All posts in Statements

PS. For time management reasons, I will be neither reading nor replying to email from Tuesday to Thursday of this week. Apologies in advance for any inconvenience.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals from around the world, committed to the development of the Internet and its use for advancing social and economic justice, would like to express our strong support for the statement delivered this week by your Excellency at the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. We commend you for taking a leading role on these issues and would like to:

1. Fully endorse the five principles enunciated on the occasion, in clear accordance with the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee’s Principles for the Governance and Use of the Internet.
2. Stress the importance of the timely adoption of the Brazilian Draft Bill of Internet Rights (Marco Civil da Internet) in a way that upholds these principles and endorses the innovative and democratic process in which it was conceived.
3. Commend the courage of Brazil in expressing disapproval and demanding explanations from the USA about the procedures of illegal interception of information and data, framing it as a grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties
4. Reinforce our support for an extension into broader spheres of Internet Governance of the experiences from the Brazilian multistakeholder model of Internet governance, led by CGI.br.

We express our deep appreciation for your serious commitment to social justice and development, of which an open, stable, and reliable Internet is a fundamental pillar.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Nous écrivons en tant que coalition d’organisations de la société civile du monde entier pour exprimer notre sérieuse inquiétude au sujet de révélations concernant la surveillance des communications Internet et téléphone de citoyens US et non-US par le gouvernement des États-Unis. Nous tenons également à exprimer notre profonde préoccupation du fait que les autorités des États-Unis ont pu rendre les données résultant de ces activités de surveillance disponibles pour d’autres États, dont le Royaume-Uni, les Pays-Bas, le Canada, la Belgique, l’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande [1]. De nombreuses entreprises Internet à portée mondiale basées aux États-Unis semblent également prendre part à ces pratiques [2].

La mise en place de mécanismes de surveillance au cœur de communications numériques mondiales menace gravement les droits humains à l’ère numérique. Ces nouvelles formes de pouvoir décentralisé reflètent des changements fondamentaux dans la structure des systèmes d’information des sociétés modernes [3]. Toute démarche en ce sens doit être analysée lors de débats larges, profonds et transparents. La violation par un gouvernement des droits humains de citoyens, qu’ils soient de leur propre pays ou de l’étranger, est inacceptable. Rendre impossible à un citoyen de communiquer ses opinions sans surveillance par un État étranger, non seulement viole les droits à la vie privée et de la dignité humaine, mais menace également les droits fondamentaux à la liberté de pensée, d’opinion et d’expression et d’association qui sont au centre de toute pratique démocratique. Ces actions sont inacceptables et soulèvent de sérieuses préoccupations au sujet de violations extraterritoriales des droits humains. L’impossibilité pour des citoyens de savoir s’ils sont soumis à une surveillance étrangère, de contester une telle surveillance ou d’exercer des recours est encore plus alarmante [4].

La contradiction entre l’affirmation persistante des droits humains en ligne par le gouvernement des États-Unis et les récentes allégations de ce qui semble être de la surveillance massive, par ce même gouvernement, de citoyens US et non-US est très inquiétante et entraîne des répercussions négatives sur la scène mondiale. Il semble qu’il y ait un mépris flagrant et systématique des droits humains énoncés dans les articles 17 et 19 du Pacte international relatif aux droits civils et politiques (PIDCP), dont les États-Unis sont signataires, ainsi que dans les articles 12 et 19 de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme. Gardant à l’esprit que les États-Unis doivent depuis longtemps s’engager dans une discussion sur la façon de mettre à jour et moderniser leur politique afin de s’aligner sur leurs propres documents et principes fondateurs, ce qui arrivera ensuite dans la supervision du législatif et de l’exécutif aux États-Unis aura des conséquences énormes et irréversibles pour la promotion et la protection des droits humains chez tous les peuples du monde.

