAS REALLY IMPORTANT THERE SHOULD BE SO I INVENTED THE WEB. AND AS THE WORLDWIDE WEB PROJECT GREW, I NEEDED COLLABORATORS. I INVENTED HTML AND HTTP AND URLS BUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOSE HAD TO BE DONE BY A LARGE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY. I WENT TO THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE, I FOUNDED THE WORLDWIDE WEB CONSORTIUM THAT ASSESS THE STANDARDS FOR THE WEB AND ITS MOTTO IS TO LEAD THE WEB TO ITS FULL POTENTIAL.
>SO THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN THESE MULTISTAKEHOLDER GROUPS LIKE IETF AND W3C AND ALL THE PEERS THEY WORK WITH LIKE ECMA, TC39 FOR (SAYING NAME) THAT HAS BEEN REALLY CRUCIAL AND IT REALLY HAS BEEN HOW THIS HAS ALL WORKED.
>I HOPE YOU WILL AGREE THAT PEOPLE WORKING TOGETHER HAVE DONE A REASONABLE JOB AND LOOKING BACK AT THE 25 YEARS OF THE WEB, IT HAS BEEN -- IT HAS BEEN AN INCREDIBLE RIDE AND WE REALIZE NOW THAT RATHER THAN BEING A FUN PROJECT LIKE ALL THESE THINGS STARTED OFF WITH, IT NOW BECOMES SOMETHING WE HAVE TO REGARD AS TO BEING CRUCIAL.
>SOME OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS WHICH BELIEVE IN OPEN STANDARDS IN THIS PARTICULAR SORT OF MULTISTAKEHOLDER OPEN ON THE WEB SORT OF MEANING OF THE WORD, DEVISED THE WORD OPEN STAND. YOU CAN GO TO OPENSTAND.ORG TO EXPRESS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE ABOUT WITH OPEN DISCUSSION WITH THE DOCUMENTS BEING FREELY AVAILABLE ON THE WEB. WITH W3C SPECIFICALLY COMPANIES COMMIT THAT WHEN THEY START AND WORK TOWARDS THESE STANDARDS, THAT WHEN THE STANDARDS COME OUT THAT THEY WILL NOT CHARGE ROYALTIES TO ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO IMPLEMENT IT. SO KEEPING IT ROYALTY FREE HAS ALSO BEEN REALLY IMPORTANT.
>THE WEB GREW AS SOMETHING WHICH DID NOT INVOLVE BORDERS BECAUSE IT GREW ON THE INTERNET AND THE INTERNET, WHEN YOU CONNECT -- WHEN I WROTE A PROGRAM TO CONNECT FROM ONE COMPUTER TO THE OTHER, NEITHER PROGRAM HAD AN AWARENESS, NEEDED TO KNOW OR NECESSARILY FOUND IT EASY TO FIND OUT WHICH COUNTRY THOSE TWO COMPUTERS WERE IN. BUT INTERNET WAS TECHNICALLY -- IS A NATIONLESS THING. SO IN A NON-NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT, THE WEB GROWING UP, IT HAS BEEN A NON-NATIONAL SOCIETY WHICH HAS GROWN UP AROUND IT.
>YES, THERE HAS BEEN -- FORMALLY, THERE HAS BEEN A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND THE WAY INTERNET NUMBERS AND NAMES HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED. AND I'M VERY GLAD THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS ACCEPTED TO RELEASE THAT OVERSIGHT. I THINK THAT IS VERY OVERDUE AND A VERY IMPORTANT STEP.
>IT IS AN IMPORTANT STEP BECAUSE ICANN SHOULD SERVICE -- IT SERVICES THE GLOBAL PUBLIC INTERNET, AND, THEREFORE, IT SHOULD BE A GLOBAL PUBLIC BODY. SO FOR ME, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? IT IS EASY TO SAY IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. FOR ME, FOR ICANN, THAT MEANS THAT DECISIONS THAT IT MAKES ABOUT TOP-LEVEL DOMAINS, ABOUT WHATEVER, ABOUT HOW TO SPEND ITS FUNDING, THEY SHOULD BE MADE BY STEPPING BACK AND THINKING, WELL, NEVERMIND THE PEOPLE WE KNOW INTIMATELY WHO ARE INVOLVED IN THAT DECISION BUT LET'S THINK ABOUT THE PLAN AS A WHOLE. WHAT IS BEST FOR HUMANITY AS A WHOLE? THAT SHOULD GUIDE EVERY DECISION THAT ICANN MAKES.
>OBVIOUSLY, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT ICANN DOES IS IT HAS FUNDS TO SPEND AND SO PARTLY IT CAN FURTHER THE WORLD BY SPENDING THOSE IN A BENEFICIAL WAY SUCH AS SUPPORTING -- WELL, SUPPORTING STANDARDIZATION, SUPPORTING HARDENING WEB TECHNOLOGY, SUPPORTING PIECES OF TECHNOLOGY LIKE THAT, THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE TECHNOLOGY, KEEPING IT SO IT WORKS WITH EVERY CULTURE AND LANGUAGE, ACCESSIBILITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND, OF COURSE, CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE FOR REALLY IMPORTANT AGENDAS WHICH ICANN CAN THINK ABOUT SUPPORTING.
>THE INTERNET HAS THRIVED FROM THE EMPOWERMENT OF CAPABLE AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED PEOPLE. INITIALLY, THEY WERE FROM THE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY AND ACADEMIA BUT MORE RECENTLY THE WHOLE PRIVATE SECTOR, CIVIL SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENTS. WE NEED INTERNET GOVERNMENTS WHICH ALLOWS EACH COMMUNITY TO BRING ITS PARTICULAR STRENGTHS TO THE TABLE BUT ALLOWS NONE OF THEM TO ELEVATE ITS OWN INTEREST ABOVE THE PUBLIC GOOD.
>FIVE YEARS AGO, RELATIVELY RECENTLY IN INTERNET TIME, SOME OF US REALIZE THAT ALL THE TECHNICAL WORK WE WERE DOING WAS WONDERFUL BUT IT WAS EVERY SINGLE THING DID WAS INCREASING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE, INCREASING THE GAP BETWEEN THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAD THE WEB AND DID NOT HAVE IT. SO AT THAT POINT, WE STARTED THE WORLDWIDE WEB FOUNDATION ABOUT WHICH YOU ALREADY HEARD SOME TO MAKE SURE THAT THE WEB -- WELL, YES, THAT IT GETS TO, FOR EXAMPLE, THE 60% OF THE PEOPLE WHO IN THE WORLD WHO DON'T HAVE IT AT ALL BUT ALSO FOR THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE IT, THAT IT REALLY IS THE WEB THAT WE WOULD WANT, THE WEB HAS NOW BECOME AN ESSENTIAL PUBLIC UTILITY SO WE HAVE TO REGARD IT AS SUCH.
>MUCH OF OUR TRADITIONAL THINKING ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS APPLIES DIRECTLY TO EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET SUCH AS FREE EXPRESSION. BUT NEW THINGS BECOMING IMPORTANT IN THE NETWORK CONTEXT, NET NEUTRALITY MEANS KEEPING THE NET FREE FROM DISCRIMINATION, BE IT COMMERCIAL OR POLITICAL.
>THE INNOVATIVE EXPLOSION WHICH HAPPENED ACROSS THE NET OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS HAS HAPPENED ONLY BECAUSE THAT NET HAS BEEN NEUTRAL. THE SOCIAL GROUND-BREAKING SENSE OF POSSIBILITY THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AND POSSIBLY LIVE IN PEACE RELIES ON AN OPEN NET. OH, AND THANKS TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS EVER HELD UP A BANNER IN ANY FORUM ABOUT PUSHING FOR THE OPEN NET AND PUSHING AGAINST LAWS WHICH RESTRICT THE OPEN NET.
>SO THAT SENSE OF EXCITEMENT WHICH WE ALL HAVE GIVES US ALSO A RESPONSIBILITY THAT WE MUST KEEP THE NET NEUTRAL -- THE NET AS A NEUTRAL PLATFORM IN THE FUTURE.
>FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS A CRUCIAL RIGHT BUT IT HAS TO BE COUPLED ON THE NETWORK WITH A COMPLIMENTARY RIGHT TO PRIVACY AS, MADAM PRESIDENT, YOU HAVE POINTED OUT BEFORE AND HAVE ALREADY BEEN QUOTED TODAY.
>SO I WON'T QUOTE YOU AGAIN, BUT I WOULD, YES, AGREE THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT ARE WORRIED ABOUT SURVEILLANCE AND FEEL IT IS PERHAPS THE MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT. IT FEELS THE MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT. AND, OF COURSE, SURVEILLANCE ALL AFFECTS THE INTERNET, IT IS ONE OF THE MORE INSIDIOUS ONES BECAUSE YOU DON'T SEE IT HAPPENING UNLIKE CENSORSHIP.
>IT IS GREAT TO BE BACK IN BRAZIL TODAY, NOT JUST BECAUSE BRAZIL IS A WONDERFUL COUNTRY AND ONE WHICH HAS HAD A REALLY VIBRANT SENSE OF WHAT OPPORTUNITY ON THE NET BUT, OF COURSE, ESPECIALLY TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY. YESTERDAY WAS A VERY SPECIAL DAY, THE MARCO CIVIL GOING THROUGH IS WONDERFUL. A FANTASTIC EXAMPLE OF HOW GOVERNMENTS COMPARE POSITIVE ROLE IN ADVANCING WEB RIGHTS AND KEEPING THE WEB OPEN. YES, EUROPEANS ALSO CELEBRATE, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PASSING LEGISLATION PROTECTING USERS ON THE WEB. WELL DONE. SO TWO DATA POINTS THAT SUGGEST WE ARE MAKING PROGRESS. THAT IS GREAT, BUT, BOY, WE HAVE GOT A HUGE WAY THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE NET ARE NEW AND THEY'RE NOT UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED.
>THE WEB BECOMES EVER MORE EXCITING WITH EVERY ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY LIKE MOBILE WEB AND SO ON, BUT 60% OF THE WEB -- OF THE POPULATION CAN'T USE THE WEB AT ALL.
