Home About

Working Groups Publications

Join Events

Topics Chapters

News Search

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

The CPSR Compiler - January 2004 - 2.6 & 2.7 <

COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS for SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Turning Thoughts to Actions

*********
TABLE OF CONTENTS
*NEWS AND OPPORTUNITIES FROM CPSR
*RECOMMENDATIONS FROM EPIC
*NON-CPSR OPPORTUNITIES
***************

October CPSR Board Meeting minutes are available. Contact cpsr@cpsr.org

**

Revised deadlines for submission
PDC 2004 - Participatory Design Conference
Artful Integration:
Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices
July 27-31, 2004
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada

See http://cpsr.org/conferences/pdc2004

**
Christopher Johnson is the new chair of CPSR's Computers and Environment Working Group.
"I would like to take the opporunity now to ask Working Groupmembers to think of where the group should go and how we will affect change. As well as strengthening our sense of shared purpose, it would help me to know how I can serve the group. CPSR-environment members should use the listserve (cpsr-environment@lists.cpsr.org), to:
* Introduce yourself, share with the group your interests, experience, skills, etc and what you would like to see the group do this year
* Review the mission statement and interests of the group as expressed on the website, share comments on anything that may need changing or priorities and opportunities for action
* Visit our website (http://www.cpsr.org/program/environment) and tell us about how you would like our web presence to be or new resources that should be added

Thank you in advance for your collaboration. I look forward to hearing from all of you."
To subscribe and join the Working Group, use http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/cpsr-environment ***
CPSR endorsed Verified Voting's resolution
"Computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering. It is therefore crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. Many of the electronic voting machines being purchased do not satisfy this requirement. Voting machines should not be purchased or used unless they provide a voter-verifiable audit trail; when such machines are already in use, they should be replaced or modified to provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. Providing a voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for certification of new voting systems." See http://www.verifiedvoting.org CPSR also endorsed the 'Voter Confidence Acts' - H.R. 2239 & S. 1980
Representative Rush Holt's bill (HR 2239) and Senator Robert Graham's bill (S 1980) would require a voter-verifiable audit trail on every voting system. They are called the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Acts of 2003.The text of S. 1980 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S.1980: The cosponsors to S 1980 . 1980 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.01980:

The text of H.R. 2239 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:h.r.02239: The cosponsors to H.R. 2239 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR02239:@@@P

If these bills are enacted, they would avoid the need for state by state and county by county actions. ACTION ALERT:
Please contact your representative and or Senator, and tell them about CPSR's support and your support of these pieces of legislation. You can find all the contact information you need at:
http://www.congress.org/stickers/?dir=congressorg&officials=1
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/writerep ****
Citizens for Digital Rights is a new collaborative venture launched by the DC Chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and Electronic Frontiers Georgia. They are presenting a series of events on technology and society. The first event, already reported here, was a panel in December onElectronic Voting Technology. On January 10, CDR presented a talk on Open Source Software and eGovernment by Will Rodger, director of Public Policy for the Open Source and Industry Alliance http://www.osaia.org, a new project of Computer and Communications Industry Association http://www.ccianet.org. In it, he compared legislative models and discussed various initiatives around the globe and at state and local levels around the U.S. We also discussed whether open source software is better for applications such as electronic voting. Upcoming meetings include a presentation on the future of digital television and one by Public Knowledge on the need for limitations on intellectual property rights and open access to information. Contact: Paul Hyland - paul@paulhyland.com **
Nathaniel Borenstein, CPSR's President, plans to be in the San Francisco Bay Area the week of February 9th. Stay tuned for plans for a meeting. **
Nathaniel also plans to visit Japan from March 6-10, and is scheduling a meeting of the Chapter. **
CPSR Seattle members represented CPSR at a League of Women Voter's public forum "Your Vote Counts: Making Democracy Work" on January 8th. Barbara Simons was a speaker. *****
WSIS-related News

CPSR Endorsed Civil Society Declaration
Led by the writing team of Bill McIver and Sally Burch, the civil society community at WSIS produced its consensus declaration.

**
Bill Drake has been busy with:

"The World Summit on the Information Society: Winners, Losers, and Prospects for Civil Society Organizations," keynote at the Oxford Internet Institute workshop, Themes and Issues of the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society: Next Steps for Research, Policy and Practice, Oxford; January 12,2004.

"Current Trends in ICT Global Governance," presentation at the Social Science Research Council conference, IT Governance and the Politics of Civil Society, Geneva; December 13-14, 2003.

