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The CPSR Compiler - November 2005 - 4.5 < <
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COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS for SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Turning Thoughts to Actions

* * * *
* 2005 ANNUAL WEEKEND
* 2005 NORBERT WIENER AWARD RECEPTION FOR DOUGLAS
  ENGELBART
* 2004-05 ANNUAL REPORT
* CPSR SIGNS ACLU LETTER SUPPORTING 132
* CPSR OPPOSES WIPO BROADCAST TREATY PROPOSAL
* COALITION URGES END TO COMMERCIAL U.S. DATABASE FOR RECRUITING
* CPSR SIGNS JOINT DECLARATION ON DATA RETENTION
* CPSR PARTICIPATING IN THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION
  SOCIETY IN A DECLARATION IN OPPOSITION TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS
  SITUATION IN TUNIS
* SECOND WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY (WSIS)
* BILL DRAKE'S ACTIVITIES
* CPSR JAPAN
* "ICANN REFORM: ESTABLISHING THE RULE OF LAW"
* PUBLIC SPHERE PROJECT UPDATE
* RECOMMENDATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

* * * *

2005 ANNUAL WEEKEND

CPSR hosted its annual weekend at the end of October.
As you know, we dispensed with the standard content
conference, and instead held a series of meetings with
different groups to help us determine strategies for
moving CPSR forward. While no magic solutions were
discovered, we learned a lot about who we are and where
we need to go.

First, the Board of Directors spent a half day with a
leadership development consultant, Ann Danner, fulfilling
one of the deliverables of our Ford Foundation grant.
During this session, we learned quite a bit about ourselves
and how a board in our kind of organization should
concentrate its efforts. Then the Board met for a day to
discuss the outcomes of that meeting, to review our budgets
and audit, and to talk more about the Strategic Plan process.
One significant outcome of this meeting was a commitment
to re-energize board committees, to hopefully reduce the
workload of the board as a whole.

On Saturday October 29, we spent the morning with the Advisory
Council. As you may know, the formulation of this Advisory
Council fulfills another of the Ford deliverables, as does
the creation of a Strategic Plan for the organization. Thus,
the principal authors of the Plan sit on the Advisory Council,
and the primary reviewers are the Council members and the Board.
We discussed the Plan and a schedule for completing its editing
and delivery, including allowing more time for member feedback.
Then we adjourned to a larger meeting room for main event of
the day, our annual member meeting.

The member meeting was well attended by local and several
national activists, and we discussed the Strategic Plan, and
more generally, the future of CPSR. We spent the bulk of the
time discussing how we organize our activism, and how we pick
program areas to focus on. While we need to support the current
processes that allow initiatives to bubble up from the grassroots,
some of our members and certainly the funding community and the
public need to see a little more centralized thinking and
planning regarding the program areas that CPSR pursues. We could
certainly do a better job of synthesizing and communicating the
various initiatives of members, to help find common interests
and to build the strongest areas into organizational foci.
However, we saw a need (and an opportunity) to do a better job
of articulating what our most important work was, to even define
one or a couple primary focus areas -- programs that capture
the attention of members and of the funding community, and make
it easier to tell people through concrete examples what CPSR
stands for and works on.

The areas that attracted the most attention are these:

1) Electronic Voting - this has seen our most successful work
in the US over the last year or two, although it doesn't
necessarily apply to only the US; we see some good funding
opportunities to be had over the next US election cycles, and
if the program grows, there may be opportunities to expand
internationally.

2)Technologies of surveillance and control - framing the
leading privacy and civil liberties questions in a way that
makes it clear what the unique contribution CPSR can bring,
by examining the particular technologies and throwing into
question the way that they are represented and used.

3) Internet Governance - this has been the most visible
recent international program area, particularly surrounding
the WSIS meeting; other international issues we currently
work on fit well into (2) above, which is really the best
area to bridge US and International activism.

As usual, program issues provided the most lively and interesting
discussions with our membership, which makes it clear that
defining and articulating and communicating widely our program
remains the key to energizing the organization and keeping it
viable into the future.

All CPSR members in good standing are invited to register for
the website and comment on the Draft Strategic Plan through
December 1. If you did not save or receive the emailed
instructions from October, contact webmaster(a)cpsr.org with
the Subject "Website Account Request" for details.