>AS THE WEB GIVES PEOPLE GREATER AND GREATER POWER, INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, SO MANY FORCES ARE ABUSING OR THREATEN TO ABUSE THE NET AND ITS CITIZENS. THE WEB THAT WE WILL HAVE IN ANOTHER 25 YEARS' TIME IS, BY NO MEANS, CLEAR. BUT IT IS COMPLETELY UP TO US TO DECIDE WHAT WE WANT TO MAKE THAT WEB, WHAT WE WANT TO MAKE THAT WORLD.
>THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING WEB USERS AROUND THE WORLD, NOT JUST PEOPLE HERE IN THIS CONFERENCE ROOM AND THE OTHER CONFERENCE ROOMS WHERE THIS IS BEING RELAYED, NOT JUST PEOPLE IN THIS CONFERENCE BUT PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD, TO GO AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT AND TO FIND SOME SORT OF GLOBAL MAGNA CARTA FOR THE INTERNET. THAT IS WHY --
>[APPLAUSE ] >>TIM BERNERS-LEE: THAT IS WHY I'M ASKING COUNTRIES EVERYWHERE TO FOLLOW BRAZIL'S EXAMPLE AND EUROPE'S EXAMPLE AND DEVELOP POSITIVE LAWS THAT PROTECT AND EXPAND THE RIGHTS OF USERS IN AN OPEN, FREE, AND UNIVERSAL WEB.
>[APPLAUSE ]
>>>TIM BERNERS-LEE: THANK YOU.
>[APPLAUSE ] >> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC HAS APPROVED A LAW THAT GUARANTEES THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES FOR THE USE OF INTERNET IN THE WORLD.
>[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ] >>H.E. DILMA ROUSSEFF: GOOD MORNING TO ONE AND ALL. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THOSE WHO SPOKE BEFORE ME FOR PERFECTLY PRONOUNCING "GOOD MORNING" IN PORTUGUESE, (NON-ENGLISH WORD OR PHRASE) AS VOICED BY OUR DEAR REPRESENTATIVE FROM AFRICA, NNENNA NWAKANMA.
>THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR PERFECTLY PRONOUNCING (NON-ENGLISH WORD OR PHRASE) IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE. GOOD MORNING.
>AND BY GREETING HER, I WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND MY GREETINGS TO ALL WOMEN WHO ARE CURRENTLY ACTIVE ON THE WEB. BOTH THE GIRLS AND THE GUYS WHO ARE EQUALLY ACTIVE ON THE WEB.
>GREETINGS, LIKEWISE, TO THE MAYOR OF SAO PAULO WHO HAS SO KINDLY WELCOMED US, AND ABOVE ALL, I WOULD RECYCLE TO, FIRST OF ALL, GREET TWO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS FROM BRAZIL. NAMELY MR. (SAYING NAME) REPRESENTING THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WHO SERVED AS RAPPORTEUR OF THE BILL OF LAW WHICH LED UP TO THE PASSING YESTERDAY OF THE INTERNET CIVIL FRAMEWORK, AS WELL AS REPRESENTATIVE -- RATHER SENATOR (SAYING NAME), AND THROUGH HIM, I WOULD LIKE TO FURTHER EXTEND MY GREETINGS, LIKEWISE, TO THE SENATE RAPPORTEURS WHO WERE ABLE TO PASS THE PIECE OF LAW IN A RECORD TIME, SENATOR (SAYING NAME), SENATOR (SAYING NAME), AND SENATOR (SAYING NAME). THANK YOU.
>AND SO SENATOR (SAYING NAME) AND TO REPRESENTATIVE (SAYING NAME), I WOULD LIKE TO VOICE MY THANKS FOR YOUR EFFORTS IN PASSING THE INTERNET CIVIL FRAMEWORK.
>GREETINGS, LIKEWISE, TO THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS, HONG BO. SPECIAL GREETINGS LIKEWISE TO THE INVENTOR OF THE INTERNET, TIM BERNERS-LEE.
>I WOULD LIKE TO GREET THE VICE PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE, AND A KEY PERSON -- RATHER A KEY PERSON IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INTERNET, MR. CERF.
>GREETINGS, ONCE AGAIN, TO MR. (SAYING NAME) WHO, ON OCTOBER THE 8TH LAST YEAR, 2013 -- CORRECT, FADI, IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, WE MET IN BRAZIL YEAH AND ON THAT OCCASION DURING THAT MEETING WITH YOU THE SEMINAL IDEA SURFACED OF ESTABLISHING THIS INTERNET GOVERNANCE SUMMIT MEETING THAT IS REALIZED HERE TODAY, SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH AN ALL OF YOU, INCLUDING CABINET MINISTERS AND FOREIGN DELEGATES ATTENDING THIS SESSION TODAY. ---
>MAY I ALSO USE THE OPPORTUNITY ---
>MAY I ALSO USE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GREET ALL CABINET MINISTERS WHO HAVE BEEN ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS THAT LED UP TO THE PASSING OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE CIVIL FRAMEWORK, AN EFFORT WHICH OF COURSE INVOLVED ALL STAKEHOLDERS AND SOCIETY.
>SPECIAL THANKS TO MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AMBASSADOR (SAYING NAME), MINISTER OF JUSTICE CARDOZO, ALSO MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, MINISTER OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, (SAYING NAME), AND MAY I ALSO GREET AND THANK SENATOR AND MINISTER OF CULTURE (SAYING NAME) AS WELL AS THE BRAZILIAN SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE, (SAYING NAME). GREETINGS LIKEWISE TO ALL ATTENDEES, PARTICULARLY THE MEDIA PROFESSIONALS, JOURNALISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND CAMERAMEN AND WOMEN.
>MAY I SAY THAT YOU ARE ALL MOST WELCOME TO BRAZIL.
>AS ATTENDEES TO THIS GLOBAL MULTISTAKEHOLDER MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE, THE SO-CALLED NETmundial AS WE CALL IT IN PORTUGUESE.
>AT THIS POINT IN TIME I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO VOICE MY GREETINGS TO THE ORGANIZERS, I.E., THE INTERNET MANAGEMENT OR MANAGING COMMITTEE AS WELL AS THE 1net COMMITTEE. IT GIVES ME GREAT JOY TO SEE IN THIS PLENARY HALL REPRESENTATIVES OF ALL DIFFERENT SECTORS WHO -- OR WHICH ARE IN ONE WAY INVOLVED IN THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE.
>IN THIS HALL TODAY, WE HAVE CIVIL SOCIETY, ACADEMIA, MEMBERS OF THE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY, BUSINESSES, AND GOVERNMENTS AT LARGE.
>THIS HEALTHY DIVERSITY -- AND I STRESS IT IS A HEALTHY DIVERSITY -- IS ALSO A HALLMARK OF THOSE GROUPS THAT HAVE JOINED US THROUGH THE INTERNET AND THIS MEETING, AND I WOULD LIKE TO USE THE OPPORTUNITY TODAY TO ESTABLISH A DIALOGUE ON THE ISSUES AND THE PURPOSES THAT BRING US TOGETHER IN SAO PAULO TODAY.
>BACK IN MID-2013 WHEN THE REVELATION SURFACED ON THE COMPREHENSIVE MECHANISMS FOR COLLECTIVE MONITORING OF COMMUNICATIONS CAUSED ANGER AND REPUDIATION IN VAST CIRCLES OF PUBLIC OPINION BOTH IN BRAZIL AND IN THE WORLD AT LARGE, IN BRAZIL CITIZENS, COMPANIES, DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIONS AND EVEN THE PRESIDENCY OF THE REPUBLIC ITSELF WERE TARGETED, AND THEIR COMMUNICATIONS INTERCEPTED.
>THESE EVENTS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. WERE NOT ACCEPTABLE IN THE PAST AND REMAIN UNACCEPTABLE TODAY, IN THAT THEY ARE AN AFFRONTMENT AGAINST THE VERY NATURE OF THE INTERNET AS A DEMOCRATIC, FREE, AND PLURALISTIC PLATFORM.
>THE INTERNET WE WANT IS ONLY POSSIBLE IN A SCENARIO WHERE HUMAN RIGHTS ARE RESPECTED. PARTICULARLY THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND TO ONE'S FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
>ACCORDINGLY, IN MY ADDRESS TO THE 68TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS, I PUT FORTH A PROPOSAL TO TACKLE SUCH PRACTICES. I THEN PROPOSED A DISCUSSION ON ESTABLISHING A GLOBAL CIVIL FRAMEWORK FOR INTERNET GOVERNANCE AND USE, AS WELL AS MEASURES TO ENSURE ACTUAL PROTECTION OF DATA THAT TRAVELS THROUGH THE INTERNET.
>ALSO, WORKING TOGETHER WITH GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL WE SUBMITTED TO THE UNITED NATIONS A DRAFT RESOLUTION ON THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE.
>BY CONSENSUS, THE RESOLUTION WAS PASSED AS PROPOSED AND WE ALSO PASSED A CALL FOR STATES TO DISCONTINUE ANY ARBITRARY OR ILLEGAL COLLECTION OF PERSONAL DATA AND TO ENFORCE USERS' RIGHTS TO PRIVACY.
>I SHOULD ACTUALLY STRESS THE FACT THAT THE SAME RIGHTS THAT PEOPLE ARE ENTITLED TO OFFLINE OR IN THE OFFLINE WORLD SHOULD BE LIKEWISE PROTECTED ON THE ONLINE WORLD.
