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WG: Re: [IRP] FW: [URGENT] Internet Censorship in Venezuela. Bill on Social Responsibly of Internet service providers and electronic media + Creation of National Internet Exchange Point
by Wolf Ludwig Dec. 17, 2010

Dec. 17, 2010

Dear all, this is another alarming information from the IRP list from Ginger. May be our friends from LACRALO can follow-up on this. Kind regards, Wolf Ginger Paque wrote Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:06: > Hi Lisa and all, > > There are two troubling projects in current discussion in the Venezuelan parliament, the one Lisa mentions, and one seeking new Internet regulations. They are both likely to pass this week. These merit international review and discussion: > > After Legislative Setback, Venezuela's Chavez Plans to Legislate by Decree >http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=381328&CategoryId=10718 > Chavez announced that he will ask his lame-duck National Assembly (where he will lose his unchallenged majority on January 5) to pass an “Enabling Law” that will allow him to dictate by decree for 18 months -- bypassing the incoming Opposition legislators. ... > ... > In the next 165-member National Assembly, the ruling party will have the majority of lawmakers but not, as it has had up to now, the two-thirds majority necessary to approve organic laws or extraordinary measures such as granting special powers to the president. > > A Venezuelan newspaper account: Venezuelan govn't seeks media law to regulate the Internet >http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/12/10/en_pol_esp_venezuelan-govnt-se_10… > > Global Voices has a comment on the Resorte (Internet law) here, although it does not take into account yesterdays discussions: >http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2010/12/12/venezuela-law-for-interne… > > > > Ginger (Virginia) Paque > IGCBP Online Coordinator > DiploFoundation > www.diplomacy.edu/ig > > The latest from Diplo... > http://igbook.diplomacy.edu is the online companion to An Introduction to Internet Governance, Diplo's publication on IG. Download the book, read the blogs and post your comments. > > > On 12/16/2010 5:44 AM, Lisa Horner wrote: Hi all > > > > Please see below information about the worrying bills that have been presented in Venezuela. Is there anything we can do on this? > > > > Apologies for cross posting. > > > > All the best, > > Lisa > > > > From: Pedro Less Andrade [mailto:pedroless@google.com] > Sent: 15 December 2010 23:34 > To: Kurt Opsahl; <katitza(a)eff.org>; Sonja Gittens-Ottley; Sebastian Bellagamba; Raúl Echeberría; Alejandro Pisanty; OscarM; Cynthia Wong; Ruth Puente; Lisa Horner > Subject: Re: [URGENT] Internet Censorship in Venezuela. Bill on Social Responsibly of Internet service providers and electronic media + Creation of National Internet Exchange Point > > > > Hi all, > > > > The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its Office of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression just sent a press release today on the Venezuelan issue. > > http://www.cidh.oas.org/Comunicados/English/2010/122-10eng.htm > > http://www.cidh.oas.org/Comunicados/Spanish/2010/122-10sp.htm > > > > It has very good paragraphs on freedom of expression and Internet. > > > > Please, circulate this among your contacts and the Internet community. > > > Best, > > > > Pedro > > > > > > On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Pedro Less Andrade <pedroless(a)google.com> wrote: > > Dear all, > > > > You might heard about these two bills that are going to be debated at Venezuela National Assembly next Tuesday. Those represent a serious threat to free expression online. It will be interesting the possibility to have a strong coordinated response from the Internet Community. > > > > Please find below a report that I prepared about the two bills: > > > > On December 10, we learned about a two new attempts to censor Internet in Venezuela: > > > > 1. A new bill that will go to parliament next week to amend the Law of Social Responsibly for Radio and Television and adds special provisions for Internet service providers and electronic media. Please find the text of the bill here from the National Assembly website (also attached). The National Assembly scheduled the debate of the new bill for Tuesday December 14. > > > > 2. There is another bill to reform the National Organic Telecommunications Law. Section 212 of the bill established a National Internet Exchange Point (IPX or NAP). This will be a way for the government to have a centralized Internet point of access to the country an control the traffic get in and out of the country. Please find the bill here (also attached). > > > > Manuel Villalba, a lawmaker from President Hugo Chavez's Socialist Party, said the law was aimed at protecting citizens. > > "Nowhere is the restriction of access to the Internet suggested. There should just exist protection of citizens' moral and ethical honor," said Villalba, who heads the National Assembly's media commission. > > > > The bill allows the government to restrict access to websites if they are found to be distributing messages or information that incite violence against the president. The bill also applies limits on content in "electronic media" according to the time of day, with adult content reserved for programing after midnight. > > > > I made a preliminary assessment of both bills: > > > > > > 1. About the Bill on Social Responsibly: > > > > Section 1: The "purpose" of the bill is to establish the social responsibility of providers of radio and television services, Internet service providers and electronic media, advertisers, independent national produces, and users to promote democratic equilibrium between their > > duties, rights and interests for the purposes of promote social justice and contribute to citizenship formation, democracy, peace, human rights, culture, education, health and social and economic development, in accordance with the rules and principles of constitutional law for the integral protection of children and adolescents, culture, education, social security, free competition and the Organic Law of Telecommunications. > > > > The bill is very ambiguous and vague because it extends the application of the prior law (aimed to regulate Radio and TV) to the Internet sphere. It is not clear what applies to Internet Service providers and electronic media and what not. > > > > The bill defines 4 elements to be classified: language, sex, health and violence. And categorized each element into different levels of publishing