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The CPSR Compiler - July 2004

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The CPSR Compiler - July 2004 - 3.1 <

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COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS for SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Turning Thoughts to Actions

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CPSR ANNUAL CONFERENCE -Washington, DC-October 16-17

REPORT FROM THE BOARD

PDC2004

ELECTION VERIFICATION PROJECT

"COMPUTER ATE MY VOTE"

DIAC PUBLICATIONS

ONLINE ACTIVISM EVENT

CPSR-PERU

NEWS FROM MEMBERS

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SAVE THE DATES

October 16-17

2004 Annual Conference and Meeting

Assessing the Bush Administration's record on ICT Policy: Setting a public interest agenda

Georgetown University, Washington, DC

Hosted by the Communication, Culture & Technology Program

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REPORT FROM THE BOARD

Results of the 2004 board election are as follows:

Kwami Ahiabenu 127

Nancy Brigham 180

John Dwyer 152

Robert Guerra 173

Sush Gupta 158

Desiree Miloshevic 152

The board welcomes new members Nancy Brigham of the United States, Sush Gupta of Canada, and Desiree Miloshevic of the United Kingdom, as well as the continuing contributions of re-elected board members John Dwyer of the United States and

Robert Guerra of Canada. We also extend our thanks and best wishes to the board members who have departed this year: Kwami Ahiabenu, Hans Klein, and Nancy White. We also are appreciative of all the members who took the time to consider the candidates and to vote.

The new board is in the process of selecting officers and members will be notified of the results on the CPSR Web site and in the next Compiler.

The board is in the final stage of selecting a vendor to redesign the CPSR Web site. We plan to formally launch the new site at this year's annual conference and meeting in Washington, DC. In addition to improvements in appearance and structure, when completed the new site will offer comprehensive content and member information management capabilities and collaboration tools to support member activism.

The board held a meeting via teleconference on June 20. Minutes are available (contact cpsr @ cpsr.org) Highlights:

- The board voted to approve CPSR's budget for the 2005 fiscal year which began in July.

- The board voted to approve revisions to the Ford grant budget principally intended to provide sufficient financial support for the Web site redesign and a comprehensive financial audit. These revisions must still be agreed to by the Ford Foundation.

- There was a general sense among the board that ensuring CPSR's continued viability may require shifting more from a volunteer-based model to one that combines and supports activism by both volunteers and dedicated, paid staff. The

board recognizes that this would entail considerably more fundraising activity than it currently undertakes.

- The board agreed that a formal process should be established to try to more effectively address the issue of dormant chapters and working groups.

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The United Nations has recommended CPSR be granted Special Consultative Status as a Non-Governmental Organization at the July meeting of the Economic and Social Council.

So if all goes as it should - we will have ECOSOC status by the end of the summer !

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CPSR's PDC 2004 - Participatory Design Conference

"ARTFUL INTEGRATION: INTERWEAVING MEDIA, MATERIALS, AND PRACTICES"

Toronto, CANADA, July 27-31, 2004 - See http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/pdc2004/index.html

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Funding Received from Quixote Foundation for an Election Verification Project

Erik Nilsson applied for, and received, a grant as the Principal Investigator for a new Ongoing CPSR Project  (see  http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/ongoing_project.html), to develop an incident reporting system that will accept incident reports via the web from multiple organizations, store these reports in a database, serve data to public reporting systems (redacting personally-identifiable information where required), and archive incidents for later use by academic and media researchers, and the general public.  The system developed can be used with minor modification for multiple elections cycles, providing a means to make the elections process more transparent and accountable.   Cere Davis will be the Web Database Developer, and Susan Evoy will be the Researcher. Contact: Erik Nilsson   erikn@cpsr.org

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CPSR co-sponsored events for the "Computer Ate My Vote" Kick-off National Day of Action (July 13).

Participants held rallies in 18 states to support safe and secure elections, and asked election officials to pledge to support voter-verifiable paper ballots. A kit of materials and helpful suggestions were provided to help organizers step-by-step, and/or customize the event for local needs.

Seven other civil rights and democracy groups are involved in thisongoing campaign. All of the groups are looking for people to help in the key states. Interested ? Join the vote-wg list via http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/vote-wg

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Report from Doug Schuler

The main news is that CPSR authors have produced two books, Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace (MIT Press) and Community Practice in the Network Society: Local Action / Global Interaction (Routledge) that were both published in June 2004.  Both have their origins in CPSR's biennial Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing symposia, the oldest regular forum for exploring the implications of computing in society. The MIT Press book was edited by Douglas Schuler and Peter Day while the Routledge book was edited by Peter Day and Douglas Schuler.

Exciting development! The web has lots of discussion systems but very few deliberative systems. A new system based on Roberts Rules of Order was developed over the past year by Nathan Clinton. This system allows registered meeting attendees to propose, debate and vote on motions on the web. Meetings can be either synchronous or asynchronous and we are planning beta tests with actual organizations this summer.  Stay tuned to CPSR's Public Sphere Project main web page for updates. See   http://www.cpsr.org/program/sphere/index.php

Special issue on civic intelligence.   A call for abstracts has been issued for a special issue of AI & Society on the topic of  "Exploring Civic Intelligence: Descriptions & Prescriptions." The due date for submission of extended abstracts (1000 words) is August 13, 2004. See  http://cpsr.org/program/sphere/civic-intelligence/aijournal-call.html

The pattern language is inching forward.  There are now 256 pattern submissions (http://cpsr.org/program/sphere/patterns/) and approximately 130 have been selected to as preliminary phase II patterns.  There is spirited conversaation on the list serve and a book proposal is in the works.