>THIS MEETING TODAY, NETMUNDIAL, PROVIDES FURTHER MOMENTUM TO THAT EFFORT. THIS MEETING ALSO LIVES UP TO A GLOBAL YEARNING AS WE PROPOSE CHANGES IN THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS AND FOR AN ONGOING CONSISTENT STRENGTHENING OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ON THE INTERNET AS WELL AS EFFORTS TO ULTIMATELY PROTECT BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS, AS IS THE CASE OF ONE'S RIGHT TO PRIVACY. AND WITHOUT THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT, THAT IS ALSO THE CASE OF ONE'S RIGHT TO PROPER TREATMENT OF WEB-BASED DISCUSSIONS IN A RESPECTFUL FASHION, TO ENSURE ITS OPEN, DEMOCRATIC NATURE. WE HAVE ALL TO SAO PAULO, THEREFORE, WITH A SHARED PURPOSE, THE PURPOSE OF ENHANCING AND DEMOCRATIZING INTERNET GOVERNANCE BY MEANS OF CONSENSUS BUILDING. AND I MEAN CONSENSUS AROUND PRINCIPLES, AND ON A ROADMAP TO BE DEVELOPED FOR ITS FUTURE EVOLUTION.
>A POINT I'D LIKE TO MAKE PLAIN AND CLEAR IS THAT THE IDEA HERE IS NOT, OF COURSE, TO REPLACE FOR THE COUNTLESS FORA OUT THERE THAT ALREADY ADDRESS THE TOPIC OR THE MATTER AT HAND TODAY. THE IDEA, RATHER, IS TO LEND A NEW MOMENTUM TO THE ONGOING DISCUSSIONS IN A MUCH NEEDED SENSE OF URGENCY.
>WE, THEREFORE, WORK FROM TWO PREMISES OR KEY ASSUMPTIONS.
>THE FIRST SUCH PREMISE IS THAT WE ALL WANT TO PROTECT THE INTERNET AS A SPACE, AVAILABLE TO ALL, AS A SHARED ASSET, AND AS SUCH, TRULY HERITAGE OF HUMANKIND, MORE THAN SIMPLY A WORK TOOL AND WAY BEYOND ITS WELL-KNOWN CONTRIBUTION FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH, PROVIDED, OF COURSE, THAT IT BE INCREASINGLY INCLUSIVE AND THE FACT IS THAT THE INTERNET HAS ENABLED THE CONSTANT REINVENTION OF THE WAY PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS INTERACT, PRODUCE CULTURE, AND ORGANIZE THEMSELVES, EVEN POLITICALLY.
>AN OPEN AND DECENT NETWORK ARCHITECTURE FAVORS GREATER ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE. IT HELPS MAKE COMMUNICATIONS MORE DEMOCRATIC AND ALSO FOSTERS CONSTANT INNOVATION. THESE BASIC FEATURES ARE THE FEATURES THAT WE WANT AND THAT SHOULD BE PRESERVED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND IN ANY SCENARIO, IN ORDER TO ULTIMATELY GUARANTEE THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET AND, THUS, BOOST ITS TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECTS FOR AND IN SOCIETIES.
>THE SECOND PREMISE OR ASSUMPTION IS THE DESIRE WE ALL SHARE TO INCORPORATE AN INCREASINGLY BROADER AUDIENCE INTO THIS PROCESS.
>OUR COMMITMENT TO AN OPEN AND INCLUSIVE DEBATE HAS GUIDED THE EFFORTS TO ORGANIZE THIS MEETING IN SAO PAULO TODAY. ALL DIFFERENT WALKS OF LIFE HAVE TAKEN PART IN ITS PREPARATION AND ARE DULY REPRESENTED IN THIS PLANE HALL TODAY.
>WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THOUSANDS OF PARTICIPANTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD WHO ARE JOINED BY VIRTUAL CONNECTIONS IN SEVERAL DIFFERENT POINTS OF THE PLANET.
>THE TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED HAVE BEEN THE SUBJECT OF BROAD AND PRIOR INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC CONSULTATION AND HAVE RECEIVED INPUTS FROM PLAYERS OR STAKEHOLDERS LOCATED IN SEVERAL DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND IN DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHIES.
>THESE PROPOSALS IN TURN, OR INPUTS, HAVE SERVED AS THE FOUNDATION TO DEVELOP A DRAFT DOCUMENT, THE DRAFT DOCUMENT TO BE DISCUSSED AND FURTHER ENHANCED HERE IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.
>I WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME THE WORK CONDUCTED BY THE EXECUTIVE METRIC SECTORAL COMMUNITY AS WELL AS THE HIGH-LEVEL MULTISTAKEHOLDER COMMITTEE FOR THIS JOINT EFFORT.
>THE INTEREST OF BRAZILIANS IN THE INTERNET IS REFLECTED ON THE SUBSTANTIAL PARTICIPATION OF BRAZILIAN NATIONALS IN THE DOMESTIC PUBLIC CAPTION AS FACILITATED BY THE.BR PORTAL. AT THIS TIME, CIVIL SOCIETY IS ORGANIZED IN THIS FORUM, THE SO-CALLED NETmundial ARENA, WHICH IS THE BRAZILIAN LOCUS FOR ACCESS TO TODAY'S SESSIONS.
>MAY I REMIND ALL THE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND FRIENDS ATTENDING THIS SESSION THAT BRAZIL ADVOCATES THAT INTERNET GOVERNANCE SHOULD BE MULTISTAKEHOLDER, MULTILATERAL, DEMOCRATIC, AND TRANSPARENT IN NATURE.
>IT IS OUR VIEW THAT THE MULTISTAKEHOLDER MODEL IS THE BEST WAY TO EXERCISE INTERNET GOVERNANCE.
>VERY MUCH IN ACCORDANCE WITH THAT VIEW, OUR LOCAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM WHICH HAS BEEN IN OPERATION FOR 20 YEARS HAS RELIED ON ACTUAL PARTICIPATION OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM CIVIL SOCIETY, MEMBERS OF ACADEMIA, THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY, AND THE GOVERNMENT AT LARGE AT THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE -- OR AT THE INTERNET MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE.
>FULLY IN LINE WITH WHAT I JUST SAID, I ALSO ATTACH A GREAT DEAL OF IMPORTANCE TO THE MULTILATERAL PERSPECTIVE, ACCORDING TO WHICH GOVERNMENT PARTICIPATION SHOULD OCCUR ON AN EQUAL FOOTING AMONG GOVERNMENTS IN SUCH A WAY AS TO ENSURE THAT NO COUNTRY WILL HAVE OR BEAR GREATER WEIGHT VIS-A-VIS OTHER COUNTRIES.
>[APPLAUSE ] >>H.E. DILMA ROUSSEFF: OUR ADVOCACY OF THE MULTILATERAL MODEL IS THE NATIONAL CONSEQUENCE OF AN ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLE THAT SHOULD GOVERN TODAY'S INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AS ENSHRINED IN THE BRAZILIAN FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. I'M TALKING ABOUT EQUALITY AMONG STATES.
>WE, THEREFORE, SEE NO OPPOSITION WHATSOEVER BETWEEN MULTI- -- OR THE MULTILATERAL AND THE MULTISTAKEHOLDER NATURE OF THE INTERNET. ACTUALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF THAT WOULD BE A ONE-SIDED UNILATERAL INTERNET WHICH IS UNTENABLE.
>AN INTERNET THAT IS ULTIMATELY SUBJECT TO INTERGOVERNMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS THAT EXCLUDE OTHER SECTORS OF SOCIETY IS NOT DEMOCRATIC.
>MULTISTAKEHOLDER ARRANGEMENTS THAT ARE IN TURN SUBJECT TO OVERSIGHT BY ONE OR FEW STATES ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE EITHER.
>WE TRULY WANT TO MAKE RELATIONS BETWEEN GOVERNMENTS AND SOCIETIES MORE DEMOCRATIC, AS WELL AS THE RELATIONS AMONG GOVERNMENTS. WE WANT MORE, NOT LESS, DEMOCRACY.
>THE TASK OF PROVIDING A GLOBAL DONATION TO THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE CURRENTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR CENTRAL FUNCTIONS OF THE INTERNET IS NOT ONLY NECESSARY, BUT ALSO AN UN-POSTPONABLE TASK.
>THE COMPLEXITY OF THE TRANSITION AT HAND, WHICH ON THE ONE HAND INVOLVES JURISDICTIONAL COMPETENCE, AS WELL AS ACCOUNTABILITY AND AN AGREEMENT WITH MULTIPLE STAKEHOLDERS, DOES NOT, NEVERTHELESS, MAKE IT LESS URGENT A TASK.
>THAT IS WHY I'D LIKE TO AGAIN WELCOME THE RECENTLY VOICED INTENTION OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO REPLACE ITS INSTITUTIONAL LINKAGE WITH THE AUTHORITY FOR -- OR WITH THE INTERNET AUTHORITY FOR NUMBER ASSIGNMENT, IANA, AND THE INTERNET CORPORATION FOR NAMES AND NUMBER ASSIGNMENTS, ICANN, BY A GLOBAL MANAGEMENT OF THESE INSTITUTIONS FROM NOW ONWARDS, A NEW INSTRUMENTAL AND LEGAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE ISDN UNDER THE RESPONSIBILITY OF IANA AND ICANN SHOULD BE BUILT IN SUCH A WAY AS TO INCLUDE BROAD-RANGING INVOLVEMENT OF ALL SECTORS THAT HAVE AN INTEREST IN THE MATTER WAY BEYOND THE TRADITIONAL STAKEHOLDERS OR PLAYERS.
>EACH SECTOR, OF COURSE, PERFORMS DIFFERENT ROLES BASED ON LIKEWISE DIFFERENTIATED RESPONSIBILITIES.
>THE OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF THE INTERNET SHOULD CONTINUE BEING LED BY ITS TECHNICAL COMMUNITY. MAY I, AT THIS POINT, VOICE MY PUBLIC RECOGNITION -- AND THIS IS ON BEHALF OF MY GOVERNMENT -- TO THESE PEOPLE WHO DEVOTE THEIR TIME AND ENERGY ON A DAY-TO-DAY BASIS TO KEEPING THE INTERNET AS AN OPEN, STABLE, AND SECURE PLATFORM, A KEY EFFORT WHICH REMAINS LARGELY INVISIBLE IN THE EYES OF MOST OF US END USERS.
>MATTERS PERTAINING TO SOVEREIGNTY SUCH AS CYBERCRIME, BREACH OF RIGHTS, ECONOMIC ISSUES OR TRANSNATIONAL ECONOMIC ISSUES, AND THREATS OF CYBER-ATTACKS ARE THE PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY OF STATES.