or broadcasting: A, B, C, D and sometimes E. > > > > Section 8 defines the prohibitions for Radio, TV and Electronic Media in connection with content that: > > contain elements of sex type "E" health "D" and violence "C". may incite hatred or promote religious, political, gender intolerance or racism or xenophobia. incite or promote and / or justify crime. could be war propaganda may be handled and designed by media to promote unrest in the citizenship or disturb public order. may be destined to ignore the legally constituted authorities, disrespect to the authorities or persons carrying these charges. could lead to president assassination. could incite or promote breach of law. offend good customs. use visual techniques, sound or contexts that prevent or hinder the users to perceive them consciously. Internet Service Providers should establish mechanism to restrict, without delay, the dissemination of and access to content subsumed under the prohibitions contained in paragraphs 2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 9 and 10, when requested by National Telecommunications Commission > in exercise of its powers. The National Telecommunications Commission may order Internet Service Providers to restrict access to messages and reported portals. > > > > Internet service providers will be responsible for the information and content prohibited referred in this Article, in cases that they originated the transmittion, modified the data, selected the recipients fail to limited the access to them in response to the request made by > bodies with jurisdiction in the matter. > > > > Section 28 subsections 3 and 4: extend sanctions to ISPs. Penalties could range from 3-4% of their annual gross income. Those penalties has a particular focus on advertisement associated with different activities (professional services without the proper national certification, beneficial institutions without the proper registration, tabacco, alcohol,sexual services and products, ads against transport law (I imagine speeding, radars detectors) among others. > > > > Section 29 established additional penalties, suspension and revocation of government concesions to provide their services. > > The penalties could go up to 10% and suspensions of services up to 72 hours, when providers disseminate the following type of messages: > > > > a) Those that promote, advocate or incite war > b) Those that promote, advocate or incite public disturbances; > c) Those that promote, advocate or incite crime; > d) Those that may incite hatred or promote religious, political, gender intolerance or racism or xenophobia. > e) Those that may be discriminatory > f) Those that may be contrary to National security; > g) Anonymous messages. > h) Those that could be war propaganda > i) Those that could be handled and designed by media to promote unrest in the citizenship or disturb public order. > j) Those that are intended to ignore the legally constituted authorities, disrespecting the public authorities or persons carrying these authorities. > k) Those which could lead to president assassination > > > > Revocation will take place when providers subject to this law repeated the conducts sanctioned above. > > > > > > 2. About the Bill amending the National Organic Telecommunications Law: > > > > New Section 212: Creation of National Exchange Point or Network Access Point for Internet Service Providers in Venezuela > > The State create an Exchange Point or Network Access Point for Internet Service Providers in Venezuela in order to manage the traffic from and to Venezuela with the purpose to having a more efficient use of the networks in the country, given the strategic nature of the sector. The governing body (National Telecommunications Commission) will determine the State enterprise that will be responsible for installation, operation and maintenance of the Exchange Point or Network Access Point for Internet Service Providers and will issue, by resolution, the rules applicable to determine the model, constraints, requirements, implementation schedule and any other matter necessary to achieve the conditions that may be appropriate for proper implementation. > > > > If the government force all the national ISPs to connect to the IXP/NAP the will have the technical ability to inspect, filter and block internet traffic from and to Venezuela. > > > > Conclusions: > > > > This constitutes a flaflagrant violations to the OAS Inter-american Convention of Human Rights, particularly sections related to freedom of speech and indirect censorship. > > > > If both bills got passed, Internet services, particularly web 2.0 platforms, will face increasing blocking and filtering in Venezuela, at ISP level. > > > > > > Useful links: > > > > Press: > > http://ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCATRE6B90SA20101210 (Reuters, English) > > http://fromtheold.com/news/internet/chavez-plans-censor-internet-20933 (English) > > http://www.codigovenezuela.com/2010/12/noticias/politico/la-censura-para-in… > > http://caracas.eluniversal.com/2010/12/10/pol_ava_gobierno-creara-punt_10A4… > > > > Blogs: > > Internet censorship in Venezuela: the real objectives (in English): http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2010/12/internet-censorship-in-venezue… > > > > Venezuela's National Assembly Website: > > Proyecto de Ley de Reforma de la Ley Orgánica de Telecomunicaciones Proyecto de Ley De Reforma de La Ley de Responsabilidad Social en Radio y Televisión > > > > Best, > > > > Pedro > > > -- > Pedro Less Andrade ■ Gerente Senior de Asuntos Gubernamentales y Políticas Públicas / Senior Policy Counsel ■ Google ■ Latin America > O: +54 11 5530 3209 ■ M: +54 911 6242 4153 ■ pedroless(a)google.com > > > > > -- > -- > Pedro Less Andrade ■ Gerente Senior de Asuntos Gubernamentales y Políticas Públicas / Senior Policy Counsel ■ Google ■ Latin America > O: +54 11 5530 3209 ■ M: +54 911 6242 4153 ■ pedroless(a)google.com > > >______________________________________________________________________ > This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. > For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email >______________________________________________________________________ > > _______________________________________________IRP mailing listIRP@lists.internetrightsandprinciples.orghttp://lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org/listinfo.cgi/irp-internetrightsandprinciples.org > > comunica-ch phone +41 79 204 83 87 Skype: Wolf-Ludwig www.comunica-ch.net Digitale Allmend http://blog.allmend.ch - EURALO - ICANN's Regional At-Large Organisation http://euralo.org

