Jerry Brito

Leaked documents show a real threat to the international flow of information

WCITLeaks is cited in the WSJ this morning. Gordon Crovitz:

The process is secret, so it was hard to know what authoritarian governments were plotting or how the U.S. was responding. This column last month detailed some of the proposals, but other commentators doubted that any changes would be material.

Disclosure came when two academics decided to use the openness of the Web to help save the Web. George Mason University researchers Jerry Brito and Eli Dourado earlier this month created a site called WCITLeaks.org. They invited anyone with access to the documents describing the U.N. proposals to post them, so as “to foster greater transparency.” These documents are not classified but had not been made public.

The WCITLeaks site hit pay dirt this past Friday. Someone leaked the 212-page planning document being used by governments to prepare for the December conference. Mr. Dourado summarized: “These proposals show that many ITU member states want to use international agreements to regulate the Internet by crowding out bottom-up institutions, imposing charges for international communication, and controlling the content that consumers can access online.”

Posted on Jun 18, 2012 • 6 notes • #media #wcitleaks #wcit #un #itu

An update on WCITLeaks.org

So far we have received and published four documents. That doesn’t sound like much, but they are very interesting ones. Eli and I are very happy with how our little project has turned out so far.

Thanks to all of you who have spread the word about WCITLeaks. The site was received positively in the Twitterverse, and we’ve garnered some press coverage, including these stories:

C-Net: U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show
Reason: Is the UN Planning to Regulate the Internet? WCITLeaks Aims to Find Out.
Techdirt: The Threat Of A UN Internet Takeover Is Only ‘Vague’ Because The UN Shares No Details
TechPresident: A Wikileaks for the U.N.’s Would-Be Internet Regulators
Bloomberg BNA: ‘WCITLeaks’ Website Attempts To Bring Transparency to WCIT Proposals (sadly behind a paywall)

A couple of pointers: If you want to understand what the WCIT is really all about, the one piece you have to read is this post by Milton Mueller. It’s the best explanation of what’s at stake. And if you want to understand the International Telecommunication Union’s lack of transparency, check out this article by Patrick Ryan and Jacob Glick.

Posted on Jun 8, 2012 • #wcit #itu #un #wcitleaks #Transparency