Il faut aussi noter que le gouvernement des États-Unis a appuyé la résolution 20/8 du Conseil des droits humains des Nations Unies, qui affirme que « les droits dont les personnes jouissent hors ligne doivent également être protégés en ligne, en particulier le droit de toute personne à la liberté d’expression » [5] et, il y a quelques jours, le 10 juin, les États-Unis faisaient partie d’un groupe restreint de pays qui ont rédigé une déclaration interrégionale, qui a souligné à juste titre que « tout traitement de problèmes de sécurité sur Internet doit se faire d’une manière compatible avec les obligations des États au regard du droit international des droits de l’homme et le plein respect des droits de l’homme doit être sauvegardé » [6]. Ce n’était apparemment pas le cas des pratiques récentes du gouvernement des États-Unis. Outre qu’elle représente une violation majeure des droits humains fondamentaux des personnes dans le monde, l’incohérence entre les pratiques et les déclarations publiques des États-Unis sape également la crédibilité morale du pays au sein de la communauté mondiale qui se bat pour les droits humains, tels qu’ils s’appliquent à l’Internet et brise la confiance des consommateurs envers tous les Américains qui fournissent des services mondiaux.

Le 10 juin 2013, de nombreux signataires de cette lettre se sont réunis pour exprimer nos préoccupations au Conseil des droits de l’homme des Nations Unies [7]. Nous l’avons fait dans le contexte du récent rapport du Rapporteur spécial de l’ONU sur le droit à la liberté d’opinion et d’expression, M. Frank La Rue [8]. Ce rapport expose en détails des tendances inquiétantes dans la surveillance étatique des communications qui entraînent de graves conséquences pour l’exercice des droits humains à la vie privée et à la liberté d’opinion et d’expression. Nous notons que les parties prenantes états-uniennes ont également écrit une lettre au Congrès pour exprimer leurs préoccupations au sujet de la conformité du programme national de surveillance en cours avec la loi domestique [9].

Nous sommes également extrêmement déçus que, dans toutes les déclarations concernant les « divulgations » de courrier, les autorités US ont seulement insisté sur le fait qu’il n’y avait pas d’accès au contenu concernant des citoyens US, et que seules les métadonnées ont été recueillies. Il n’y a pas eu un mot sur la question de l’accès à grande échelle aux contenus concernant des citoyens non US, ce qui constitue une violation quasi certaine des droits humains. La focalisation des autorités US sur la différence entre le traitement des citoyens US et non-citoyens sur une question qui se rapporte essentiellement à la violation des droits de l’homme est très problématique. Les droits humains sont universels, et tous les gouvernements doivent s’abstenir de les violer pour toutes les personnes, et pas seulement pour ses citoyens. Nous préconisons fortement que les dispositions juridiques et les pratiques actuelles et à venir prennent en compte ce fait correctement.

Nous demandons donc instamment à l’administration Obama et au Congrès des États-Unis de prendre des mesures immédiates pour démanteler les systèmes existants de surveillance mondiale par l’Internet et les télécommunications et empêcher leur création à l’avenir. Nous demandons en outre à l’administration US, au FBI et au Procureur général d’autoriser les entreprises impliquées ou concernées à publier des statistiques concernant les demandes de renseignements, passées et futures, invoquant la Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), qu’ils ont reçues ou pourront recevoir [10]. Nous appelons en outre le Congrès américain à établir des protections pour les lanceurs d’alertes envers le gouvernement afin de mieux s’assurer que le public soit suffisamment informé sur les abus de pouvoir qui violent les droits fondamentaux des citoyens de tous les pays, États-Unis et les autres [11]. Nous nous joignons également à Human Rights Watch pour demander instamment la création d’un comité indépendant avec pouvoir d’assignation et toutes les garanties de sûreté nécessaires pour examiner les pratiques actuelles et formuler des recommandations afin d’assurer des protections appropriées aux droits à la vie privée, à la liberté d’expression et d’association. Les résultats de ce comité devraient être largement publiées.

Texte en anglais sur le site Best Bits

[1] ↑ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0873f38-d1c5-11e2-9336-00144feab7de.html, https://www.bof.nl/2013/06/11/bits-of-freedom-dutch-spooks-must-stop-use-of-prism/ and http://www.standaard.be/cnt/DMF20130610_063.
[2] ↑ Incluant Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube et Apple: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
[3] ↑ http://www.state.gov/statecraft/overview/
[4] ↑ (A/HRC/23/40)
[5] ↑ http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/20/8
[6] ↑ http://geneva.usmission.gov/2013/06/10/internet-freedom-5/
[7] ↑ http://bestbits.net/prism-nsa
[8] ↑ (A/HRC/23/40)
[9] ↑ Demandant au gouvernement des États-Unis d’autoriser Google à publier davantage de statistiques concernant les requêtes de sécurité nationale
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html
[10] ↑ https://www.stopwatching.us/
[11] ↑ Le texte qui vient d’être publié dont le titre est Principes généraux sur la sécurité nationale et la liberté d’information (les principes de Tshwane) qui concerne les lanceurs d’alerte et la sécurité nationale fournit une référence pertinente à ce sujet :
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Principles%20on%20National%20Security%20and%20the%20Right%20to%20Information%20%28Tshwane%20Principles%29%20-%20June%202013.pdf.

