Repudiation note

On the attacks of the Temer government against the Internet Steering
Committee in Brazil

The Coalition on Network Rights is publicly repudiating and denouncing
the most recent measure of the Temer management against the rights of
Internet users in Brazil. Unilaterally, the Federal Government published
on Tuesday, August 8th, in the Official Gazette (DOU), a public
consultation aimed at changes in the composition, election process and
attributions of the Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br).
                          
Composed by representatives of the government, the private sector, civil
society and technical and academic specialists, CGI.br is, since its
creation, in 1995, responsible for establishing standards and procedures
for the use and development of the Internet in Brazil. An international
reference for multistakeholder Internet governance, the Committee had
its role strengthened following the promulgation of the Internet Civil
Rights Framework (Law 12.965/2014, known as the "Marco Civil") and its
regulatory decree, which establishes that it is the responsibility of
the committee to define the guidelines for all issues related to the
sector. From then on, the CGI.br became the subject of the private
sector's dispute and greater interest.
                          
By publishing a public consultation to significantly change the Steering
Committee model unilaterally and without any prior dialogue within the
CGI.br itself, the government overrides the law and breaks with the
pluralism that marks the debates on the Internet and its governance in
Brazil.
                          
The consultation was not the subject of the last CGI.br meeting, held in
May, and on Monday, August 7th, the day before publication in the DOU,
the committee's coordinator appointed by the government, Maximiliano
Martinhão, only sent an e-mail to the list of board members reporting
that the Federal Government intended to discuss the issue - without,
however, informing that everything was already set, in the process of
being officially published. It is worth mentioning that, on August 18th,
the first meeting of the new CGI.br management takes place, and the
government could have waited to set the issue in a democratic way with
the committee members. However, it preferred to act in an autocratic way.
                          
Since his inauguration as coordinator last year, Martinhão - who is also
the Information Technology Policy Secretary at the Ministry of Science,
Technology, Innovation and Communications - has made public statements
in support of changes to the Internet Steering Committee. As early as
June 2016, in the first meeting he chaired at CGI.br, after the change
in command of the federal government, he declared that he was "receiving
demands from small providers, content providers and investors" to change
the composition of the body.
                          
The pressure to revise the strength of civil society in the committee
grew, especially on the part of telecommunications operators, supporters
of the government. In December, during the Internet Governance Forum in
Mexico, organized by the United Nations, a group of civil society
entities from more than 20 countries expressed concern and denounced
attempts to weaken CGI.br by the Temer administration. In the first half
of 2017, the government maneuvered to impose a standstill on behalf of a
questionable "economy of resources".
                      
Martinhão and other members of the Kassab/Temer administration have also
publicly defended the achievements of the Civil Internet Framework,
proposing the easing of network neutrality and criticizing the need for
users to consent to the processing of their personal data. In this
context, the multi-sectoral composition of CGI.br has been fundamental
for the defense of the postulates of the MCI and basic principles for
the guarantee of a free, open and plural internet.
                          
For this reason, this Coalition - which brings together researchers,
academics, developers, activists and consumer protection and freedom of
speech entities - launched, during the last CGI electoral process, a
public platform that called for the "strengthening of the Internet
Steering Committee in Brazil, preserving its attributions and its
multistakeholder character, as a guarantee of the multi-participatory
and democratic governance of the Internet" in the country. After all,
changing the CGI is strategic for the sectors that want to change the
direction of Internet policies that have been implemented in the country.

In this sense, considering the "Marco Civil", the multistakeholder
character of the CGI and also the political moment that the country is
going through - from an interim government of questionable legitimacy to
undertake such changes - the Coalition on Network Rights demands the
immediate cancellation this consultation.

It is unacceptable that a process directly related to Internet
governance is affected by a dubious public consultation without its
guidelines having been discussed before, internally, by CGI.br. It is
another example of the modus operandi of the administration that
occupies the federal government and that has little appreciation for
democratic processes. We will continue to denounce such attacks and seek
support from different sectors, both inside and outside Brazil, against
the dismantling of the Internet Steering Committee.

August 8th, 2017
Coalition on Network Rights
Coalizão Direitos na Rede
https://direitosnarede.org.br

-- 

Carlos A. Afonso
[emails são pessoais exceto quando explicitamente indicado em contrário]
[emails are personal unless explicitly indicated otherwise]

Instituto Nupef - https://nupef.org.br
ISOC-BR - https://isoc.org.br