LibrarianActivist.org

This week’s episode of Spark on the CBC gives an interview with Ron Deibert who runs the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. His digital wishlist for the Canadian election is available as a video and can be summarized in three excellent points:

1. An elected government should ensure net neutrality
2. An elected government should protect the Internet internationally to ensure free, unfettered access to information in all countries
3. An elected government should support technological innovations that have goals other than those of making money (or those that follow the market rationale). For example, technological innovations that can support human rights.

Ron Deibert says that the Internet is a shared global communication medium but it’s being “carved up, colonized, and militarized” and an elected government in Canada should do all it can to stop this.

In June, the OECD had a Ministerial Conference on the Future of the Internet Economy. They published a report which is intended to help countries shape policies concerning the Internet economy. The themes that are addressed are the following:

• Making Internet access available to everyone and everywhere.
• Promoting Internet-based innovation, competition and user choice.
• Securing critical information infrastructures and responding to new threats.
• Ensuring the protection of personal information, respect for intellectual property rights, and more generally a trusted Internet-based environment which offers protection to individuals, especially minors and other vulnerable groups.
• Promoting secure and responsible use of the Internet; and,
• Creating an environment that encourages infrastructure investment, higher levels of connectivity and innovative services and applications.

There were some positive policy suggestions that were made, such as:

• Promote a culture of openness and sharing of research data among public research communities.
• Raise awareness of the potential costs and benefits of restrictions and limitations on access to and sharing of research data from public funding.

The OECD Civil Society Forum, comprised of the OECD Civil Society Reference Group and the The Trade Union Advisory Committee, produced a paper (and their own conference) intended to bring to the attention of the OECD Ministers assembled and the OECD member countries the concerns of those not represented at the Ministerial conference.

Their paper highlights the following:

The policy goals for the Future Internet Economy should be considered within the broader framework of protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, access to information, and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communication networks and services.

Their recommendations cover

• Freedom of expression
• Protection of Privacy and Transparency
• Consumer Protection
• Promotion of Access to Knowledge
• Internet Governance
• Promotion of Open Standards and Net Neutrality
• Balanced Intellectual Property Policies
• Support for Pluralistic Media

Thanks to a colleage at Culture Libre for letting me know about a free conference in Montréal by Brazil’s culture minister, and musician, Gilberto Gil. The conference, entitled Digital Culture: Re-inventing America’s New World Dream, will:

explore innovative policies and practices at the cutting edge of issues like copyright, digital culture and Internet rights. (…) Gil recently hosted the United Nations Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro (November 2007) where he called for the establishment of an international Internet Bill of Rights. ‘As a creator of music, he is widely known as a central player in the search for more flexible forms of distributing artistic works, Internet rights, free and open source software, and digital culture,’ (…)

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Friday, 15 February, at 6 p.m. at the Hotel Omni Mt-Royal (map).