>THE TASK AT HAND IS, ABOVE ALL, TO ENSURE THAT STATES WILL HAVE AT THEIR AVAIL THE TOOLS THAT WILL ALLOW THEM TO FULFILL THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES BEFORE THEIR CITIZENS, TO INCLUDE THE GUARANTEE OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS. RIGHTS WHICH ARE ENSURED OFFLINE SHOULD BE EQUALLY INSURED ONLINE.
>THESE RIGHTS THRIVE UNDER THE SHELTER AND NOT IN THE ABSENCE OF THE STATE.
>IN ORDER FOR THE GLOBAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE TO BE TRULY DEMOCRATIC, MECHANISMS ARE REQUIRED TO ENABLE GREATER PARTICIPATION OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IN ALL DIFFERENT SECTORS.
>THE MATTERS THAT ARE IN THE INTEREST OF THESE COUNTRIES THAT ARE THE HEAVY-DUTY USERS OF THE INTERNET, TOPICS SUCH AS, FOR EXAMPLE, EXPANDING CONNECTIVITY, ACCESSIBILITY, AND THE RESPECT TO DIVERSITY, SHOULD BE CENTRAL ON THE INTERNATIONAL AGENDA.
>IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR FORA TO BE OPEN FROM A PURELY FORMAL STANDPOINT. WE MUST FURTHER IDENTIFY AND REMOVE THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE BARRIERS TO ACTUAL PARTICIPATION OF THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF EVERY COUNTRY OR ELSE WE WOULD BE ULTIMATELY RESTRICTING OR LIMITING THE DEMOCRATIC ROLE AND THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL REACH OF THE INTERNET.
>THE EFFORT AT HAND FURTHER REQUIRES THAT THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM BE FURTHER STRENGTHENED AS A DIALOGUE FORUM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
>IT ALSO REQUIRES A COMPREHENSIVE, BROAD-RANGING REVIEW OF THE 10 YEARS FOLLOWING THE SUMMIT -- WORLD SUMMIT MEETING OF INFORMATION SOCIETY AS WELL AS A DEEPER DISCUSSION ON ETHICS AND PRIVACY AT THE UNESCO LEVEL.
>GIVEN THE ABOVE, MAY I SAY THAT WE ARE STRONG BELIEVERS THAT THE CYBER-SPACE -- AND I'M SURE THAT BELIEF IS SHARED BY ALL OF US -- THE CYBER-SPACE SHOULD BE THE TERRITORY OF TRUST, HUMAN RIGHTS, CITIZENSHIP, COLLABORATION, AND PEACE.
>TO ACHIEVE THESE OBJECTIVES, WE MUST AGREE ON BASIC PRINCIPLES THAT WILL ULTIMATELY GUIDE INTERNET GOVERNANCE.
>AS REGARDS PRIVACY, THE RESOLUTION PASSED BY THE UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION WAS AN IMPORTANT STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, BUT WE MUST -- BUT WE STILL HAVE MUCH PROGRESS TO MAKE.
>ANY DATA COLLECTION OR TREATMENT SHOULD ONLY BE CARRIED OUT WITH FULL AGREEMENT OF THE PARTIES INVOLVED OR AS LEGALLY PROVIDED FOR.
>HOWEVER, THE DISCUSSION ON PRINCIPLES IS MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE. IT SHOULD -- AND I STRESS IT SHOULD -- INCLUDE UNIVERSAL INTERNET ACCESS, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY KEY FOR THE WEB TO SERVE AS A TOOL FOR HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT SO AS TO ULTIMATELY HELP BUILD INCLUSIVE, NONDISCRIMINATORY SOCIETIES.
>IT SHOULD ALSO INCLUDE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND NET NEUTRALITY AS AN SINE BRAZIL HAS ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAKE FOLLOWING A BROAD RANGING DISCUSSION, DOMESTIC PROCESS THAT HAS ULTIMATELY LED TO THE PASSING OF THE INTERNET CIVIL FRAMEWORK ACT AS PASSED YESTERDAY BY CONGRESS IN WHICH I HAD THE HONOR OF SANCTIONING JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO. THE LAW -- AND I MAY QUOTE TIM BERNERS-LEE WHO QUOTED THE LAW AS A PRESIDENT TO THE WEB ON THE OCCASION OF THE 20th -- OR 25th ANNIVERSARY AS SUCH THE LAW CLEARLY SHOWS THE FEASIBILITY AND SUCCESS OF OPEN MULTISECTORIAL DISCUSSIONS AS WELL AS THE INNOVATIVE USE OF THE INTERNET AS PART OF ONGOING DISCUSSIONS AS A TOOL AND A INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION PLATFORM.
>I THINK IT IS FAIR TO SAY THAT THE PROCESS THAT LED UP TO THE CIVIL FRAMEWORK ACT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS A VIRTUOUS PROCESS IN THAT OUR CIVIL FRAMEWORK, AS IT CURRENTLY STANDS, HAS BEEN EVEN FURTHER APPRECIATED GIVEN THE PROCESS THAT PRECEDED THE EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH IT AS SUCH.
>MAY I, THEREFORE, CALL TO MIND THAT OUR CIVIL FRAMEWORK ESTABLISHES PRINCIPLES, GUARANTEES AND USER RIGHTS, CLEARLY ASSIGNING DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT. AND EQUALLY IMPORTANT, IT ENSHRINES NETWORK NEUTRALITY AS A KEY PRINCIPLE, A MAJOR GAIN WHICH WE WERE ABLE TO MATERIALIZE AS A CONSENSUS IN THE PROCESS.
>IT ENSHRINES NETWORK NEUTRALITY BY ESTABLISHING THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY SHOULD TREAT ANY DATA PACKAGES ON IN A --- FASHION WITH ACCOUNT TO AGENT, DESTINATION, SERVICE, TERMINAL OR APPLICATION. THE LAW OR FRAMEWORK AS HAS TRULY ENSHRINED NETWORK NEUTRALITY. FURTHERMORE, COMPANIES MAY NOT BLOCK, MONITOR, FILTER OR ANALYZE THE CONTENT OF DATA PACKAGES.
>THE CIVIL FRAMEWORK PROTECTS CITIZENS' PRIVACY IN THE ONLY IN THE RELATION WITH THE GOVERNMENTS BUT ALSO WITH RELATION WITH THE INTERNET COMPANIES. COMMUNICATIONS ARE, BY DEFINITION, NON-VIABLE EXCEPT BY A SPECIFIC COURT ORDER TO THAT EFFECT. THE RECENTLY PASSED LAW FURTHER CONTAINS CLEAR RULES GOVERNING WITHDRAWAL OF CONTENT FROM THE INTERNET. ALWAYS, OF COURSE, WITH A VIEW TO ENSURING THAT THE APPLICABLE COURT ORDERS BE AVAILABLE.
>THE CIVIL NETWORK IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE FACT THAT THE INTERNET DEVELOPMENT CANNOT DO IT WITHOUT A DISCUSSION PROCESS AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF NATIONAL STATES. AS SUCH, IT STANDS AS AN INNOVATIVE BENCHMARK MILESTONES BECAUSE IN ITS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS, WE HEARD THE VOICES OF THE STREETS, THE NETWORKS AND OF DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS.
>FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE, IT IS OUR FIRM CONVICTION THAT ON A NETWORK, EACH NODE MATTERS. THE LARGE NODES SUCH AS THE MEGA PORTALS TO WHICH A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF WORLD TRAFFIC CONVERGES AND SMALL NODES ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT.
>AT THIS TIME, I WOULD LIKE TO BRING TO THE FORE A KEY FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE AND TALK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THIS COUNTRY HAS TAKEN A MAJOR STEP FORWARD AS PART OF THE ONGOING PROCESS WHEREBY WE NOT ONLY INCLUDE BUT ALSO GUARANTEE A STEADY STREAM OF INCOME TO A SUBSTANTIAL SHARE OF THE POPULATION.
>INCOME AND ACCESS ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT. WE BELIEVE THAT IT IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT TO ENSURE WE HAVE PLACE IN SOCIETY WHERE CITIZENS HAVE THEIR OWN VIEWS AND THEY ARE ABLE TO VOICE THEIR VIEWS FREELY. HENCE, THE INVALUABLE DEGREE OF IMPORTANCE WE ATTACH TO THE INTERNET IN OUR SOCIETY.
>WE ALSO HAVE YET ANOTHER MAJOR ASSET. I'M TALKING ABOUT BRAZIL'S ETHNIC CULTURAL, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY. IT IS OURS TO NOT ONLY RESPECT BUT ALSO PROMOTE AND FOSTER OUR CULTURAL DIVERSITY. WE DO NOT WISH TO IMPOSE BELIEFS, CUSTOMS, VALUES OR POLITICAL VIEWS ON ANYONE.
>MAY I PARTICULARLY HIGHLIGHT THE THOUSANDS OF USERS THAT MULTIPLY ON A DAY-TO-DAY BASIS NOT ONLY HERE BUT IN ALL THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF LARGE URBAN AREAS AND ALSO IN TRADITIONAL COMMUNITIES OUT THERE. ALL OF THESE NEW USERS ENRICH THE NETWORK WITH NEW ALTERNATIVE IDEAS AND ACCOUNTS OF THE WORLD, NEW WORLD VISIONS. THESE PEOPLE MAKE THE INTERNET A STRONGER AND MORE UNIVERSAL PLATFORM.
>AND IT IS ON THEIR BEHALF AND BECAUSE OF THEM, THAT I WOULD LIKE TO AGAIN VOICE MY THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR ATTENDING THIS MEETING IN SAO PAULO. FOR US, THE INTERNET IS A MODERN-DAY PRO EMANCIPATION, PRO TRANSFORMATION TOOL THAT CHANGES SOCIETY. SWEEPING CHANGES ARE INTRODUCED THROUGH THE INTERNET. YOU ARE ALL MOST WELCOME. AND I HOPE YOU WILL ALL COME BACK FOR THE WORLD CUP OF ALL CUPS. IF NOT, MAKE SURE YOU WATCH IT THROUGH THE INTERNET. THANK YOU VERY MUCH AGAIN.
>[APPLAUSE ]
>>> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENCE OF YOU ALL. WE CLOSE NOW THIS CEREMONY.
>
>
>
>