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Re: [ALAC] [At-Large] [Chapter-delegates] The Future of the Internet Governance Forum
by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond Dec. 15, 2010

Dec. 15, 2010

Dear Izumi, Thank you for relaying the information about the future of the Internet Governance Forum. On 14/12/2010 15:27, Izumi AIZU wrote : > It will be great, still, if ICANN AtLarge community, or ALAC express or join > the protest. Essentially, end-users interests will or should not be represented > by government folks, and that is exactly what this decision may lead to. > I personally completely agree and this is why I have relayed Wolf's calls for petition. Should the At-Large Community join the protest? I hope they will. Should the ALAC join the protest and express its opinion in an official communiqué? I am unsure whether this falls in its mandate. I am already told that some RALO Operation Principles limit its activities under the ICANN ambit. This is why I would urge members and the community to sign the petitions and to voice their concerns, but am unsure about having an official ICANN At-Large statement. Kind regards, Olivier -- Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html

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ALAC Statement on Draft Final Report on Policy Aspects Regarding Introduction of Single Character IDN TLDs
by James Seng Dec. 14, 2010

Dec. 14, 2010

On 10th Dec 2010, the joint ccNSO and GNSO IDN Working Group (JIG) published the Draft Final Report on the policy aspects of introducing Single Character IDN TLDs for public comment. I have drafted the following statement for your review: https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/ALAC+Statement+on+Draft+Final+R… ps: While Edmon Chung is the new IDN Liaison starting Dec 11th, I spoke to Cheryl that it might be appropriate for me to draft this statement since the JIG report is drafted by the working group chaired by Edmon, in my capacity as member of ALAC. -James Seng

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EURALO / At-Large support for an open IGF
by Wolf Ludwig Dec. 13, 2010

Dec. 13, 2010

Dear all, I hope that all of you had a safe and (more or less) pleasant trip back home. And I want to reaffirm that I spent an exciting week and ICANN meeting with you. Some of us have been at the IGF briefing last Thursday in Cartagena when we heard about the latest news from the devastating decision of the last extraordinary meeting of the United Nation's Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) on 6 December to create a Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) with a membership made up *only of governments*. ISOC, the Internet Governance caucus and others have launched a petition in sending a letter to the CSTD, asking them to retract their previous decision and to establish an appropriately constituted Working Group that ensures the full and active participation of governments, the private sector and civil society from both developing and developed countries, involving relevant intergovernmental and international organizations and forums. May be some of you have signed the ISOC petition already. If not, I dared to create a corresponding petition on behalf of EURALO and At Large to be spread in our RALO communities and related networks to collect as much support as possible. As I was told, there will be another CSTD meeting next week in Geneva, and I would like to go there and to manifest our objections on behalf of our At Large community. You can sign out petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/euralo-openigf/ Thanks for your support and kind regards, Wolf comunica-ch phone +41 79 204 83 87 Skype: Wolf-Ludwig www.comunica-ch.net Digitale Allmend http://blog.allmend.ch - EURALO - ICANN's Regional At-Large Organisation http://euralo.org