We express strong concern over recent revelations of surveillance of internet and telephone communications of US and non-US nationals by the government of the United States of America and the fact that US authorities makes the results of that surveillance available to other governments such as the United Kingdom. Of equal concern is the indication of apparent complicity of some US-based Internet companies with global reach.¹ These revelations suggest a blatant and systematic disregard for human rights as articulated in Articles 17 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), as well as Articles 12 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Just last year the Council unanimously adopted Resolution 20/8, which “Affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression …”² But during this session the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue, reported (A/HRC/23/40) worrying new trends in state surveillance of communications with serious implications for the exercise of the human rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression. The Special Rapporteur notes that inadequate and non-existent legal frameworks “create a fertile ground for arbitrary and unlawful infringements of the right to privacy in communications and, consequently, also threaten the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression”.³

The application of surveillance mechanisms to the heart of global digital communications drastically threatens the protection of human rights in the digital age. As Frank La Rue notes in reference to such actions: “This raises serious concern with regard to the extra-territorial commission of human rights violations and the inability of individuals to know that they might be subject to foreign surveillance, challenge decisions with respect to foreign surveillance, or seek remedies.” This recent case is an example of human rights violations specifically relevant to the Internet, and one foreshadowed in the Council’s 2012 Expert Panel on Freedom of Expression and the Internet.

We call for protection of those who have made these violations public. As Mr La Rue notes, laws “must not be used to target whistleblowers … nor should they hamper the legitimate oversight of government action by citizens. “We urge States protect those whistleblowers involved in this case and to support their efforts to combat violations of the fundamental human rights of all global citizens. Whistleblowers play a critical role in promoting transparency and upholding the human rights of all.

We call on the Human Rights Council to act swiftly to prevent the creation of a global Internet based surveillance system by:

1. convening a special session to examine this case
2. supporting a multistakeholder process to implement the recommendation of Mr La Rue that the Human Rights Committee develop a new General Comment 16 on the right to privacy in light of technological advancements, and,
3. requesting the High Commissioner to prepare a report that:
   1. formally asks states to report on practices and laws in place on surveillance and what corrective steps will they will take to meet human rights standards, and,
   2. examines the implications of this case in in the light of the Human Rights Council endorsed United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework of A/HRC/RES/17/4.

[1] Such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. From http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
[2] http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/20/8
[3] http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A.HRC.23.40_EN.pdf

We acknowledge the outcome of the World Telecommunication Policy Forum, which resulted in the adoption of six opinions that may begin to address some important goals to foster an environment that facilitates and encourages the usage of ICTs, in particular the opinions that focus on enabling environment for greater growth and development of broadband connectivity; supporting capacity building for deployment of IPv6; supporting the multi-stakeholder approach in Internet Governance and operationalizing processes for enhanced cooperation.

We commend the steps taken by the ITU to show more openness and inclusiveness in the WTPF process through the Informal Experts Group. We believe that the multistakeholder nature of the IEG meetings and the willingness of all stakeholders to work together, contributed to bringing about the credible texts that were forwarded to the WTPF.

Nevertheless, more steps need to be taken to meet the goal of an open, transparent, and multistakeholder debate, both in terms of openness and of establishing a clear and transparent process for participation.

We believe that as a next step towards greater multistakeholder participation in the ITU the IEG model should be carried forward into the ITU’s work more generally. As such we welcome the commitment by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré to propose that the Council Working Group on International Internet-Related Public Policy Issues (CWG-Internet) “be open to all stakeholders in the [same] format” as the IEG. We encourage him to carry out his commitment and for Member States to give ample consideration to this important step and to the advantages it would lend to the work of CWG-Internet.