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/netmundial-transcript-archive

CIS Statement at ICANN 49's Public Forum

pranesh — 2014-06-04T05:31:44Z

This was a statement made by Pranesh Prakash at the ICANN 49 meeting (on March 27, 2014), arguing that ICANN's bias towards the North America and Western Europe result in a lack of legitimacy, and hoping that the IANA transition process provides an opportunity to address this.

Good afternoon. My name is Pranesh Prakash, and I'm with the Yale Information Society Project and the Centre for Internet and Society.

I am extremely concerned about the accountability of ICANN to the global community. Due to various decisions made by the US government relating to ICANN's birth, ICANN has had a troubled history with legitimacy. While it has managed to gain and retain the confidence of the technical community, it still lacks political legitimacy due to its history. The NTIA's decision has presented us an opportunity to correct this.

However, ICANN can't hope to do so without going beyond the current ICANN community, which while nominally being 'multistakeholder' and open to all, grossly under-represents those parts of the world that aren't North America and Western Europe.

Of the 1010 ICANN-accredited registrars, 624 are from the United States, and 7 from the 54 countries of Africa. In a session yesterday, a large number of the policies that favour entrenched incumbents from richer countries were discussed. But without adequate representation from poorer countries, and adequate representation from the rest of the world's Internet population, there is no hope of changing these policies.

This is true not just of the business sector, but of all the 'stakeholders' that are part of global Internet policymaking, whether they follow the ICANN multistakeholder model or another. A look at the boardmembers of the Internet Architecture Board, for instance, would reveal how skewed the technical community can be, whether in terms of geographic or gender diversity.

Without greater diversity within the global Internet policymaking communities, there is no hope of equity, respect for human rights -- civil, political, cultural, social and economic --, and democratic funtioning, no matter how 'open' the processes seem to be, and no hope of ICANN accountability either.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann49-public-forum-statement

NTIA to give up control of the Internet's root

pranesh — 2014-03-18T18:21:40Z

On Friday evening the U.S. government's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it was setting into motion a transition to give up a few powers that it holds over some core Internet functions, and that this would happen by September 2015. Pranesh Prakash provides a brief response to that announcement.

As it noted in the NTIA's press release:

NTIA’s responsibility includes the procedural role of administering changes to the authoritative root zone file – the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as serving as the historic steward of the [Domain Name System (DNS)]. NTIA currently contracts with [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN] to carry out the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and has a Cooperative Agreement with Verisign under which it performs related root zone management functions. Transitioning NTIA out of its role marks the final phase of the privatization of the DNS as outlined by the U.S. Government in 1997.

This move was welcomed by "Internet technical leaders".

While this announcement cannot be said to be unexpected, it is nonetheless an important one and is also a welcome one. The NTIA seems to have foreclosed any option of the US government's role being performed by any government-led organization by noting in their press release, "NTIA will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution," once again reaffirming their belief in American exceptionalism: the NTIA could fulfil its role despite being a government, but now even a body involving multiple stakeholders can't replace the NTIA's role if it is going to be government-led.

Unfortunately, this announcement to relax American "stewardship" or "oversight" over some aspects of the Internet's technical functioning cannot restore the trust that has been lost due to actions taken by the US government and US companies. This new announcement won't change the US government's ability to 'tap' the Internet, nor will it affect their ability to unilaterally seize .com/.net/.name/.org/.edu/.tv/.cc/.us and other US-based domain names. Nor will a shift away from NTIA oversight lead to any of the chilling visions that some believe might lie in our future: the fears of the Association of National Advertisers and of some politicians and members of the US Congress is based on ignorance of what NTIA's role is.

The European Commission in a communiqué last month noted: "recent revelations of large-scale surveillance have called into question the stewardship of the U.S. when it comes to Internet governance". Unfortunately, the U.S. giving up that stewardship role will not prevent the continuation of their large-scale surveillance, just as the lack of such a stewardship role has not prevented other governments — U.K., India, Canada, Sweden, France, etc. — from engaging in large-scale surveillance.

There are three main benefits from the U.S. giving up this role.

First, it will put an end to the political illegitimacy of the U.S. government having a core authority in a global system, somehow making it first among equals;
Second, will focus light on ICANN, which under US oversight performs the IANA functions, and might, one hopes, lead to needed reform in ICANN's other functions;
Third, it will allow us to collectively move on from this dreaded political issue at the heart of Internet governance, which nevertheless is of little practical consequence if ICANN's accountability mechanisms are strengthened. As difficult as it may be, ICANN has to be accountable not just to one government or another but to the world, and ensuring that accountability to all doesn't become accountability to none, as NetChoice's Steve DelBianco put it, is the formidable task ahead of us.

Yet, all the ICANN reform in the world will still not lead to a less spied-upon, more open, and more equitable Internet.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ntia-to-give-up-control-of-internets-root

Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn

pranesh — 2014-03-06T23:02:45Z

After its decision in Gobind, the Supreme Court's privacy floodgates opened; a series of claims involving private parties came before its docket, and the resulting jurisprudence ended up creating confusion between state-individual surveillance, and individual-individual surveillance.