& & & &

2005 NORBERT WIENER AWARD RECEPTION FOR DOUGLAS ENGELBART

Finally, on Saturday night, we hosted a reception to present
the Norbert Wiener Award to Douglas Engelbart. It was a lively
event that attracted many members as well as fans of Englebart,
and generated numerous interesting discussions. See our website
for some photos at http://www.cpsr.org/act/events/annconf/05annmeet ,
and read more about the award and its recipient here
http://www.cpsr.org/news/press/wiener2005.

Douglas Engelbart's presentation inspired Andy Oram, a long
time CPSR member, to write "What if we had integrated Douglas
Engelbart's insights into the modern Net?"
See  http://www.cpsr.org/act/events/annconf/debyao

We thank Cisco Systems for providing breakfast, lunch,
refreshments, coffee, and sponsoring the Wiener Award Reception.

& & & &

In addition to participating in the online commenting of the
Draft Strategic Plan, all members are encouraged to
send proposals for face-to-face local meetings with fellow
CPSR members until the end of the discussion period to discuss
and share their ideas about the Draft Strategic Plan.

When you have an idea(s) for where and when you'd like to
propose meeting with fellow CPSR members in your area,
please contact cpsr(a)cpsr.org to send a meeting invitation out.

& & & &

CPSR'S 2004-05 ANNUAL REPORT is available at
http://www.cpsr.org/about/annrep/fincomp2004-05.pdf

& & & &

CPSR SIGNS ACLU LETTER SUPPORTING 132

CPSR signed the ACLU's letter urging that Senate Conferees
agree to the House passed-version of the PATRIOT Act with
respect to Section 132 of the House bill.

CPSR recently signed in support of the ACLU's letter insisting
that Section 132 of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization legislation
that the house passed be included in the Conference Committee's
final version of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization legislation.
Section 132 would require a government-wide survey of those
federal programs that use "pattern-based" data-mining to
identify a "pattern indicating terrorist or criminal activity."

Data-mining involves linking unrelated and for the most part
legal activities to identify individuals who are or might be
engaging in criminal acts, including acts of terrorism. Because
this type data-mining involves governmental scrutiny of a wide
variety of perfectly legal activities, it raises serious
privacy and other civil liberties concerns. CPSR is therefore
in strong support with the ACLU and other organizations in
asking conferees to protect our rights and liberties.

& & & &

CPSR OPPOSES WIPO BROADCAST TREATY PROPOSAL

CPSR Signs CPTech Letter to Congress Opposing WIPO Broadcast
Treaty Proposal and requesting formal comments.

On October 13, CPSR was one of 17 civil society non-government
organizations, 7 law professors, and 31 musicians and technology
experts to send a letter to leaders of the US Senate and House of
Representatives expressing opposition to proposals at WIPO to
create a new intellectual property right for broadcasting and
webcasting organizations. The letter asked Congress to insist
that the Bush Administration accept formal comments from the
public before a decision is reached on whether or not to hold
a diplomatic conference that would create a new global treaty
at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Read Letter to Congress -
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/bt/2cong4frnotice.html0
Read CPTech page on WIPO xCasting Treaty -
http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/bt/


& & & &

COALITION URGES END TO COMMERCIAL U.S. DATABASE FOR RECRUITING

Groups Say that Defense Department Effort Violates Federal
Privacy Act

CPSR joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
and more than 100 other local, state, and national organizations
today urged Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to end to the
"Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies" Recruiting Database.

The groups cited the broad exemptions to federal privacy laws
that would allow the Defense Department to disclose personal
information to others without an individual's consent or knowledge.
The proposed uses include disclosures to law-enforcement; state
and local tax authorities; employment queries from other agencies;
and disclosure of records to foreign authorities.

The database would include name, date of birth, gender,
address, telephone, e-mail address, Social Security Number,
ethnicity, high school, education level, college, intended
field of study for more than 30 million Americans who are
16-25 years old. This system of records would go so far as
to record mother's attitudes about military recruitment.

The letter to the Secretary of Defense concluded that "because
of the potential for abuse and the threat to the personal
privacy rights of a generation of American youth," the
Department of Defense should immediately end the program.