More Public Sphere Project online resources are being developed.  Justin Smith is developing pages for education, technology, funding and other topics.

Doug will be convening a panel later this month at PDC 2004 in Toronto which carries forth CPSR's civic intelligence work: Participatory Design: Technological Tool or Liberatory Movement  Panel members include Peter van den Besselaar, Virginia Eubanks, Gerhard Fischer, Leah Lievrouw and Randy Trigg. We are hoping that this work will be part of a bigger CPSR push to make more participatory design issues and ideas accessible to the public.

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About 40 folks attended the June 28th panel in London on the meaning and practice of online activism, organized by Christian Sandvig, and co-sponsored by CPSR. See  http://www.stanhopecentre.org/events/techactive.shtml

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CPSR-Peru

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<<p>CPSR-Peru, as a part of the Free Software Network, organized a conference about FOSS to 25 NGOs at the National Industries Society. Katitza Rodriguez, Director of CPSR-Peru and Pedro Mendizabal, CPSR-Peru Chair, were the speakers.

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The Free Software Network, organized the II National Congress of Free Software, "Building bridges of integration for the regional development", held in June 21-22, simultaneously in Ica and Lima.  It helped to develop a frame for the signature of the Agreement of Technological Transference between Extremadura Region of Spain and Huancavelica Region of Peru, both the poorest regions in each country.

Katitza Rodriguez spoke about  FOSS for the Non Profit Sector and showed the NGO-in-a-Box, an on going project of The Tactical Technology Collective (of the Netherlands), in alliance with Privaterra, Projeto Software Livre (Brazil) and the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto (Canada).

Pedro Mendizabal, CPSR-Peru Chair, organized a workshop about Creative Commons licenses.

See the text in Spanish. http://www.peru.cpsr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=82&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

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CPSR-Peru made its comments regarding the ICANN Whois Task Force preliminary reports on the privacy and other civil liberties implications of the Whois database containing personal information.

In English: http://www.peru.cpsr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=86&mode=nocomments&order=0&thold=0 In Spanish: http://www.peru.cpsr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=85&mode=nocomments&order=0&thold=0

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CPSR-Peru is organizing a conference at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (http://www.pucp.edu.pe), to be held in August 20.  Richard M. Stallman will be the main speaker.

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Bill Drake published "Defining ICT Global Governance," memo for the Social Science Research Council's Research Network on IT and Governance, 2004. See  http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/publications/knowledge_report/memos/billdr ake.pdf

Bill Drake served on the program committee and organized a series of panels on "Rethinking Internet Governance,"  at the Internet Society's INET 04 conference, Barcelona; May 10-14, 2004.  See  http://www.isoc.org/inet04/

Bill Drake gave a presentation, "The Participation Challenge: Getting the Local-Global Connections on Scale," at the ICTSD/GAN-Net workshop, Networking for Change in the Trade and Development Policy Arena, Geneva; May 24, 2004.

Bill Drake gave "Internet Governance and International Communication Regimes after the World Summit on the Information Society," the DuMont Lecture on the Future of the Information Society at the University of Halle, Leipzig; May 6, 2004.

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Robert Guerra, from CPSR's Privaterra project recently accompanied a two week field mission organized by the European office of Peace Brigades International (PBI), and The International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (Ireland) for Human Rights Defenders in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

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Hans Klein is partnering in a new initiative, the Internet Governance Project (IGP), a   collaboration between Syracuse University and Georgia Tech.  IGP's mission will be to analyze global Internet policy issues related to the on-going United Nations' review of Internet Governance.

As its first project, IGP is currently under contract with the United Nation's Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Task Force to analyze global policy regimes. The resulting study will provide a "map" of existing global rules for the Internet and the institutions that make those rules. See http://www.InternetGovernance.org

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The CPSR Compiler is a monthly notice with short updates on recent activities of our members and opportunities to engage in the development of the public voice through CPSR projects.

To report news for future issues, send a sentence or two (and URL if available) to cpsr@cpsr.org

CPSR provides a discussion and project space where individuals can contribute to the public debate and design of our global digital future. Through CPSR's chapters and working groups, members focus on regional and civic issues developing the public voice. To insure a democratic future in a time of intense globalization, the voice of the public must command a prominent position on the world stage. CPSR frames and channels the public voice.

When in doubt about how to get more out of your CPSR membership, contact cpsr@cpsr.org or refer to the Activists Handbook  http://www.cpsr.org/publications/Activists_Handbook.html to get help in getting the most out of your membership.

To get involved in policy work through CPSR, consider joining one of CPSR's Working Groups http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/workgrps.html or contact cpsr @ cpsr.org about starting a new one.

CPSR-Activists is the main members forum of CPSR, where the board and members discuss current policy and organizational issues. Only subscribed members can post to this list: http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/cpsr-activists

(c) Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility 2004.Redistribution of this email publication - both internally and externally - is encouraged if it includes this paragraph.

CPSR is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Donations are tax deductible.

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<<p>The CPSR Compiler is emailed to CPSR members in good standing, who have provided CPSR with their email address. If you do not want to receive these monthly messages reply with Subject "do not send compiler"

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  --

Susan Evoy   *   Managing Director

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

P.O. Box 717  *  Palo Alto  *  CA *  94302

Phone: (650) 322-3778    *  (650) 322-4748 (fax)

Email: evoy@cpsr.org

http://www.cpsr.org/

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Last modified June 09, 2006 01:36 PM
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