The following post appeared on a German language Usenet newsgroup. The person in Germany saw the original posted on an English language Usenet newsgroup, reformatted it, wrote an introduction and then posted it. His reformatting captures some of the needed debate over the privatization plans of the US government with respect to the Internet. ------------------------------------------------------ Subject: (fwd) Mysterivses Gesprdch |ber derz. Internet- Privatisierungsbestrebungen der US-Regierung ZUR ALLGEMEINEN KENNTNISNAHME / BITTE AUSHÄNGEN UND WEITERVERBREITEN! Bi-ismi-l-lahi-r-Rahmaani-r-Rahiim Im Namen Gottes, des Gnädigen, des Barmherzigen > Hallo, liebe Usegroups-Nutzer, > > Hiermit reiche ich Euch eine E-Mail weiter, die ich aus der > Newsgroup "misc.activism.progressive" herausgefischt habe > und deren mysteriösen Inhalt ich Euch zur Kenntnis bringen > möchte. Der Beitrag wird sicherlich eine Reihe von Fragen > aufwerfen, auch im deutschen Usenet. Vor allen Dingen wirder > richtig verstanden und interpretiert werden müssen, um > genau einschätzen zu können, was sich da eigentlich wirklich > abspielt. Vielleicht kann der eine oder andere von Euch > dabei helfen, den Sachverhalt aufzuklären. Hello - dear Usegroups-Users With this I am forwarding an email which I fished out of the newsgroup "misc.activism.progressive" - and in doing so would like to bring your attention to the mysterious content of the same. The point is that one has to understand this matter properly and interpret its meaning correctly before one can really make an assessment of what is going on here. Perhaps one or the other of you can assist in explaining the factual background to this matter? > > Es handelt sich dabei um ein kontroverses Zwigespräch von > zwei Computerfachleuten, Ronda Hauben und Hans Klein, die > beide an einem Forum teilgenommen haben, auf dem die > derzeitigen Internet-Privatisierungsvorhaben der > US-Regierung im engen Kreise abseits der breiten Öffent- > lichkeit erörtert werden sollten. Wie es scheint, plant die > US-Regierung, die andministrativen Aufgaben zur Leitung der > Internetverwaltung, ohne großes Aufsehen und vorbei an den > großen Medien, in die Obhut eines Privatunternehmens zu > geben. Here it's all about a controversial dialogue between two Computer specialists; Ronda Hauben and Hans Klein, who were both participants in a Forum which in a tightly defined circle apart from the broad public the momentary thrust to privatize the Internet gets discussed. It would appear that the US government. is in the process of passing the leadership and administrative functions regarding the Internet management - to the competence of a private company. They appear to be trying to do this with little public awareness and around the backs of the major media. > Zur besseren Verständlichkeit des Artikels habe ich die > Dialogteilnehmer sowie fehlenden Text in eckigen Klammern > eingefügt und die Unterstützungskommentare der Mail in > Kursiv gesetzt. Im übrigen war der Text zerhackt, sodaß ich > ihn wieder zusammensetzen mußte. Ich hoffe, daß ich dies in > der richtigen Reihenfolge getan habe. Der Beitrag wurde von > Ronda Hauben in die oben genannte Newsgroup gepostet. To make the article more understandable I have put the dialogue participants and also missing bits of text in sharp-cornered brackets and the supportive commentary to the mail in italics. Apart from that, the original text was badly cut-up in format so I have had to format it back together. The contribution was posted in the newsgroup mentioned above by Ronda Hauben. > Mit freundlichem Gruß, > Achmed > (English translation of the German introduction by Ron Bartle) -------------------------------------------------------------- There was a meeting at the New School in NYC on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 1998 presenting itself as a forum for users of the Internet to discuss the U.S. government plan to privatize essential functions the of Internet. A description of the meeting was posted by one of the organizers who is from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. I also attended the meeting and feel it is important there be a real users forum. Debate on this issue needs to break into the public arena, and particularly to happen on the Internet, since it seems the U.S. government won't allow open public discussion on this issue of Internet privatization. Responding to the post by Hans Klein of CPSR who wrote: INTERNET PRIVATIZATION: OPEN COMPETITION OR MONOPOLY CONTROL? sponsored by CPSR and NYFMA [Beginning of the dialogue] [Hans:] Wednesday night's User Forum was a great success! Despite the logistical zig-zags most people found the hall and contributed to a lively discussion of DNS issues. [Ronda:] I didn't see lively discussion, but the effort on the part of the chair and the panel to try to prevent views other than theirs from being heard. [Hans:] We had a good-sized audience of about 50 people, four out of five panelists, and the use of first-class facilities at the New School. [Ronda:] The hall had actually fairly few people and when I counted it seemed like around 30 or so. Later some of the people mentioned they came as a result of one of the speakers sending them email. What is it you consider a success about it? It was in *no* way a forum. The Chair didn't encourage discussion, but encouraged those in the panel who basically agreed with each other and with the proposal of the U.S. government to privatize essential functions of the Internet to take up most of the time. It was announced as an Internet User forum, but only the self proclaimed representatives of Users - the CPSR and a vendor who is a service provider and his supporter were invited to speak or allowed to have their views presented. [Hans:] For me the evening's most significant product was a call to action. [Ronda:] I didn't hear a call to action. Instead I heard someone say that people online should have some way of knowing what is going on with all this. He basically seemed to be acknowledging that in fact those online [people] have no knowledge