The Bali IGF: surveillance, surveillance, surveillance

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten, Germany

PUBLISHED ON: 19 Oct 2013

"Building Bridges"- Enhancing Multi-stakeholder Cooperation for Growth and Sustainable Development" is the title for the 2013 edition of the annual United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Bali, the largest Internet policy related “talk shop“. And never has a title been chosen unwillingly so apt. While the revelations of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency and other intelligence services are not officially on the programme, bets are up that most of the over a hundred pre-events or workshops will tackle the technical, legal and societal aspects of the state spy affair. Some huge bridges will be needed here.

The Bali IGF, which for some time over the summer seemed to have to move away from Indonesia due to funding problems, is the first IGF since Edward Snowden has released initialinit revelations about NSA spying activities.

An effort to address in an ambitious pre-event the question of pervasive surveillance and citizens' fundamental rights by a former member of the German Parliament, Liberal politician Jimmy Schulz, folded. Invitee Keith Alexander would not come and neither would guest speaker Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, former minister of Justice in Germany, and a proven supporter of civil liberties who stopped data retention implementation in Germany. Even Glenn Greenwald had been on Schulze's wish list – who would not have liked to see that panel?

The topic will be addressed directly at least by the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet), where Aaron Shull is to deliver a speech on Cyber espionage and international law. GigaNet and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) hold a joint forum on Security, Surveillance and the Militarization of Cyberspace on October 21.

Surveillance topic – containment or yelling?

The topic of surveillance will be discussed at least in those IGF workshops that deal with human rights, civil liberties, cyber security, cloud computing and privacy and, certainly also on internet governance more generally – and that represents many workshops. “It is a topic of considerable worry for the private sector in the United States, as well as for the Internet Society, ICANN, Regional Registries and the US government,” Robert Guerra, of the Toronto-based Citizen Lab wrote in an email reply on his way to Bali. The US and like-minded groups are expected to attempt containing the situation.

Before the US government shutdown finally ended Wednesday night some observers jokingly said: “There will be a lot of yelling at Bali because of the pervasive surveillance, but who will be yelled at when the US government is not there?“

The US would have to be open and try to rebuild trust which would be quite a challenging Guerra writes, and might be further complicated by the fact that the size of the US delegation might be substantially reduced due to the government shutdown. “So just when they need more people to come, they may be not able to bring the staff they need.“

Guerra also thinks there is “fear“ that surveillance would overshadow and drive other issues and outcomes at the meeting.

More than talk – framework proposals

It seems inevitable that the eighth IGF will carry with it an influence on some of the projects, which for many years, have been looking for formal results. The codification of principles or a framework for human rights for the internet are only two such examples.

Indirectly, proposals for a treaty on cyber security brought to Bali by the Shanghai Group (a follow-up to the China-Russia proposal at the latest UN General Assembly) and also the IBSA Group (India, Brazil, South Africa, China) will get a push from the NSA-debate. Brazil, which is listed in one of the main sessions of the Bali IGF to “previous and new initiatives“ by the IBSA countries, certainly is at the centre of the attention after it reacted to the spy affair with the announcement, jointly with ICANN boss Fadi Chehade, to hold an internet governance summit in April next year – yet another internet policy forum.

Multi-stakeholder soul-searching

One other overarching topic which seems to stand out from the programme and the discussions of those with their eyes on Bali is the present and future of “multi-stakeholder.” Not only is the role of governments in internet governance processes the topic of the first main focus session. Also, several workshops clearly look like a soul-searching exercise: transparency in multi-stakeholder processes (WS 57), multi-stakeholder processes in ICANN (WS 249), using multi-stakeholder processes effectively (WS41), multistakeholderism and the dynamic internet (WS 329), human rights and multi-stakeholder processes (WS 129) and the dimensions of “multi-stakeholderism” (WS 212) – and no, this list is not complete.

It seems clear that there are “multi-versions” of what multi-stakeholder means. Some think it is not more than to listen for two and a half minutes to concerned civil society organisations. That is not quite where most civil rights activists want to go. They look for spinning off bottom-up inclusive stakeholder processes into national and international legislative processes, for real.

New topics, a lot of IGF-“oldtimers“

There have been concerns in Baku already (IGF 7) that the Forum did not attract enough new people, doing too much “recycling“ of its usual experts.

Google for one company has a considerable number of speaking slots reflecting its engagement and importance in the market for sure, but easily can be interpreted as imbalance. The combined power of organisations such as ISOC, ICANN, IETF, Regional Internet Registries fills quite some slots – perhaps this must be seen as embedded in the DNA of the Internet Governance Forum.

On the other hand, there are many firsts in Bali. A ministry of a single government presenting its cyber security strategy explaining why cyberspace cannot be secure without the government. Another of the rather new sights is the topic of free trade and tax policy and its relevance for cyberspace.

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