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CI's Best Bits coalition challenges the United States on online surveillance
Although the basics have been widely reported, there is still a lot of confusion out there about how all the pieces of the PRISM surveillance scandal fit together, so here's the rundown. First, on Thursday 6 June, came the revelation in the Guardian of a secret court order requiring US phone carrier Verizon to disclose a complete set of records of telephone calls made over a three-month period.
New coalition to TPP negotiators: This is what a Fair Deal looks like
Today, a coalition of organisations representing a diversity of interests have come together from around the world to ask for A Fair Deal on intellectual property (IP) in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
Fighting for a voice at the World Telecommunications Policy Forum (WTPF)
This week Consumers International is representing the consumer movement at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum and the ITU's World Telecommunications Policy Forum (WTPF). The ITU is one of two institutions (along with the TPP, which also has a meeting this week) that we have been targetting with advocacy for improvement of its openness and transparency.
How lobbyists cloak themselves as consumers to push a corporate agenda
The consumer movement is trusted and respected for its role as an impartial watchdog, which allows it to fearlessly hold governments and businesses to account for infringing consumers' rights. But this trust and respect is a valuable commodity, and businesses would do anything to get a piece of it.
How the Trans-Pacific Partnership impacts digital consumers
The 16th round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership wrapped up in Singapore this week, and according to the official press release the intellectual property chapter is one of a small number of chapters (along with competition and environment) that remain unresolved, and will be the focus of the remaining negotiating rounds.
Update from the 16th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Singapore
The 16th round of the Trans-Pacific partnership negotiations is underway this week and next in Singapore, and Consumers International is participating actively – or at least, as actively as we can, given the closed nature of the negotiations. Only one day of the negotiations is officially open to the public, and all other events are independently stakeholder-organised.
The evolution of Internet governance - beyond Internet freedom
Last year's ITU WCIT conference inflamed the community's fears of the extension of intergovernmental control over the Internet. Whilst this fear was legitimate, an over-emphasis on the ITU can obscure the fact that the Internet is already controlled in undemocratic ways - often by governments, through both national and global processes, but also by corporate interests. It also obscures the fact that government action is sometimes necessary to uphold the rights of Internet users, just as government inaction can sometimes support their freedoms.
Copyright enforcement shouldn't be killing people
Copyright enforcement ought to be about going after those who profiteer from the work of others by dealing in pirated goods, and about protecting consumers from sub-standard fakes. Instead, the industries pushing for tougher copyright enforcement have become fixated on controlling the behaviour of ordinary consumers.
Why the ITU is like Freemasonry
In the wake of the anti-climatic conclusion to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) earlier this month, readers could be forgiven for being confused about whether all the hype about the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) staging a UN takeover of the Internet had ever represented a real threat, or had ju
Lack of transparency continues to hamper dialogue at the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Jeremy Malcolm, fresh from the 15th round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Auckland, New Zealand, answers some questions about the progress of the negotiations, the rising tide of opposition to their secrecy, and how they could affect Internet freedoms.
Q: As the Auckland round wraps up, what is the public feeling about the TPP negotiations?