The organizations signing the letter also included the American
Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee,
the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, LeaveMyChildAlone.org,
the Liberty Coalition, Rock the Vote, and the Rutherford Institute.

Coalition Letter Opposing Defense Dept. Database -
http://privacycoalition.org/nododdatabase/letter.html
Background on DOD Recruiting Database -
http://epic.org/privacy/student/doddatabase.html

& & & &

CPSR joined with a broad coalition of organizations,
businesses and individuals to sign a Joint Declaration on
Data Retention, saying in part that:

"The systematic collection or retention of personal data
regarding our communications, movements or use of media
("data retention") beyond what is necessary for business
purposes is unacceptable. We demand that any plans to
introduce data retention be halted immediately."
For more information see: http://www.jointdeclaration.com/

& & & &

CPSR joined with other NGOs participating in the World
Summit on the Information Society in a declaration in
opposition to the human rights situation in Tunis, particularly
regarding the treatment of well-established Tunisian organizations.

"International and Tunisian non-governmental organisations
express their outrage at the rapid deterioration of the human
rights situation in Tunisia just two months prior to the World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held in Tunis,
November 15-18, 2005. After prohibiting the founding
congress of the Tunisian Journalists' Union (SJT) on September 7,
authorities prevented the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH)
from holding its 6th Congress, scheduled to begin today."
For more information: http://www.crisinfo.org/content/view/full/941

& & & &

The second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
takes place in Tunis, November 16-18 2005. The summit will
be attended by many heads of state and high-level government
officials, as well as by thousands of people from the private
sector and global civil society. The summit is expected to
agree on new intergovernmental texts covering such matters as
follow-up and implementation on the Declaration of Principles
and Plan of Action agreed at the prior WSIS in Geneva, December
2003; Internet governance; and development financing regarding
information and communication technology (ICT). The Summit will
be preceded by a resumed session of the third Preparatory
Committee meeting (PrepCom-3), November 13-15. The session will
seek to reach agreement on a number of key issues on which the
original PrepCom-3 in September 2005 deadlocked, most notably
Internet governance. Extensive information on the WSIS process
is available on the official website, http://www.itu.int/wsis/

During the week of November 14-18, many governments, business
groups, and civil society organizations will hold Parallel
Events to foster more open and informal dialogue on the issues
at stake in the Summit. A short list of some of these with
descriptions is at http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/events/links.html,
while a complete spreadsheet of events is at
http://www.smsitunis2005.tn/plateforme/docs/listpe.xls.


CPSR is organizing or co-organizing three Parallel Events:

Monday Nov. 14, 13:00-15:00, Amilcar Room
"Cybercrime & Censorship in Middle East and North Africa"
Organizers: CPSR and Human Rights Watch
*CPSR's Robert Guerra will speak

Wednesday Nov. 16, 11:00-13:00, Hammamet Room
"Reforming the Internet Governance: Perspectives from the
Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG)---Book Release"
Organizers: CPSR and the Secretariat of the UN Working Group
on Internet Governance
*CPSR's Bill Drake and Avri Doria will speak on the panel
See http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/events/docs/CPSR.pdf
The book will subsequently be available on the WGIG and UNICT
Task Force websites, which are http://www.wgig.org and
http://www.unicttaskforce.org, respectively. The book's
Introduction and Conclusion are now online at
http://www.wgig.org/book-Launch.html

Wednesday Nov. 16, 11:00-13:00,
"Role of Computer Science and Engineering Professions in
Helping to Realize the WSIS Benchmarks"
Organizer: CPSR
*CPSR's Bill McIver will speak

These three events are also included as part of the civil
society's alternative Citizen's Summit,
http://www.citizens-summit.org/labeled.html

***

In addition, CPSR members are participating individually in
other Parallel Events at the Summit, including:

Tuesday Nov. 15, 09:00-11:00, Matmata Room
"Human Rights in the Information Society"
Organizer: Danish Human Rights Institute
*CPSR's Bill Drake will chair the panel
See this link and this link.