"WTO Rules and Global Electronic Trade," training session for developing country delegations to the World Summit on the Information Society in the United Nations Development Programme's series, institute@wsis, Geneva; December 12, 2003. "Overview of the Issues," presentation at, Global Governance of ICT: Public Interest Considerations, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility workshop held during the World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva; December 9, 2003. "The Changing Landscape of ICT Global Governance: Implications for Developing Countries," presentation at the 22nd General Assembly of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations, Inclusive Global Governance: Challenges and Opportunities for CONGO in Partnership with the United Nations, Geneva; December 4-6, 2003. Bill Drake is quoted in Open Democracy "THE WSIS: whose freedom, whose information?" http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-8-10-1630.jsp **
Doug Schuler and Rufo Guerreschi are attending the World Social Forum in Mumbai (Bombay), India. **
Kwami Ahiabenu spoke about WSIS at a Ghana branch of Rotary International to an audience who had not heard about this event before. Kwami also had a TV interview (local TV3 station) on the same subject,and was part of the Ghana national stand at WSIS. **
Hans Klein has published the following research report on WSIS:"Understanding WSIS: An Institutional Perspective on the UN World Summit on the Information Society" http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/research/research.htm#WSIS He spoke at CPSR's governance workshop at WSIS:"Internet Identifiers: Reconciling the Competing Interests of ICANN and ITU" http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/WSIS/WSIS120903.html He spoke at the workshop of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) at WSIS: "Future Actions After WSIS Geneva" http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/governance_report/index.page He organized a panel at Georgia Tech on the Patriot Act. This featured former Congressman Bob Barr, Assistant US Attorney Randy Chartash, and a panel of journalists. http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/events/events.htm#PatriotAct Hans Klein is quoted in CBC News, Canada's "Rich, poor discuss internet at world summit" See http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/12/10/internet_summit031210 Hans is quoted in the Boston Herlad "RIFTS between nations loom at UN summit" http://business.bostonherald.com/technologyNews/technology.bg?articleid=135 Hans is quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune's, "WEB focus of tech summit" http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Dec/12102003/nation_w/118541.asp And Hans is quoted in NewsMax.com's "UN Schemes to Take Over the Internet" http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/12/9/121014.shtml **
Robert Guerra presented "World Summit on the Information Society: Key Issues and Opportunities" as part of the e-Development Services Thematic Group and Development Gateway at the World Bank on Nov. 19. ****
Voting Technology NCTimes.com's "Voting fix is bigger headache," gives credit to CPSR for its repeated warnings of the potential and limitations of electronic voting machines. Barbara Simons was interviewed by Truthout in "What you need to know about electronic voting" http://truthout.org/docs_03/102003A.shtmlhttp://truthout.org/docs_03/102003A.shtml Erik Nilsson is quoted in Computer World's "Criticism of electronic voting machines' security is mounting" http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,88178,00.html Erik is also in PC World's "E-VOTING Critics Grow Louder" http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113879,00.asp ********************
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM EPIC DOD Inspector General's report on Total Information Awareness -cites lack of foresight and the possibility of governmental abuse ofpower and criticizes the agency's failure to consider privacy concernswhen developing the Total Information Awareness (TIA) system.See http://www.dodig.osd.mil/audit/reports/FY04/04-033.pdf A report released by the Fairfax County, Virginia Republican Party strongly criticized the use of touch screen "e-voting" system in last November's local elections. The report declared that the new voting machines were "a failure" and that local officials lacked proper recovery policies, citing technical and procedural problems described in numerous accounts from both precinct workers and voters. The report further called for state regulations to guide local election boards.National Committee for Voting Integrity: http://www.votingintegrity.org Verified Voting Coalition http://www.verifiedvoting.com **************************
NON-CPSR OPPORTUNITIES The papers presented at the 2nd ACM Conference on Universal Usability are now available from the ACM Digital Library via links from the conference website at http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigchi/cuu2003/program.htm. Call for Papers
Designing For Civil Society
A special issue of Interacting with Computers, examining the challenges of designing systems to support democractic participation in civil society. Full details of the call and instructions for authors are available from: http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cms/teaching/amd/CivilSociety Graduate student at the masters and doctoral level, or post docs, interested in working in a collaborative team environment on a variety of research projects, in "The Role of Technology in the Production, Consumption and Use of Health Information in Varied Contexts: Implications for Policy and Practice" should consider applying for a research assistantship/fellowship.See http://www.sfu.ca/aticdl, or call Ellen Balka @ 604-725-2756 Consider entering an international competition for cyberarts. Ars Electronica, in cooperation with SAP, includes a new category called "Digital Communities." http://www.aec.at/en/prix/communities/communities.asp Entries are sought for the David S. Barr Award to recognize one high school and one college student for their journalistic achievement and to encourage young journalists to focus on issues of social justice.See ="http://www.cwa-union.org/friday_mail/president/documents/2003_Barr_Award.pdf . *********

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 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.

Pay Dues, Buy Tshirts, or Make Donations via
http://cpsr.org/membership

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"

--
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