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Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

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The CPSR Compiler - September 2003 - 2.3

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COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS for SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Turning Thoughts to Actions

********* TABLE OF CONTENTS

*NEWS AND OPPORTUNITIES FROM CPSR
*RECOMMENDATIONS
*NON-CPSR OPPORTUNITIES
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GLOBALIZATION AND CPSR: CHANGING ISSUES, CHANGING ORGANIZATION
Organizer: William J. Drake - wdrake@ictsd.ch

A free discussion session to be held in conjunction with CPSR's Annual Conference in Seattle

6 - 9 pm, Friday, October 24, 2003

The Watertown Hotel
4242 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle, WA
http://www.watertownseattle.com

CPSR is becoming a somewhat globalized organization. Already we have individual members in over twenty seven countries, chapters on four continents, and a new Board of Directors comprising almost half non-U.S. residents. There is reason to believe that in the years to come, the global sphere will be the source of many new and energetic members. At the same time, some of CPSRís most active members in the U.S. and abroad are already involved in international policy debates, including the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society.

The globalization of CPSR's membership and involvements creates both exciting opportunities and daunting challenges for the organization. How can we best capitalize on the former and manage the latter? Come join an intensive, action-oriented discussion of these issues to be held in conjunction with CPSR's annual conference!

Agenda

1. Brief remarks by globally engaged members to set the stage:

Overview
William J. Drake
Director, the Project on the Information Revolution and Global Governance;
Senior Associate, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development; Switzerland

The World Summit on the Information Society
William J. McIver, Jr.
The State University of New York at Albany; USA

Cooperation and Alliances between CPSR and Other Civil Society Organizations
Hans Klein
Georgia Institute of Technology; USA

Industrialized vs. Developing Country Member Interests and Priorities
Madan Rao
Inomy.com; India

Building International Membership and Chapters
Katitza Rodriguez
Privaterra; Peru

2. Discussion

Potential Outcomes and Action Items

1. WSIS. Coordinating CPSRís participation at the December 2003 conference in Geneva.

2. United Nations. Discussion of possible CPSR participation in other social, economic and policy discussions related to information and communication technology.

3. Working Group on Global ICT Policies. Possible establishment of an interest group to coordinate CPSR involvement in global issues, including WSIS.

4. CPSR Cooperation with Other Civil Society Organizations. Possible expansion and formalization of our relationships with othertechnology-oriented public interest groups in the U.S. and abroad.

5. Building International Membership and Chapters. Possible action plan and guidelines, including with respect to organizational finances.

6. Other Action Points We Might Identify . . .

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CPSR's 2003 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
and NORBERT WIENER AWARD DINNER FOR MITCH KAPOR
http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/annmtg03/index.html

Getting the Technology You Deserve:
Community Participation in Regional Cable Franchise Policy

and

Norbert Wiener Award Dinner for Mitch Kapor

Saturday, October 25, 2003

Daybreak Star Cultural Center, Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington

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Getting the Technology You Deserve:
Community Participation in Regional Cable Franchise Policy
8:30 am - 6 pm

Join us for a day of policy, practice and ACTION for community broadband access in Seattle and King County. Experience the "real thing" with the Seattle case study and the CPSR 2003 Annual Conference.

We will engage you and inspire you with a series of interactive discussions and presentations from the top practitioners in the field, including:

• * Mike Apgar, Founder and Chairman, Speakeasy Networks
• * Sue Buske, The Buske Group
• * US Senator Maria Cantwell (tentative)
• * Manuel Castells, Ph.D., Univ. of California, Berkeley (invited)
• * Mark Cooper, Ph.D, Research Director, Consumer Federation of America
• * Sue Diciple, Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission
• * Represetantive Jay Inslee (invited)
• * Dirk Koning, President, Alliance for Communications Democracy
• * Washington State Represenataive John McCoy, Tulalip Tribes LEAP Project
• * Sean Stokes, the Baller Herbst Law Firm, Washington D.C.
• * and many other local experts from the Silicon Forest, active in designing and building community networks!

This conference will focus on teaching you how to take back the media, in your own community:

• * National, International and local experts framing the policy issues - why is community broadband access important and what are the ways to get it.
• * Activists share how broadband access impacts social change, cultural diversity, and supports community goals
• * Native and Rural community leaders telling how it can be done even in "impossible" situations.
• * Building a coalition for change in Seattle and King County. Join our 'hearing' as we ask our elected leaders: why not the best from our local cable franchises?

Be part of the solution!

• * Participate in a mock Public hearing on our technology future
• * Walk away with strategies and tools to Improve your cable franchises and get the technology infrastructure you need in YOUR community.
• * Get involved in helping to plan our future, and make it happen

If you will live in the FUTURE, then attend this Conference!

Pre-conference discusions of broadband issues will take place via CPSR's Broadband discussion list. To subscribe, use http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/cpsr-broadband

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CPSR's Annual Meeting - - Free and open to the public.
6:30-7:30 pm

Members and the public are invited to learn more about Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.