Tuesday, Nov. 15, 14:00-15:30, Kairouan Room
The Internet Governance Debate during the WSIS Process (PAST)
Organizers: Diplo Foundation and Global Knowledge Partnership
*CPSR's Bill Drake and Robert Guerra will speak on the panel

Thursday, Nov. 17, 13:00-15:00, Saint Augustin Room
"ICT4Peace---Book Release"
Organizers: Government of Switzerland and the ICT4Peace Project
*CPSR's Bill Drake will speak on the panel
Details

Thursday, Nov. 17, 17:00-19:00, Jendouba Room
"Startup Group on Global Alliance for ICTs and Development"
Organizer: United Nations Information and Communication
Technologies Task Force
*CPSR's Bill Drake will participate in the discussion

Friday, Nov. 18, 13:00-17:00, Hannibal Hall
Civil Society Moving Forward: Where to Next?
Organizer: The CRIS Campaign
*CPSR's Bill Drake and Desiree Miloshevic will participate in
the discussion

& & &

CPSR, represented by Avri Doria, was one of  a large
coalition of NGOs that was thrown out of a German government
building by about 100 Tunisian government armed thugs.

& & & &

Bill Drake's recent presentations

Chaired the concluding panel on, "DNS, RFID and the Next
Generation of Internet: Do we Need Rules for the Road?," at
the conference, ICANN Studienkreis 2005, Brussels; October 21-22, 2005.

Gave a presentation on "Civil Society Wins in the WSIS Internet
Governance Process," at the conference, RE:activism: Redrawing
the Boundaries of Activism in a New Media Environment, Central
European University, Budapest; October 14-15, 2005.

Bill Drake recent press

CBS News Radio, Le Temps, The Wall Street Journal, Hurriyet Daily.

& & &

Bill Drake's recent publications

William J. Drake. “Conclusion: Why the WGIG Process Mattered.” In,
William J. Drake, ed. Reforming Internet Governance: Perspectives
from the UN Working Group on Internet Governance. New York:
New York: United Nations Information and Communication Technologies
Taskforce, 2005, pp.249-265,
http://www.wgig.org/docs/book/conclusion.pdf.

Daniel Stauffacher, William J. Drake, Paul Currion, and Julia
Steinberger. Information and Communications Technology for Peace
(ICT4P): The Role of ICT in Preventing, Responding to and Recovering
from Conflict. Report prepared for the Government of Switzerland,
for the World Summit on the Information Society, Tunis, 16-18
November 2005. New York: United Nations Information and Communication
Technologies Taskforce, 2005
Details

William J. Drake and Rikke Frank Jørgensen. “Introduction.” In,
Rikke Frank Jørgensen, ed., Human Rights in the Global Information
Society. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2006,
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10872.

& & & &

CPSR/Japan met November 12th for their monthly casual meeting at
Roppon-gi.

The topics included:
CPSR/Japan chapter board election
CPSR/Japan Annual Conference
CPSR Annual Members' Meeting
WSIS and Japan
1. Third Preparatory meeting for Sept 19-30, Geneva, Switzerland.
2. Summit , November 16-19, Tunis, Tunisia

See  http://www.cpsr.org/act/global/japan/enews/meeting2005

& & & &

CPSR/Japan has three nominees for its upcoming CPSR/Japan chapter
board election: Sakiyama-san, Fujimoto-san, and Yamane.

& & & &

"ICANN Reform: Establishing the Rule of Law"
by Hans Klein, Associate Professor of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology

A policy analysis prepared for WSIS.

Debates over Internet governance can be clarified by the
recognition that ICANN is a regulatory agency. Its
responsibilities for setting base prices, protecting
trademarks, and controlling market entry are typical
of a regulatory agency. Principles for good governance
of regulatory agencies exist and should be applied to
ICANN. These emphasize the rule of law, i.e. reliance
on rules to limit power politics.

ICANN's history shows how private governance can be
captured by powerful players. At WSIS governments
need to create and enforce a legally-defined framework
that limits the power of all stakeholders -- including
governments themselves. By establishing the rule of law,
the politicized processes of ICANN can be replaced by
more predictable, fair, and efficient decision-making.