Opening up CWG-Internet is supported by many Member States of the ITU. We note the contribution of the United States of America (C13/69-E), which proposes modifications to Council Resolutions 1336 and 1344, to open CWG-Internet, enabling participation by all stakeholders, conducting meetings and deliberations in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner, and ensuring that documents are freely accessible. We also note the contributions of Sweden (C13/70-E and C13/71-E), which propose making all documentation available in relation to CWG-Internet and Plenipotentiary 2014.

We support and encourage these proposals for opening CWG-Internet (which, we argue, should extend also to other ITU bodies that consider Internet-related public policy issues), to achieve open, transparent, and multistakeholder processes. However, we firmly believe that the ITU should continue to coordinate its work with that of relevant multistakeholder Internet governance bodies rather than attempt to duplicate their functions.

But opening doors for more stakeholders to attend meetings is not sufficient. Multistakeholderism has been used with a variety of meanings, sometimes only referring to a very limited kind of openness and consultation. If the goal is to achieve an open, inclusive and participatory debate, some processes should be improved to maximize a meaningful civil society participation.

In that sense, we observe that the modalities of participation and contribution in the IEG and WTPF were not clear, and should be improved upon.

• Civil society was invited to join late in the process just before the final IEG meeting. Therefore, contributions from members of the IEG with a civil society background were limited to the final IEG meeting. Additionally, because of the late notice, only a few members from civil society were able to join, and in fact only one person was able to attend in person. In part, this was a result of the absence of financial means to support participation by civil society recognizing that civil society in these contexts has no external means of financial support.
• Information docs from IEG members who were not members of the ITU were not considered for debate at the WTPF as they should have been in a truly inclusive process.
• Members of civil society who did not join the IEG (for the above mentioned reasons) were not able to even submit information documents for the meeting. Amongst the documents that could not be submitted was a statement endorsed by 39 civil society groups and individuals from all regions at http://bestbits.net/wtpf-2013/.
• It was not clear that only IEG members would have participation rights at the WTPF, otherwise others may have joined.

Had these modalities been clearer we could have anticipated more participation from all stakeholders around the world.

In order to improve multistakeholder participation we recommend:

• Outlining clear procedures for inviting stakeholders to Council Working Groups, at least 90 days prior to the relevant meeting dates.
• Issuing clear procedures for all the stakeholders to submit official documents for consideration.
• Establishing mechanisms for remote participation, allowing not only remote participants to follow the debate, but also to request the floor.

But even improving multistakeholder processes within its structure, we would like to recall that the ITU should continue to coordinate its work with that of relevant multistakeholder Internet governance bodies, taking advantage of those bodies’ expertise and not attempting to duplicate their functions. These bodies include those devoted to technical issues (such as ICANN, the IETF and the RIRs) and those dealing primarily with non-technical issues (such as the Internet Governance Forum).

For all these processes, civil society can be a valuable and important stakeholder in its own right, and we stand willing and able to participate.

Background

At last week’s World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF), a proposed opinion was tabled by  Brazil on Operationalizing the role of Government in the multi-stakeholder framework for Internet Governance.  In an earlier form discussed at the ITU’s Informal Experts Group (IEG) the proposal had not reached consensus. An initial consideration of the text by the relevant committee  requested that it be reworked. By May 16, a  revised  version of the proposal was tabled at the WTPF. This revised text drew broader interest and support. However, it was not adopted. There was relative consensus, though, that the text be maintained under consideration and discussion in various other Internet-Governance related fora.

The Chair proposed that the opinion could be considered at the Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet) and thence taken to the ITU Council for approval.  The CWG-Internet is a government-only group which meets in closed sessions, although with open consultations.  The discussion of the proposal in such a setting would, therefore, not be multistakeholder, unless the CWG-Internet were significantly reformed and opened to all stakeholders on an equal footing.

There is a CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation with multi-stakeholder participation, which could consider the issues raised in the opinion, but some member states objected that they are not participants in that Working Group. A third proposal was that the opinion could be discussed at the IGF.  But a number of governments resisted this suggestion on the ground that the IGF does not produce outputs, and the topic was considered of such importance that there should be a formal output document reflecting a set of agreed conclusions on that topic.

The purpose of this note is to suggest a way forward, whereby the IGF could step up and meet the unmet need for a multistakeholder forum for work on the draft opinion from Brazil, through a new pilot process that aims to produce a non-binding output document, that governments and other stakeholders alike could choose to support.

