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In a year when the confidence of Internet users in the Internet governance status quo was shattered by revelations of systematic and indiscriminate governance surveillance, there is a greater need than ever before for civil society organisations engaged on Internet governance and Internet rights freedom issues to come together to share and strategise. The 2013 meeting of the Best Bits network will address key issues at the intersection of Internet policy and human rights, for direct application over the next twelve months.
Through the shared outputs of this meeting and the indirect benefits of participation, we expect to empower civil society organisations and individual activists to create more informed, effective, inclusive and complementary advocacy outcomes, in which the public interest is better reflected in high-level policy discussions and in the outputs that these discussions produce. The meeting will also place Best Bits itself on a firmer institutional footing, in order to enhance its legitimacy as a broad-based civil society advocacy network and improve its long-term sustainability.
- To raise the level of shared understanding about related groups, initiatives and issues and their political contexts.
- To broaden and diversify participation in the initiatives that participants are undertaking individually or in smaller networks (in particular dissolving North-South divides).
- To amplify the voice of civil society at upcoming multilateral Internet governance and Internet rights meetings.
- To produce tangible shared outputs addressing pressing current issues that can be used in advocacy at important upcoming Internet governance and Internet rights events.
- Development of an inclusive and sustainable civil society network for Internet governance and Internet rights issues.
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Global Internet governance principles, enhanced cooperation and the IGF
Facilitators: Parminder Jeet Singh and Joy Liddicoat
- What is multi-stakeholderism?
- Stock-taking of current efforts to compile and explicate high-level Internet policy principles at the IGF and the OECD.
- Reporting to and from the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation.
- Developing a shared civil society position on the evolution of Internet governance arrangements at the global level.
- Priorities for civil society input to particular sessions of the 2013 IGF.
- IGF plus – how an IGF with powers to make soft law recommendations would work in a multi-stakeholder environment.
- Sustainability of the IGF – protecting it from corporate capture, finding a sustainable funding model, reaching out to powerful allies.
- Issues for developing countries access and national internet governance processes, capacity building and best practice among others.
Output: Further submission to the CSTD Working Group on model/s for a new enhanced cooperation framework or mechanism.
Output: Statement to the IGF, MAG, UNDESA, etc about the imperative of addressing funding consistency and transparency and other issues related to the future of the IGF.
Lunch and networking break
The ITU and the WSIS+10 process
Facilitators: Joana Varon Ferraz and Matthew Shears
- Clearinghouse on Internet governance fora including ITU Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues, Internet Freedom Coalition, London-Budapest-Seoul Conference on Cyberspace.
- Engagement with the ITU’s Council Working Group on Internet Governance.
- Visualisation of Internet governance processes towards WSIS+10.
- What next for the Brazilian proposal on operationalising the role of governments in Internet governance.
- Civil society participation and substantive issues for the ITU Plenipotentiary 2014.
- Civil society participation and substantive issues for the WSIS+10 review and the Multistakeholder Preparatory Platform.
Output: (Draft) BB action plan/ strategy for ITU PP and WSIS+10 (or other processes, depending on what the group decides is important). To start with, what are our joint priorities and goals for each process? What counts as a ‘win’ and what counts as a ‘loss’ (what are our red lines)? This can be done both in terms of process and substance.
Output: Setting up task forces based on this action plan and processes by which they would operate in context of the larger BB network.
State surveillance and human rights
Facilitators: Andrew Puddephatt and Deborah Brown
- Updates on the interventions made so far to the Human Rights Council, US Congress and PCLOB.
- International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance.
- Implications of trends in the range of invasive and threatening actions being taken by diverse governments and then at the strategies for civil society to respond.
- Strategising around pressure points for governments, civil society support for whistleblowers, maintaining public rage.
- Calling on technology companies to embed “human rights defaults” into their technology.
- Working business models or proof of concepts that can present an alternative to big company commodity services like email or
social networking. - How competition and consumer protection laws can promote freedom of expression, access to knowledge and privacy.
Output: Action plan for next intervention.
Lunch and networking break
Best Bits
Facilitator: Jeremy Malcolm and Anja Kovacs
- What are our goals – short presentation and discussion.
- What are the most appropriate structures to accomplish these goals? (Do we require a charter? A steering committee? Incorporation? What level of transparency? How do we interact with other groups?)
- What funding is required to support this, and how, and by whom, should we go about raising it?
- What procedures should we set in place for selecting a steering committee, producing statements, creating working group mailing lists, nominating stakeholder representatives, hosting a Best Bits side-meeting, hosting a Best Bits multi-stakeholder workshop?
- Relationship with other networks and coalitions – presentation from Web We Want
- Launch and demonstration of new website features.
Output: Draft statements of goals and procedures.
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To register, click RSVP above.
Background papers
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Reports
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