Gautam Bhatia's blog post was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog

We have seen that Gobind essentially crystallized a constitutional right to privacy as an aspect of personal liberty, to be infringed only by a narrowly-tailored law that served a compelling state interest. After the landmark decision in Gobind, Malak Singh v State of P&H was the next targeted-surveillance history-sheeter case to come before the Supreme Court. In that case, Rule 23 of the Punjab Police Rules was at issue. Its vires was not disputed, so the question was a direct matter of constitutionality. An order of surveillance was challenged by two individuals, on the ground that there were no reasonable bases for suspecting them of being repeat criminals, and that their inclusion in the surveillance register was politically motivated. After holding that entry into a surveillance sheet was a purely administrative measure, and thus required no prior hearing (audi alteram partem), the Court then embarked upon a lengthy disquisition about the scope and limitations of surveillance, which deserves to be reproduced in full:

“But all this does not mean that the police have a licence to enter the names of whoever they like (dislike?) in the surveillance register; nor can the surveillance be such as to squeeze the fundamental freedoms guaranteed to all citizens or to obstruct the free exercise and enjoyment of those freedoms; nor can the surveillance so intrude as to offend the dignity of the individual. Surveillance of persons who do not fall within the categories mentioned in Rule 23.4 or for reasons unconnected with the prevention of crime, or excessive surveillance falling beyond the limits prescribed by the rules, will entitle a citizen to the Court’s protection which the court will not hesitate to give. The very rules which prescribe the conditions for making entries in the surveillance register and the mode of surveillance appear to recognise the caution and care with which the police officers are required to proceed. The note following R. 23.4 is instructive. It enjoins a duty upon the police officer to construe the rule strictly and confine the entries in the surveillance register to the class of persons mentioned in the rule. Similarly R.23.7 demands that there should be no illegal interference in the guise of surveillance. Surveillance, therefore, has to be unobstrusive and within bounds. Ordinarily the names of persons with previous criminal record alone are entered in the surveillance register. They must be proclaimed offenders, previous convicts, or persons who have already been placed on security for good behaviour. In addition, names of persons who are reasonably believed to be habitual offenders or receivers of stolen property whether they have been convicted or not may be entered. It is only in the case of this category of persons that there may be occasion for abuse of the power of the police officer to make entries in the surveillance register. But, here, the entry can only be made by the order of the Superintendent of Police who is prohibited from delegating his authority under Rule 23.5. Further it is necessary that the Superintendent of Police must entertain a reasonable belief that persons whose names are to be entered in Part II are habitual offenders or receivers of stolen property. While it may not be necessary to supply the grounds of belief to the persons whose names are entered in the surveillance register it may become necessary in some cases to satisfy the Court when an entry is challenged that there are grounds to entertain such reasonable belief. In fact in the present case we sent for the relevant records and we have satisfied ourselves that there were sufficient grounds for the Superintendent of Police to entertain a reasonable belief. In the result we reject both the appeals subject to our observations regarding the mode of surveillance. There is no order as to costs.”

Three things emerge from this holding: first, the Court follows Gobind in locating the right to privacy within the philosophical concept of individual dignity, found in Article 21’s guarantee of personal liberty. Secondly, it follows Kharak Singh, Malkani and Gobind in insisting that the surveillance be targeted, limited to fulfilling the government’s crime-prevention objectives, and be limited – not even to suspected criminals, but – repeat offenders or serious criminals. And thirdly, it leaves open a role for the Court – that is, judicial review – in examining the grounds of surveillance, if challenged in a particular case.

After Malak Singh, there is another period of quiet. LIC v Manubhai D Shah, in 1993, attributed – wrongly – to Indian Express Newspapers the proposition that Article 19(1)(a)’s free expression right included privacy of communications (Indian Express itself had cited a UN Report without incorporating it into its holding).

Soon afterwards, R. Rajagopal v State of TN involved the question of the publication of a convicted criminal’s autobiography by a publishing house; Auto Shankar, the convict in question, had supposedly withdrawn his consent after agreeing to the book’s publication, but the publishing house was determined to go ahead with it. Technically, this wasn’t an Article 21 case: so much is made clear by the very manner in which the Court frames its issues: the question is whether a citizen of the country can prevent another person from writing his biography, or life story. (Paragraph 8) The Court itself made things clear when it held that the right of privacy has two aspects: the tortious aspect, which provides damages for a breach of individual privacy; and the constitutional aspect, which protects privacy against unlawful governmental intrusion. (Paragraph 9) Having made this distinction, the Court went on to cite a number of American cases that were precisely about the right to privacy against governmental intrusion, and therefore – ideally – irrelevant to the present case (Paras 13 – 16); and then, without quite explaining how it was using these cases – or whether they were relevant at all, it switched to examining the law of defamation (Para 17 onwards). It would be safe to conclude, therefore, in light of the clear distinctions that it made, the Court was concerned in R. Rajagopal about an action between private parties, and therefore, privacy in the context of tort law. It’s confusing observations, however, were to have rather unfortunate effects, as we shall see.

We now come to a series of curious cases involving privacy and medical law. In Mr X v Hospital Z, the question arose whether a Hospital that – in the context of a planned marriage – had disclosed the appellant’s HIV+ status, leading to his social ostracism – was in breach of his right to privacy. The Court cited Rajagopal, but unfortunately failed to understand it, and turned the question into one of the constitutional right to privacy, and not the private right. Why the Court turned an issue between two private parties – adequately covered by the tort of breach of confidentiality – into an Article 21 issue is anybody’s guess. Surely Article 21 – the right to life and personal liberty – is not horizontally applicable, because if it was, we might as well scrap the entire Indian Penal Code, which deals with exactly these kinds of issues – individuals violating each others’ rights to life and personal liberty. Nonetheless, the Court cited Kharak Singh, Gobind and Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, further muddying the waters, because Article 8 – in contrast to American law – embodies a proportionality test for determining whether there has been an impermissible infringement of privacy. The Court then came up with the following observation:

“Where there is a clash of two Fundamental Rights, as in the instant case, namely, the appellant’s right to privacy as part of right to life and Ms. Akali’s right to lead a healthy life which is her Fundamental Right under Article 21, the RIGHT which would advance the public morality or public interest, would alone be enforced through the process of Court, for the reason that moral considerations cannot be kept at bay.”

With respect, this is utterly bizarre. If there is a clash of two rights, then that clash must be resolved by referring to the Constitution, and not to the Court’s opinion of what an amorphous, elastic, malleable, many-sizes-fit “public morality” says. The mischief caused by this decision, however, was replicated in Sharda v Dharmpal, decided by the Court in 2003. In that case, the question was whether the Court could require a party who had been accused of unsoundness of mind (as a ground for divorce under the wonderfully progressive Hindu Marriage Act) to undergo a medical examination – and draw an adverse inference if she refused. Again, whether this was a case in which Article 21 ought to be invoked is doubtful; at least, it is arguable, since it was the Court making the order. Predictably, the Court cited from Mr X v Hospital Z extensively. It cited Gobind (compelling State interest) and the ECHR (proportionality). It cited a series of cases involving custody of children, where various Courts had used a “balancing test” to determine whether the best interests of the child overrode the privacy interest exemplified by the client-patient privilege. It applied this balancing test to the case at hand by balancing the “right” of the petitioner to obtain a divorce for the spouse’s unsoundness of mind under the HMA, vis-à-vis the Respondent’s right to privacy.

In light of the above analysis, it is submitted that although the outcome in Mr X v Hospital Z and Sharda v Dharmpal might well be correct, the Supreme Court has misread what R. Rajagopal actually held, and its reasoning is deeply flawed. Neither of these cases are Article 21 cases: they are private tort cases between private parties, and ought to be analysed under private law, as Rajagopal itself was careful to point out. In private law, also, the balancing test makes perfect sense: there are a series of interests at stake, as the Court rightly understood, such as certain rights arising out of marriage, all of a private nature. In any event, whatever one might make of these judgments, one thing is clear: they are both logically and legally irrelevant to the Kharak Singh line of cases that we have been discussing, which are to do with the Article 21 right to privacy against the State.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-3

Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 2: Gobind and the Compelling State Interest Test

pranesh — 2014-01-27T18:03:38Z

Gautam Bhatia analyses the first case in which the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to privacy, Gobind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, and argues that the holding in that case adopted the three-pronged American test of strict scrutiny, compelling State interest, and narrow tailoring in its approach to privacy violations.

After its judgment in Kharak Singh, the Court was not concerned with the privacy question for a while. The next case that dealt – peripherally – with the issue came eleven years later. In R.M. Malkani v State of Maharashtra, the Court held that attaching a recording device to a person’s telephone did not violate S. 25 of the Telegraph Act, because

"where a person talking on the telephone allows another person to record it or to hear it, it can-not be said that the other person who is allowed to do so is damaging, removing, tampering, touching machinery battery line or post for intercepting or acquainting himself with the contents of any message. There was no element of coercion or compulsion in attaching the tape recorder to the telephone."

Although this case was primarily about the admissibility of evidence, the Court also took time out to consider – and reject – a privacy-based Article 21 argument, holding that:

"Article 21 was invoked by submitting that the privacy of the appellant’s conversation was invaded. Article 21 contemplates procedure established by law with regard to deprivation of life or personal liberty. The telephonic conversation of an innocent citizen will be protected by Courts against wrongful or high handed interference by tapping the conversation. The protection is not for the guilty citizen against the efforts of the police to vindicate the law and prevent corruption of public servants. It must not be understood that the Courts will tolerate safeguards for the protection of the citizen to be imperiled by permitting the police to proceed by unlawful or irregular methods."

Apart from the fact that it joined Kharak Singh in refusing to expressly find a privacy right within the contours of Article 21, there is something else that unites Kharak Singh and R.M. Malkani: they hypothetical in Kharak Singh became a reality in Malkani – what saved the telephone tapping precisely because it was directed at "… a guilty person", with the Court specifically holding that the laws were not for targeting innocent people. Once again, then, the targeted and specific nature of interception became a crucial – and in this case, a decisive – factor. One year later, in another search and seizure case, Pooran Mal v Inspector, the Court cited M.P. Sharma and stuck to its guns, refusing to incorporate the Fourth Amendment into Indian Constitutional law.

It is Gobind v State of MP, decided in 1975, that marks the watershed moment for Indian privacy law in the Constitution. Like Kharak Singh, Gobind also involved domiciliary visits to the house of a history-sheeter. Unlike Kharak Singh, however, in Gobind the Court found that the Regulations did have statutory backing – S. 46(2)(c) of the Police Act, which allowed State Government to make notifications giving effect to the provisions of the Act, one of which was the prevention of commission of offences. The surveillance provisions in the impugned regulations, according to the Court, were indeed for the purpose of preventing offences, since they were specifically aimed at repeat offenders. To that extent, then, the Court found that there existed a valid “law” for the purposes of Articles 19 and 21.