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URGENT: Suggested ALAC statement related to my recent Public Comment
by Evan Leibovitch Dec. 9, 2010

Dec. 9, 2010

Hello all, Following up to discussion this morning, I am presenting a proposal for a second statement related to the Applicant Guidebook, for ALAC consideration. If ALAC is to approve this it needs to be done before the deadline for public comment tomorrow. Here is the wiki link: https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/Additional+ALAC+Statement+on+Dr… > As it its possible that there may be a problem with the wiki as it undergoes maintenance later today, I am pasting the text below as well. Please comment ASAP. We need direction from ALAC in order to potentially approve this statement quickly (if that is indeed the wish of ALAC), - Evan ------------------------- The At-Large Advisory Committee ("ALAC") wishes to add an additional comment on the Proposed Final Applicant Guidebook ("PAG"), to supplement comments already endorsed and submitted as public comment. Specifically, we wish to formally support both aspects of the comment made by Alan Greenberg regarding the reduction of the URS response time noted in the Universal Rapid Suspension ("URS") document, listed as an unnumbered addendum to Module 5 ( http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-urs-clean-12nov10-en.pdf) Mr. Greenberg's comment exists in the public comment area for Module 5 and may be viewed directly at http://forum.icann.org/lists/5gtld-base/msg00005.html As indicated in our previous statement, we have serious concerns regarding what we consider to be backwards steps from areas of community consensus. As one particularly serious example, we wish to draw attention to proposed URS rules which appear to regress from the position taken by the cross-community Special Trademark Issues ("STI") group and from the Draft Applicant Guidebook version 4. Although 14 days may be sufficient for large corporate entities, it is not sufficient for registrants who are individuals, small businesses or non-profit organizations -- particularly those located where mail delivery is not as effective as in the US or western Europe. Given that the overall URS process time had been reduced moving from the IRT and staff proposals to that of the STI, there is no call for reverting to the 14 days. When public comments to earlier rules were reviewed, the ICANN staff decision was to not adjust the time period. This decision was presumably based on a few complaints about it being to long, and a larger number about it being too short. As the STI process was one of ICANN's more successful efforts to bring compromise to what were initially VERY opposing positions, it is disturbing to have the Board micro-manage the issue at this level and late date.

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RALO Reports for Cartagena
by ICANN At-Large Staff Dec. 9, 2010

Dec. 9, 2010

Dear All, In advance of today¹s ALAC and regional Secretariats Wrap-Up session, please find attached the Cartagena RALO reports from APRALO, LACRALO and NARALO. -- Regards, Heidi Ullrich, Matthias Langenegger, Seth Greene, Gisella Gruber-White, Marilyn Vernon, Kristina Nordström ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff[at]atlarge.icann.org website: www.atlarge.icann.org

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Comment on Applicant Guidebook regarding Uniform Rapid Suspension System
by Alan Greenberg Dec. 9, 2010

Dec. 9, 2010

Please find attached a comment that I have just submitted regarding the Board-mandated reduction in the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) response time from 20 to 14 days. A similar comment has already been submitted by Patrick Vande Walle. You can view all comments at http://forum.icann.org/lists/5gtld-base/ and the overall Applicant Guidebook Forum is at http://icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-5-en.htm. Alan

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DNSA Draft Charter 1.0 - GNSO
by Alan Greenberg Dec. 9, 2010

Dec. 9, 2010

The GNSO endorsed the charter today, I believe unanimously. Alan

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African Statements on Support for new gTLD Applicants and African Participation in ICANN PDPs
by ICANN At-Large Staff Dec. 8, 2010

Dec. 8, 2010

Dear ALAC Members, For your review, please find attached the two Cartagena Statements of the African ICANN Community on Support for New gTLD Applicants and Support for African Participation in ICANN Policy Development Processes. The statements were adopted by the African ICANN community during the AFRALO/AfrICANN joint meeting on 7 December 2010. The organizers of the event will also send the statement on New gTLDs to the ICANN Board and the JAS Working Group. -- Regards, Heidi Ullrich, Matthias Langenegger, Seth Greene, Gisella Gruber-White, Marilyn Vernon, Kristina Nordström ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff[at]atlarge.icann.org website: www.atlarge.icann.org

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Proposed statement on Bylaw Amendments on Board Member Transition Terms
by Alan Greenberg Dec. 7, 2010

Dec. 7, 2010

DRAFT The Proposed Bylaws Amendments on Board Member Term Transitions are in alignment with ALAC philosophies related to transitions. The ALAC welcomes and supports these amendments.

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