Details

& & & &

United Nations Weighs U.S. Control of Internet Naming
by Larry Abramson – NPR Morning Edition, November 15, 2005
Hans Klein was interviewed.
See  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5013117

& & & &

PUBLIC SPHERE PROJECT UPDATE / November 14, 2005
Doug Schuler

CSPR Strategic Plan

Over the past month or so, I've had the fortunate
opportunity to work with longtime CPSR supporters
Jeff Johnson and Andy Oram on CPSR's new Strategic
Plan. We presented the plan at the Annual Meeting
in Palo Alto on October 29 and we are now integrating
the suggestions from the meeting into the plan and
generally making it more useful.  One of the
recommendations that we're making is for a renewed
sense of engagement between the board and the membership
including projects, chapters, and working groups.
As the coordinator of CPSR's Public Sphere Project
I'm particularly interested in integrating the pattern
language project with other projects within CPSR.

Feedback Needed on Pattern Language Site!

At the annual meeting, one of CPSR's board members
happened to comment on the Pattern Language's
"inscrutability" which is hardly an attribute that we'd
like the project to convey! So with that epithet ringing
in my ears, I resolved to make the project more
accessible -- and that of course included the web site.

One of the first things I did when I returned to
Seattle was to work on the main pattern language page.
With the somewhat revised version
(http://www.cpsr.org/program/sphere/patterns/) I tried
to make the goal of the project more clear and explain
what we're trying to do more clearly.  I wanted to make
sure that visitors to the site would know that they were
looking at a project that is under development. For that
reason, many of the pattern submissions will still be
incomplete, contain typos and in general offer many of
the flaws that plague material that's not quite ready
for prime time.  On the other hand, I didn't want
people to think that there wasn't anything worth
looking at.  Thus I added links to patterns that are
reasonably complete.  Also,  we are still wrestling with
various ways to make it as easy as possible for people
to find the patterns that they need.

Please send me your comments (positive and negative)
on the site and on the project.  Also, of course,
I'd love your suggestions on what can be done.

Here are some of the questions we'd like to answer:

    How can we present the project more clearly?
    What information is unclear?
    What information is missing?
    How can we make the design more compelling?
    How can we make the information clearer?

Progress on Book

About 50 authors are now working on the text of their
revised patterns for the upcoming MIT Press book.
We expect that the patterns to be much more coherent
after this current round of editing.  Stay tuned!

& & & &

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS

Mainstream Media to American Democracy: Drop Dead!
By Brad Friedman, BradBlog.com
November 05, 2005
Details

& & & &

Challenging the Norms and Standards of Election Administration:
Standards for EMBs (Election Management Bodies) Use of the Internet is part of a
series of discussion papers in the Election Standards Project
asking for our comments.
This discussion paper covers aspects of election, but not the
act of voting itself. However, another paper on "Standards for
External and Absentee Voting" is available on the IFES site.

& & & &

Global Youth Conference on Democracy and Political Participation,
Dec. 13-15 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Essay Contest. A global
network of young democracy activists is taking shape... Connect
with a global community of youth sharing inspiration, ideas and
solidarity. See  http://www.ymd.youthlink.org

& & & &

Scientists, Architects And Engineers Join Together To Promote Ethics

At a recent London conference, "Science, design and technology:
pursuing an ethical agenda," Architects and Engineers for Social
Responsibility became part of Scientists for Global Responsibility
(SGR). SGR - an independent UK-based organisation which now comprises
approximately 850 members across the natural and social sciences,
engineering, IT, architecture and design - has the aim of 'promoting
ethical science, design and technology'.
See http://www.sgr.org.uk/

& & & &

PEACE REVIEW: A JOURNAL OF SOCIAL JUSTICE seeks Peace Profiles for
its subsequent issues. In each of their quarterly issues, they run
a Peace Profile, which describes the peace or human rights work of
an individual or group, in essays of between 2500-3500 words.
See  http://www.usfca.edu/peacereview/guidelines.htm

--------------------
My apologies if I overlooked any entries for this
Compiler issue, and/or if any of your questions/requests
to me have not been answered. Please feel free to send
me reminders, maybe with the Subject beginning - "NUDGE".
Thanks, Susan   evoy(a)cpsr.org

******************************
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 c or refer to the
Activists Handbook 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/about/projects
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 2005.
Redistribution of this email publication - both internally
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Donations are tax deductible.

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********************************************
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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)