By this time, of course, American constitutional law had moved forward significantly from eleven years ago, when Kharak Singh had been decided. The Court was able to invoke Griswold v Connecticut and Roe v Wade, both of which had found a "privacy" as an "interstitial" or "penumbral" right in the American Constitution – that is, not reducible to any one provision, but implicit in a number of separate provisions taken together. The Court ran together a number of American authorities, referred to Locke and Kant, to dignity, to liberty and to autonomy, and ended by holding, somewhat confusingly:

“the right to privacy must encompass and protect the personal intimacies of the home, the family marriage, motherhood, procreation and child rearing. This catalogue approach to the question is obviously not as instructive as it does not give analytical picture of that distinctive characteristics of the right of privacy. Perhaps, the only suggestion that can be offered as unifying principle underlying the concept has been the assertion that a claimed right must be a fundamental right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty… there are two possible theories for protecting privacy of home. The first is that activities in the home harm others only to the extent that they cause offence resulting from the mere thought that individuals might he engaging in such activities and that such ‘harm’ is not Constitutionally protective by the state. The second is that individuals need a place of sanctuary where they can be free from societal control. The importance of such a sanctuary is that individuals can drop the mask, desist for a while from projecting on the world the image they want to be accepted as themselves, an image that may reflect the values of their peers rather than the realities of their natures… the right to privacy in any event will necessarily have to go through a process of case-by-case development."

But if no clear principle emerges out of the Court’s elucidation of the right, it was fairly unambiguous in stressing the importance of the right itself. Interestingly, it grounded the right within the context of the freedom struggle. "Our founding fathers," it observed, "were thoroughly opposed to a Police Raj even as our history of the struggle for freedom has borne eloquent testimony to it." (Para 30) The parallels to the American Fourth Amendment are striking here: in his historical analysis Akhil Amar tells us that the Fourth Amendment was meant precisely to avoid the various abuses of unreasonable searches and seizures that were common in England at the time.

The parallels with the United States become even more pronounced, however, when the Court examined the grounds for limiting the right to privacy. "Assuming that the fundamental rights explicitly guaranteed to a citizen have penumbral zones and that the right to privacy is itself a fundamental right, that fundamental right must be subject to restriction on the basis of compelling public interest." "Compelling public interest" is an interesting phrase, for two reasons. First, “public interest” is a ground for fundamental rights restrictions under Article 19 (see, e.g., Article 19(6)), but the text of the Article 19 restrictions do not use – and the Court, in interpreting them, has not held – that the public interest must be “compelling”. This suggests a stricter standard of review for an Article 21 privacy right violation than Article 19 violations. This is buttressed by the fact that in the same paragraph, the Court ended by observing: “even if it be assumed that Article 19(5) [restrictions upon the freedom of movement] does not apply in terms, as the right to privacy of movement cannot be absolute, a law imposing reasonable restriction upon it for compelling interest of State must be upheld as valid.” The Court echoes the language of 19(5), and adds the word “compelling”. This surely cannot be an oversight.

More importantly – the compelling State interest is an American test, used often in equal protection cases and cases of discrimination, where “suspect classes” (such as race) are at issue. Because of the importance of the right at issue, the compelling state interest test goes hand-in-hand with another test: narrow tailoring. Narrow tailoring places a burden upon the State to demonstrate that its restriction is tailored in a manner that infringes the right as narrowest manner that is possible to achieve its goals. The statement of the rule may be found in the American Supreme Court case of Grutter v Bollinger:

"Even in the limited circumstance when drawing racial distinctions is permissible to further a compelling state interest, government is still constrained under equal protection clause in how it may pursue that end: the means chosen to accomplish the government’s asserted purpose must be specifically and narrowly framed to accomplish that purpose."

To take an extremely trivial example that will illustrate the point: the State wants to ban hate speech against Dalits. It passes legislation that bans “all speech that disrespects Dalits.” This is not narrowly tailored, because while all hate speech against Dalits necessarily disrespects them, all speech that disrespects Dalits is not necessarily hate speech. It was possible for the government to pass legislation banning only hate speech against Dalits, one that would have infringed upon free speech more narrowly than the “disrespect law”, and still achieved its goals. The law is not narrowly tailored.

Crucially, then, the Court in Gobind seemed to implicitly accept the narrow-tailoring flip side of the compelling state interest coin. On the constitutionality of the Police Regulations itself, it upheld their constitutionality by reading them narrowly. Here is what the Court said:

“Regulation 855, in our view, empowers surveillance only of persons against whom reasonable materials exist to induce the opinion that they show a determination, to lead a life of crime – crime in this context being confined to such as involve public peace or security only and if they are dangerous security risks. Mere convictions in criminal cases where nothing gravely imperiling safety of society cannot be regarded as warranting surveillance under this Regulation. Similarly, domiciliary visits and picketing by the police should be reduced to the clearest cases of danger to community security and not routine follow-up at the end of a conviction or release from prison or at the whim of a police officer.”

But Regulation 855 did not refer to the gravity of the crime at all. Thus, the Court was able to uphold its constitutionality only by narrowing its scope in a manner that the State’s objective of securing public safety was met in a way that minimally infringed the right to privacy.

Therefore, whether the Gobind bench was aware of it or not, its holding incorporates into Indian constitutional law and the right to privacy, not just the compelling State interest test, but narrow tailoring as well. The implications for the CMS are obvious. Because with narrow tailoring, the State must demonstrate that bulk surveillance of all individuals, whether guilty or innocent, suspected of crimes or not suspected of crimes (whether reasonably or otherwise), possessing a past criminal record or not, speaking to each other of breaking up the government or breaking up a relationship – every bit of data must be collected to achieve the goal of maintaining public security, and that nothing narrower will suffice. Can the State demonstrate this? I do not think it can, but at the very least, it should be made to do so in open Court.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-2

Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 1: Foundations

pranesh — 2014-01-23T15:12:30Z

In this insightful seven-part series, Gautam Bhatia looks at surveillance and the right to privacy in India from a constitutional perspective, tracing its genealogy through Supreme Court case law and compares it with the law in the USA.

Note: This was originally posted on the Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy blog.

On previous occasions, we have discussed the ongoing litigation in ACLU v. Clapper in the United States, a challenge to the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk surveillance program. Recall that a short while after the initial Edward Snowden disclosures, The Hindu revealed the extent of domestic surveillance in India, under the aegis of the Central Monitoring System (CMS). The CMS (and what it does) is excellently summarized here. To put thing starkly and briefly:

“With the C.M.S., the government will get centralized access to all communications metadata and content traversing through all telecom networks in India. This means that the government can listen to all your calls, track a mobile phone and its user’s location, read all your text messages, personal e-mails and chat conversations. It can also see all your Google searches, Web site visits, usernames and passwords if your communications aren’t encrypted.”

The CMS is not sanctioned by parliamentary legislation. It also raises serious privacy concerns. In order to understand the constitutional implications, therefore, we need to investigate Indian privacy jurisprudence. In a series of posts, we plan to discuss that.

Privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution. It plays no part in the Constituent Assembly Debates. The place of the right – if it exists – must therefore be located within the structure of the Constitution, as fleshed out by judicial decisions. The first case to address the issue was M. P. Sharma v. Satish Chandra, in 1954. In that case, the Court upheld search and seizure in the following terms:

"A power of search and seizure is in any system of jurisprudence an overriding power of the State for the protection of social security and that power is necessarily regulated by law. When the Constitution makers have thought fit not to subject such regulation to Constitutional limitations by recognition of a fundamental right to privacy, analogous to the American Fourth Amendment, we have no justification to import it, into a totally different fundamental right. by some process of strained construction."

The right in question was 19(1)(f) – the right to property. Notice here that the Court did not reject a right to privacy altogether – it only rejected it in the context of searches and seizures for documents, the specific prohibition of the American Fourth Amendment (that has no analogue in India). This specific position, however, would not last too long, and was undermined by the very next case to consider this question, Kharak Singh.

In Kharak Singh v. State of UP, the UP Police Regulations conferred surveillance power upon certain “history sheeters” – that is, those charged (though not necessarily convicted) of a crime. These surveillance powers included secret picketing of the suspect’s house, domiciliary visits at night, enquiries into his habits and associations, and reporting and verifying his movements. These were challenged on Article 19(1)(d) (freedom of movement) and Article 21 (personal liberty) grounds. It is the second ground that particularly concerns us.

