On 4 jan 2013, at 01:59, Tony Hain <alh-ietf(_at_)tndh(_dot_)net> wrote:
Like it or not, governments are fundamentally opposed to the open nature of
'the Internet', and they always will be (even the 'reasonable' ones).
Because I do not think generalization is really a reasonable thing to do, and
even dangerous when discussing governance issues, I disagree with this
statement.
Governments want just like businesses success in whatever they do. That can in
general be divided in two wishes. Short term, in the form of being re-elected
(or not thrown out of their office) and long term, as in growth of the revenue
of the country they govern.
They of course have pieces of their operation that belong to law enforcement
agencies, but they also have those that are responsible of finding rules so
that non-public sector can grow (to later increase for example tax revenue).
Because of this, I encourage people to not generalize per stakeholder group,
but instead acknowledge that there are different *forces* that are orthogonal
to each other, and calculating "the correct" balance between them is hard. Or
rather, different people do for different reasons get different results when
calculating what the for them proper balance is.
That is why I personally am against generalization that a stakeholder group
have one specific view.
Specifically governments.
If when pushed to be forced to choose between two choices *all* governments
wanted to have control, we would have had many more governments signing the
proposed treaty that was on the table in Dubai.
Instead, when being forced to choose, they picked openness and multi
stakeholder bottom up processes.
Just like what happened earlier during 2012 when in A/HRC/20/L.13 UN(*)
concluded (<http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/19/64/51/6999c512.pdf>:
1. Affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be
protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable
regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice, in accordance
with articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
2. Recognizes the global and open nature of the Internet as a driving force
in accelerating progress towards development in its various forms;
3. Calls upon all States to promote and facilitate access to the Internet and
international cooperation aimed at the development of media and information
and communications facilities in all countries;
4. Encourages special procedures to take these issues into account within
their existing mandates, as applicable;
5. Decides to continue its consideration of the promotion, protection and
enjoyment of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, on
the Internet and in other technologies, as well as of how the Internet can be
an important tool for development and for exercising human rights, in
accordance with its programme of work.
Patrik
(*) Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia
(Plurinational State of), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,
Chile, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Djibouti, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala,
Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Libya,
Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico,
Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Palestine, Peru,
Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Moldova, Republic of Korea, Romania,
Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, Spain, Sweden, the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America and Uruguay)