of what is happening or of its significance. [Hans:] There are only six days until September 30, at which time an Internet Corporation *may* be defined. Currently, two proposals for a corporation are being widely circulated, one from today's government contractors (IANA and NSI) and the other from a "Boston Working Group." Different versions of a third, public interest/user proposal are now also in the works. [Ronda:] You left out the proposal I submitted and which has probably been more widely circulated than any of the others "The Internet an International Public Treasure". This is a proposal that respects the Internet a[s] a new medium of worldwide communication." * The others treat the Internet as Internet Incorporated, or as a new cash cow to be milked. They talk about "competition" but the Internet was built on a cooperative and open process and scientific principles. And the essential functions need to be administered on these same principles. Nobody has made any arguments of why the cooperative open principles are no longer needed or why and how the Internet could grow and flourish if they are abandoned. Yet the proposals you talk about for a new private corporation to be set up on September 30 by the U.S. government abandons the principles and lessons of what has made the Internet possible. These other proposals for privatization are giving away to an unknown and private entity control over the essential aspects of coordination of the Internet including the root server system, the IP numbers allocation, the Domain Name System, and the protocols and standards development process related to these key aspects of the Internet. These are many of the functions that make the Internet an Internet rather than a fragmented Net. There is no talk in any of the proposals for privatization of any way to protect the administration of these essential functions from commercial pressures. Until the privatization of the NSF backbone to the Internet in the U.S. which began in the early 1990's (and was finalized on May 1, 1995) the U.S. government had provided the necessary and important protection of the integrity of these systems. Now however, the U.S. government is failing in that obligation and instead of fulfilling its obligation and involving the International community in the needed challenge, the U.S. government is moving to institutionalize the commercial and political pressures into the private organization that it is setting up. At the panel presentation, Milton Mueller said that the objective was to set up a private corporation that was "insulated from government." So these essential functions are to [be] insulated from the one entity that was able to protect them in the past, and they are to be put into the control and ownership of an entity institutionalizing the problems. [Hans:] As I and others at the forum noted, the public interest/user communities need to join together to finalize this public interest/user proposal. If public interest recommendations are incorporated into proposed by-laws on September 30, then the communities should all vocally express their collective support. If those recommendations are not included, then the communities should all vocally express a collective disapproval. Today's tasks are, first, to finalize a public interest/user proposal and, second, prepare to speak out together on September 30. [Ronda:] So you are deciding that CPSR is a self chosen representative for Internet users? That is how the whole offline society in the U.S. works, but the Internet has made it possible for users to represent themselves and the result has been a vibrant and cooperative culture and technology. But you and the other self chosen advocates of Internet Incorporated have decided it is time to end that, and instead to let you folks take over from the millions of users around the world who are quite able to speak for themselves but are being disenfranchised by the privatization process. [Hans:] Like I said, I felt that this call to action was the most important product of the forum. But there was lots of other interesting dialogue. [Ronda:] Well if you call advocacy for Paul's company or Mueller's friends' proposal or your positioning to get a seat on the Internet Incorporated board interesting. To the contrary the Chair of the meeting continually tried to prevent others from speaking who had a different position than the panel. And another of the speakers admitted that others with different views weren't invited to be part of the panel. But then he made no effort to encourage the views to be presented. Despite the effort of the organizers to prevent there from being any forum, a few people did try to speak under very difficult circumstances. [Hans:] Milton Mueller of Syracuse University spoke on free speech, trademarks, and domain names. [Ronda:] He spoke on advocacy for privatization and support for Paul. Those wanting free speech wouldn't be advocating privatizing the Internet. Private networks don't allow free speech. And one has no recourse. [Hans:] Marcy Gordon from CPSR provided a detailed overview of CPSR's policy positions -- which she sang and accompanied on guitar! (I thought it was going to be weird, but it turned out to be a real high point of the evening.) [Ronda:] She gave her sales pitch for the privatization in a song. That is the way the media in the U.S. long operated, promoting commercial products and aims with music. I guess that is the future you folks feel should be in store for Internet users. [Hans:] pgMedia's Paul Garrin gave a fascinating account of today's Internet governance structure. [Ronda:] Where did he talk about any Internet governance structure? He talked a little about his lawsuit against the federal government so his company can become the MCI of the Internet. But MCI has led to the death of Bell Labs and the substitution of product oriented research for the long term scientific and technical advances like the laser, the transistor and UNIX that folks at Bell Labs were able to contribute to the world. And the breakup of AT&T and U.S. Telecom regulation