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Dinner for Mitch Kapor, internet pioneer and philanthropist
CPSR's 2003 Norbert Wiener Award Winner
7:30-9:30 pm

"Mitch has long been a role model for anyone seeking to succeed in the cut-throat world of high tech business without sacrificing integrity and conscience. There are too few people who even attempt to combine these two kinds of contribution, and even fewer who succeed. Mitch Kapor is the best role model I know of for bright young engineers and scientists seeking to make a positive difference in the world." - Nathaniel Borenstein, CPSR President.

Information about Mitch Kapor and his work at http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/annmtg03/wiener.html or http://www.kapor.com/

Learn more about the Norbert Wiener Award at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/wiener.html See Past Wiener Award Winners at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/wiener-award.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Details, details, details....

Location: Daybreak Star Conference Center in beautiful Discovery Park, Saturday October 25, 2003. The conference center will help us focus our energies on a plan of action. Please note that there are no restaurants or other facilities nearby. We will arrange shuttles from the hotel for people staying there. Bus service drops nearby. There is free parking at the conference center.

Acomodations: A limited number of discounted rooms are available at the new Watertown Hotel <http://www.watertownseattle.com/>in Seattle's University District. Rooms at the "CPSR Conference Rate" are guaranteed, if still available, until September 22nd at $119 a night plus taxes. After September 22nd the rate may be honored, if rooms are available. This is a small European-style hotel that includes many amenities - such as in-room free DSL, free bicycles to explore the neighborhood, fitness room, free parking, free brekfast, and free local shuttles. The Watertown is 100% non-smoking.

To make reservations at the special rate, contact the Watertown: toll free at (866) 944-4242, direct or international at (206) 826-4242, fax to (206) 315-4242, or by email reservations@watertownseattle.com-- and ask for the "CPSR Conference Rate".

Rooms could be very limited, in general, because of a University of Washington football game that weekend.

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For more information and conference details, send a message to Mike Weisman at popeye@speakeasy.org

***

Related Recommendation:

New America Foundation's "Citizen's Guide to the Airwaves" -an attempt to educate opinion leaders and the public about the tremendous value and high-stakes battle for access and ownershipof the nation's airwaves with a poster/map of the airwaves and a 50-page Explanation Report. See http://www.spectrumpolicy.org

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CPSR-SEATTLE CHAPTER MEETING
Tuesday, September 23rd - 7 pm.

At the Still Life Cafe in Seattle's University District (not Fremont) at 1405 NE 50th just east of the Grand Illusion movie theater (on the corner of NE 50th and University Way)

The plan is to get to know/reacquaint and talk about what chapter members are interested in and might want to do with CPSR. (Feel free to invite others who might be interested!)

Subscribe to the CPSR Seattle list -- the online communicationchannel for CPSR Seattle members. You can subscribe at http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/cpsr-seattle The Chapter will use this list to see what members' concerns are, and talk about how to address them.

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Hans Klein announces a program series at Georgia Tech's Internet and Public Policy Project (IP3).

On September 23 Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge will speak about intellectual property and the public interest.

On October 16 there will be a half-day event on electronic voting (still being finalized.)

On November 6 there will be panel discussion on the Patriot Act, with former Congressman Bob Barr.

For more information see: http://www.IP3.gatech.edu

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CPSR/JAPAN ANNUAL CONFERENCE on September 26th, 2003 in Tokyo.

Members and the public are invited to learn more about Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.

Date: September 26th (Friday) 18:30--21:00
Location: ROUDOU-Square Tokyo, Room 604
Tel: 03-3552-9131
Map: http://www.tokyo-kfk.or.jp/unei/worker_3.htm

For more information and conference details, send a message to Shinji Yamane<s-yamane@computer.org>, CPSR/Japan Chair. URL: http://black.res.soft.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~s-yamane/cpsr

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Bob Kibrick, a brand new CPSR member, will include CPSRas a co-sponsor of a planned "Workshop on Electronic Voting Machines" at the University of California-Santa Cruz.The tentative plan is for Saturday October 4 from 12 to 5pm,with speakers representing Voting Technology,Verification and Trust, Election Official Perspective, and ElectedOfficial Perspective, moderated by Arthur Keller. For more information, contact: kibrick@ucolick.org

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Preliminary Call For Participation
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN CONFERENCE
ARTFUL INTEGRATION: INTERWEAVING MEDIA, MATERIALS AND PRACTICES
July 27-31, 2004 - Toronto, Canada
http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/pdc2004

The overall theme of the 2004 conference, "Artful Integration:Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices" describes a centralreality of participatory design. It recognizes that an essentialingredient in design practice is the working together of multiple,heterogeneous elements. Whereas conventional design approachesemphasize the role of the designer and the creation of singularproducts, artful integration calls attention to the collectiveinterweaving of people, artifacts and processes to achieve practical,aesthetic or emancipatory syntheses. The conference will include theinauguration of an award for participatory design, named the ArtfulIntegrators Award.