As a preliminary matter, we may observe that the Regulations in question were administrative – that is, they did not constitute a “law”, passed by the legislature. This automatically ruled out a 19(2) – 19(6) defence, and a 21 “procedure established by law” defence – which were only applicable when the State made a law. The reason for this is obvious: fundamental rights are extremely important. If one is to limit them, then that judgment must be made by a competent legislature, acting through the proper, deliberative channels of lawmaking – and not by mere administrative or executive action. Consequently – and this is quite apart from the question of administrative/executive competence - if the Police Regulations were found to violate Article 19 or Article 21, that made them ipso facto void, without the exceptions kicking in. (Paragraph 5)

It is also important to note one other thing: as a defence, it was expressly argued by the State that the police action was reasonable and in the interests of maintaining public order precisely because it was “directed only against those who were on proper grounds suspected to be of proved anti-social habits and tendencies and on whom it was necessary to impose some restraints for the protection of society.” The Court agreed, observing that this would have “an overwhelming and even decisive weight in establishing that the classification was rational and that the restrictions were reasonable and designed to preserve public order by suitable preventive action” – if there had been a law in the first place, which there wasn’t. Thus, this issue itself was hypothetical, but what is crucial to note is that the State argued – and the Court endorsed – the basic idea that what makes surveillance reasonable under Article 19 is the very fact that it is targeted – targeted at individuals who are specifically suspected of being a threat to society because of a history of criminality.

Let us now move to the merits. The Court upheld secret picketing on the ground that it could not affect the petitioner’s freedom of movement since it was, well secret – and what you don’t know, apparently, cannot hurt you. What the Court found fault with was the intrusion into the petitioner’s dwelling, and knocking at his door late at night to wake him up. The finding required the Court to interpret the meaning of the term “personal liberty” in Article 21. By contrasting the very specific rights listed in Article 21, the Court held that:

“Is then the word “personal liberty” to be construed as excluding from its purview an invasion on the part of the police of the sanctity of a man’s home and an intrusion into his personal security and his right to sleep which is the normal comfort and a dire necessity for human existence even as an animal? It might not be inappropriate to refer here to the words of the preamble to the Constitution that it is designed to “assure the dignity of the individual” and therefore of those cherished human value as the means of ensuring his full development and evolution. We are referring to these objectives of the framers merely to draw attention to the concepts underlying the constitution which would point to such vital words as “personal liberty” having to be construed in a reasonable manner and to be attributed that these which would promote and achieve those objectives and by no means to stretch the meaning of the phrase to square with any preconceived notions or doctrinaire constitutional theories.” (Paragraph 16)

A few important observations need to be made about this paragraph. The first is that it immediately follows the Court’s examination of the American Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, with their guarantees of “life, liberty and property…” and is, in turn, followed by the Court’s examination of the American Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the protection of a person’s houses, papers, effects etc from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Court’s engagement with the Fourth Amendment is ambiguous. It admits that “our Constitution contains no like guarantee…”, but holds that nonetheless “these extracts [from the 1949 case, Wolf v Colorado] would show that an unauthorised intrusion into a person’s home and the disturbance caused to him thereby, is as it were the violation of a common law right of a man – an ultimate essential of ordered liberty”, thus tying its own holding in some way to the American Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. But here’s the crucial thing: at this point, American Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was propertarian based – that is, the Fourth Amendment was understood to codify – with added protection – the common law of trespass, whereby a man’s property was held sacrosanct, and not open to be trespassed against. Four years later, in 1967, in Katz, the Supreme Court would shift its own jurisprudence, to holding that the Fourth Amendment protected zones where persons had a “reasonable expectation of privacy”, as opposed to simply protecting listed items of property (homes, papers, effects etc). Kharak Singh was handed down before Katz. Yet the quoted paragraph expressly shows that the Court anticipated Katz, and in expressly grounding the Article 21 personal liberty right within the meaning of dignity, utterly rejected the propertarian-tresspass foundations that it might have had. To use a phrase invoked by later Courts – in this proto-privacy case, the Court already set the tone by holding it to attach to persons, not places.

While effectively finding a right to privacy in the Constitution, the Court expressly declined to frame it that way. In examining police action which involved tracking a person’s location, association and movements, the Court upheld it, holding that “the right of privacy is not a guaranteed right under our Constitution and therefore the attempt to ascertain the movements of an individual which is merely a manner in which privacy is invaded is not an infringement of a fundamental right guaranteed by Part III.”

The “therefore” is crucial. Although not expressly, the Court virtually holds, in terms, that tracking location, association and movements does violate privacy, and only finds that constitutional because there is no guaranteed right to privacy within the Constitution. Yet.

In his partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion, Subba Rao J. went one further, by holding that the idea of privacy was, in fact, contained within the meaning of Article 21: “it is true our Constitution does not expressly declare a right to privacy as a fundamental right, but the said right is an essential ingredient of personal liberty.” Privacy he defined as the right to “be free from restrictions or encroachments on his person, whether those restrictions or encroachments are directly imposed or indirectly brought about by calculated measures.” On this ground, he held all the surveillance measures unconstitutional.

Justice Subba Rao’s opinion also explored a proto-version of the chilling effect. Placing specific attention upon the word “freely” contained within 19(1)(d)’s guarantee of free movment, Justice Subba Rao went specifically against the majority, and observed:

“The freedom of movement in clause (d) therefore must be a movement in a free country, i.e., in a country where he can do whatever he likes, speak to whomsoever he wants, meet people of his own choice without any apprehension, subject of course to the law of social control. The petitioner under the shadow of surveillance is certainly deprived of this freedom. He can move physically, but he cannot do so freely, for all his activities are watched and noted. The shroud of surveillance cast upon him perforce engender inhibitions in him and he cannot act freely as he would like to do. We would, therefore, hold that the entire Regulation 236 offends also Art. 19(1)(d) of the Constitution.”

This early case, therefore, has all the aspects that plague the CMS today. What to do with administrative action that does not have the sanction of law? What role does targeting play in reasonableness – assuming there is a law? What is the philosophical basis for the implicit right to privacy within the meaning of Article 21’s guarantee of personal liberty? And is the chilling effect a valid constitutional concern?

We shall continue with the development of the jurisprudence in the next post.

You can follow Gautam Bhatia on Twitter

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-1

Misuse of Surveillance Powers in India (Case 1)

pranesh — 2013-12-06T09:37:24Z

In this series of blog posts, Pranesh Prakash looks at a brief history of misuse of surveillance powers in India. He notes that the government's surveillance powers have been freqently misused, very often without any kind of judicial or political redressal. This, he argues, should lead us as concerned citizens to demand a scaling down of the government's surveillance powers and pass laws to put it place more robust oversight mechanisms.

Case 1: Unlawful Phone-tapping in Himachal Pradesh

In December 2012, the government changed in Himachal Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went out of power, and the Indian National Congress (INC) came into power. One of the first things that Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh did, within hours of taking his oath as Chief Minister on December 25, 2012, was to get a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate phone tapping during the BJP government’s tenure.

On December 25th and 26th, 12 hard disk drives were seized from the offices of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) and the Vigilance Department (which is supposed to be an oversight mechanism over the rest of the police). These hard disks showed that 1371¹ phone numbers were targetted and hundreds of thousands of phone conversations were recorded. These included conversations of prominent leaders “mainly of” the INC but also from the BJP, including three former cabinet ministers and close relatives of multiple chief ministers, a journalist, and many senior police officials, including the Director General of Police.

Violations of the Law

While the law required the state’s Home Secretary to grant permission for each person that was being tapped, the Home Secretary had legitimately only granted permission in 34² cases. This leaves over a thousand cases where phones were tapped illegally, in direct violation of the law. The oversight mechanism provided in the law, namely the Review Committee under Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, was utterly powerless to check this. Indeed, the internal checks for the police, namely the Vigilance Department, also seems to have failed spectacularly.

Every private telecom company cooperated in this unlawful surveillance, even though the people who were conducting it did so without proper legal authority. Clearly we need to revise our interception rules to ensure that these telecom companies do not cooperate unless they are served with an order digitally signed by the Home Secretary.

While all interception recordings are required to be destroyed within 6 months as per Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, that rule was also evidently ignored and conversations going back to 2009 were being stored.

Concluding Concerns

What should concern us is not merely that such a large number of politicians/police officers were tapped, but that no criminal charges were brought about on the basis of these phone taps, indicating that much of it was being used for political purposes.

What should concern us is that the requirement under Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, which covers phone taps, of the existence of a “public emergency” or endangerment of “public safety”, which is a prerequisite of phone taps as per the law and as emphasised by the Supreme Court in 1996 in the PUCL judgment, were blatantly ignored.

What should concern us is that it took a change in government to actually uncover this sordid tale.

1385 according to a Hindustan Times report [1]: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/himachal-pradesh-police-registers-first-fir-in-phone-tapping-scandal/1/285698.html↩
A Zee News report states 34 while it’s 171 according to a Mail Today report ↩

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/misuse-surveillance-powers-india-case1

Tweets from Bali IGF 2013

pranesh — 2013-10-28T09:09:16Z

CIS is logging all tweets with the words "igf2013", "igf13", "igf", "bestbits", and "genderit" during the Intenet Governance Forum going on in the Bali this week, and making it available in downloadable files.

To enable research by those who don't want to mess around with Twitter's APIs, we are making available CSV files available to the general public. These files can be opened up in any spreadsheet software (including web-based ones), or even in a text editor.

These files will be updated with the latest version at the end of each evening in Bali.

If you have any ideas as to other keywords we should capture, or about visualizations that we should engage in, do get in touch with pranesh AT cis-india DOT org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tweets-from-igf2013

Tweets with "BestBits"

pranesh — 2013-10-28T08:46:54Z

Tweets with "BestBits".

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/20131021T092108_bestbits

Tweets with "IGF13"

pranesh — 2013-10-28T06:29:42Z

Tweets with "IGF13".

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/20131021T090102_igf13

Tweets with "IGF2013"

pranesh — 2013-10-28T06:37:58Z

Tweets with "IGF2013".

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/20131021T090102_igf2013