has led to increasing prices for the home user and has devastated the pay telephone system (in NYC it is often impossible to find a working pay phone). So the prospect of another MCI type victory, but this time with regard to the Internet is not very appealing, to say the least. And this is not indeed presenting anything that resembles the public interest, but rather a way to substitute self chosen representatives for the public to help those fleecing the public to cover their tracks. Talking about Internet governance would require talking about the cooperative and collaborative efforts of people on line to contribute to the Internet as a new medium of international communication. Also it would require talking about the online discussion that occurs to identify problems and solve them. (I have several papers about this if anyone is interested.) [Hans:] I talked about proposals for by-laws that would ensure public interest representation on the new organization's Board. Jessica Glass of the New York Free Media Alliance deftly moderated the feisty dialogue. [Ronda:] She continually refused to allow discussion and debate with the narrow views of the panel. Instead of the principle which has built the Net and which Voltaire espoused "I may disagree with what you have to say but I will duel to the death to protect your right to say it," she cut me off any time I tried to say anything and Hans, you did nothing to defend the right to speak. There was the need for a lively debate, but this panel of self chosen user representatives was not there to promote such debate, but to advocate for the privatization and for themselves as the representatives of Internet users. [Hans:] While most people discussed *how* to privatize the Internet, some participants questioned the very act of privatization. Ronda Hauben argued that the Internet should remain in public hands. This is a view that few groups in the U.S. have voiced, although it may be more popular outside of the U.S. [Ronda:] I didn't get any opportunity to argue as I was constantly cut off by the chair. But there were others at the forum who made an effort to challenge the fact that the assumption of privatization is the squelching of the debate over what should happen. [Ronda continuing:] And I don't know about most groups in the U.S. and their views about privatization of the Internet. But I do know that there are many communities like librarians, scientists, programmers, etc. for whom it is important that the Net continue as an international public treasure. And I do know that there are many users and probably many groups who would be quite upset and frustrated with what is going on and that is why the press (at least in the U.S.) is so quiet about what the U.S. government is doing. In the U.S. privatization of the NSF backbone to the Internet has benefited the big corporate entities and made access to the Internet impossible for some and at only rising prices for others. The freenets are being killed off by the U.S. government's support for privatization. And when there was the opportunity for a real debate among the public, as happened in November 1994 in an online conference sponsored by the NTIA, the majority of public sentiment was against the privatization of the NSF backbone. There are two chapters describing the debate and the different views of the public in "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet", the URL is in my signature. [Hans:] In summary, it was an exciting evening with a lot of good discussion and a powerful conclusion. I think that some day we will look back and recognize it as an event that catalyzed the public interest/user community at this key juncture of the Internet governance process. [Ronda:] To the contrary, any advocates of users or the public would be advocating a debate with the assumption of privatization, not support for it. And as one person who spoke from the audience, any true public interest advocates would be advocating letting as much of the public know of the problem of what is happening as possible. (The U.S. press is either totally silent or functioning as presenting public relations releases for the U.S. government actions.) [Ronda's final thoughts:] The question raised by this all is a profound question: What authority does the U.S. government have to give to a private entity (of its own creation) the essential functions of a public international treasure? The U.S. government was entrusted with the care and administration of these functions, not with the ownership of them so as to give them to its chosen corporate cronies. The U.S. government has an obligation to the public in the U.S. and to the International community to be protecting these essential functions from exactly the kind of abuse it is now subjecting them to. It is important that those around the world who care about the Internet and its future find a way to challenge this attack on the cooperative technology and culture that makes the Internet possible. __________________ Hans Klein Southern Regional Director Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Chair, CPSR-Georgia ------------------ Ronda ronda@panix.com -------------------------------------------------------------- Also join the Netizens list to discuss how to support the cooperative nature of the Internet and how to help to spread this important worldwide communications medium more broadly. And it would be good to discuss how to let folks around the world know of what is happening with this U.S. government privatization plan to change the cooperative and open nature of the Internet. To join write: netizens-request@columbia.edu * The the draft proposal to protect cooperative culture of the Internet and to begin to find a means to involve the International community in the process of changing the administration and control over these essential aspects of the Internet is accessible at: http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------- Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 ------------------------------------------------------------------