We invite submissions for the following types of sessions:

• * Research papers
• * Work-in-progress presentations
• * Workshops about methods, practices, and other areas of interest
• * Artifacts, posters, tools, interactive demonstrations,
• * and other session types to be determined

We are particularly interested in submissions that address theparticipatory design of computer applications and services (e.g.community networks, WiFi, ICT infrastructure) but we are alsointerested in other relevant areas, such as citizenship, communitydevelopment, e-democracy, open source, architecture, media, or art inwhich people are strongly involved in the development of the social /technological systems they use.

Submission requirements will be available in late September 2003 atthe conference website http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/pdc2004.Due date for Paper and Workshop submissions: January 9, 2004.

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Chairman of the US House of Representatives Social SecuritySubcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, Clay Shaw, sent a letter to CPSR asking for support and assistance as they move forward with "consideration of legislation that would combat the growing crime of identity theft and would providelong overdue protections for the privacy of each individual'sSocial Security account number (SSN)." H.R. 2971 was introduced in July. See http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Links.asp?section=46

The Subcommittee encourages CPSR to submit a letter with suggestions for improving the bill by September 29, 2003. If you would like to help with that effort, please work with the CPSR Privacy Working Group. If you are not already a subscriber, use http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/cpsr-privacy

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Ralph Grove would like to be replaced as the Chair of CPSR Computers and the Environment Working Group. The Chair is responsible, either personally or with help from other Group members and/or others, for updating the Group web pageshttp://www.cpsr.org/program/environment/index.htmlIt would be great to get someone with energy for takingon more.

Please let cpsr-environment@lists.cpsr.org know if you would like to be considered to take over. We have one candidate so far. ********

CPSR signed onto a letter from EPIC to members of the House Financial Services and Senate Banking Committeesalerting them to the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment's proposed guidelines for the implementation of Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS)."HMIS is being implemented in order to obtain an accurate count of the homeless for the purpose of improving services. While this goal sounds laudable, the proposed guidelines create an extremely invasive system of collection and use of personal information. As proposed, the system will expose the homeless to a degree of surveillance normally employed against those who have been convicted of a crime."See http://www.epic.org/privacy/poverty/

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Hans Klein is working with other faculty in the Atlanta area to form a speakers bureau of academics giving talks about US policies in the MiddleEast and at home (e.g. the Patriot Act.) Professors will talk to citizen, community, and alumni groups around Georgia. This builds on the CPSR-sponsored "Teach-in on the War in Iraq" held last spring.

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Madan Mohan Rao is on the conference committee for a policymaker's workshop to be held in Chennai, India, October 8-9. Hosted by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (www.mssrf.org), the workshop ("Policy Initiatives and Interventions for Village Infocentres") will focus on policy approaches for including village telecentres in rural development initiatives.

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2002-03 ESSAY CONTEST

Results are in. Congratulations to our 2002-03 Winners.

$200 Prize for the Best Essay
Eric Douglas Nielsen - Michigan State University
"Ethical Problems with Modern Technology"

$100 Winners
Amy Palke - Mills College
"Viruses, Worms and Biodiversity in Computer Systems"

Stephanie Rotter - Mills College
"High-Bandwidth Internet Access - Monopolies of Markets"

We received 34 essays, from 12 colleges and universities, and one high school, from 12 states, sponsored by 14 professors 5 are CPSR members). 20 other members judged.

The essays will be published at http://www.cpsr.org/essays/2003/index.html

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RECOMMENDATIONS:

Madan Mohan Rao is the co-editor of the newly released book, "AfricaDotEdu: IT Opportunities and Higher Education in Africa" (http://www.africadotedu.org). Published by Tata-McGrawHill (a division of the McGraw-Hill companies), the book is the first to chronicle and analyse the impact of ICTs on education in Africa, and the role of the education sector in strengthening local capacities in Internet infrastructure, e-learning and e-commerce.

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The archived presentations for the August Virtual Conference onTechnologies for Development are now available in the Virtual Classroom.See http://www.hcln.net/webinews_logon.htm

David Wortley is encouraging ideas for future topics for these events and has already had suggestions for sessions on ICT and gender, youth, and disability as ideas for forthcoming webinars. Let him know if you wish to make a presentation on a specific topic in the future. Contact dwortley@massmitec.co.uk

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NON-CPSR OPPORTUNITIES

The Public Interest Registry Board Call for Nominations -2003/4. The deadline for nominations is the 26th of September.

The PIR is a company established by ISOC to manage the .org top-level domain. They are looking for a balance of technical name space expertise as well as business and financial experience. Expertise in supporting the non-commercial community or experience in building a broad based advisory/input process is also key. If you are interested in being considered for the PIR Boardcontact: Terry Weigler <tweigler@isoc.org>

CPSR's President, Nathaniel Borenstein, would love to see someone from CPSR on this board.

***

Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) encourage scientists and engineers to take an ethical career path with the help of theirhighly popular publications, 'Thinking about an ethical career in science and technology'. See http://www.sgr.org.uk/ethics.html

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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.

(c) Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility 2003.
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Donations are tax deductible.

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--
Susan Evoy * Managing Director
http://www.cpsr.org/
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