The question of outputs from the IGF

The fact that the IGF does not produce outputs has been supported by some and criticised by others. Those who support this have often expressed concern that the pressure to produce outputs could stifle the free exchange of views, and that in any case there are no mechanisms for the IGF to produce such outputs. (It should be noted that for the most part that those who are concerned by outputs think of them only in terms of formal outputs by States.) Those who criticise it point out that the IGF’s mandate specifies that it should be able to make recommendations on emerging issues where appropriate, and that its lack of mechanisms to produce such outputs flows from choices made when defining its structure and processes, which according to the Tunis Agenda should be “subject to periodic review” as the IGF continues to evolve to meet the needs of its multistakeholder community.

Indeed, in 2010 the UN Secretary-General acknowledged the perception “that the IGF had not provided concrete advice to intergovernmental bodies and other entities involved in Internet governance”, and “that the contribution of the IGF to public policy-making is difficult to assess and appears to be weak”. When the General Assembly renewed the IGF’s mandate the following year, it did so “recognizing at the same time the need to improve it, with a view to linking it to the broader dialogue on global Internet governance”. The task of recommending such improvements fell to a CSTD Working Group, which suggested that the IGF should “develop more tangible outputs”. One of such was to be  a set of policy questions which  should be asked at each meeting, and whose “results  … should be stated in the outcome documentation”.

This note proposes a mechanism for beginning to implement the CSTD Working Group’s recommendation, in a deliberately modest way that does not require substantial structural reforms to the IGF, nor the expansion of its agreed mandate.  The Tunis Agenda defines Internet governance to include the development by all stakeholders of shared decision-making procedures, so it is only appropriate that the IGF be bold enough to experiment with the development and documentation of such procedures.  No experiment is guaranteed of success, but from its results, we can learn and continue to refine the multistakeholder model of governance. This is not proposed as a broad-based solution to address a range of policy issues, but as a response to this particular call for the Brazilian opinion to be discussed various other fora.

Multistakeholder opinions process

The production of a multistakeholder opinion at the IGF could work as follows:

• Post the existing draft text on “Operationalizing the role of Government in the multi-stakeholder framework for Internet Governance” as proposed by Brazil to a dedicated official IGF website that would enable paragraph-level comments to be added by registered users from all stakeholder groups.
• Encourage stakeholders to discuss the proposal and the paragraph-level comments on diverse Internet mailing lists and Web fora, including existing lists maintained by stakeholders such as ISOC and the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, and a multistakeholder list to be maintained by the the IGF Secretariat.  Invitations to known discussion fora would be sent out to ensure wide-spread input.
• Encourage regional IGF meetings that are held between now and the global IGF to hold workshops on the draft text to gather feedback and suggestions, that would be summarised and submitted to the global IGF in writing.  Links to these submitted reports would be included on the IGF website alongside the draft text.
• Compile submissions and comments into a concise background paper by a multistakeholder working group of the IGF MAG. The background paper would seek to define and group areas of agreement and areas of difference around each paragraph of the draft opinion.
• Dedicate at least a session at the global IGF, or perhaps as pre-session to the IGF, for development of a multistakeholder opinion based on the draft text.  A speaker from Brazil and representatives  from the other stakeholder groups  would be invited to speak.
• Dedicate another session for interactive editing of “disagreed” text. The room would be separated into groups, to which participants would be assigned randomly, with neutral facilitators.  One group would also be connected to remote participants. Each group would be tasked with addressing one point of disagreement over the draft text, with the aim of either reaching a view on one side or other of the disagreement, or proposing a compromise.
• Appoint a moderator of the sessions who would compile the outputs from the groups into a new composite text.
• The session would aim to reach a rough consensus amongst its participants as assessed by the chair, but if a consensus of all participants cannot be reached, the chair could decide either to close the text in the form that has been most broadly agreed, or not to close the text, in which case in lieu thereof a report of the session would be prepared recording the points on which there were agreement and disagreement.
• The output of this process would be discussed in the Taking Stock session, with an invitation extended to all participants to sign onto the opinion.
• Any such opinion text would not be binding, and would not be described as a multistakeholder opinion of the IGF, but a multistakeholder opinion developed at the IGF as an input to further discussions in other venues.  The IGF Secretariat would maintain a register of those who have endorsed the opinion.