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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from November
2015</title>
5 <description>Entries from November
2015</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Pentagon_deciding_the_Norwegian_negotiating_position_on_Internet_governance_.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Pentagon_deciding_the_Norwegian_negotiating_position_on_Internet_governance_.html
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13 <pubDate>Tue,
3 Nov
2015 13:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a
15 list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices.
16 Internal notes should also be documented. The document list (called a mail
17 journal -
"postjournal
" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks
18 to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail
19 journal is available for everyone. Most offices even publish the mail
20 journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages. The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called
21 <a href=
"https://www.oep.no/
">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -
22 OEP
</a
>) to make it possible to search the entries in the list. Not
23 all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to
24 use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting
25 journal entries .
</p
>
27 <p
>In
2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the
28 Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications on OEP that
29 piqued my interest. The title of the document was
30 "<a href=
"https://www.oep.no/search/resultSingle.html?journalPostId=
4192362">Internet
31 Governance and how it affects national security
</a
>" (Norwegian:
32 "Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet
"). The
33 document date was
2012-
05-
22, and it was said to be sent from the
34 "Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations
". I asked for a
35 copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to a legal clause said to authorize them to reject it
36 (
<a href=
"http://lovdata.no/lov/
2006-
05-
19-
16/§
20">offentleglova §
20,
37 letter c
</a
>) and an explanation that the document was exempt because
38 of foreign policy interests as it contained information related to the
39 Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or similar. I
40 was told the information in the document related to the ongoing
41 negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The
42 explanation made sense to me in early January
2013, as a ITU
43 conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance
44 (
<a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_
.28WCIT-
12.29">World
45 Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-
12</a
>) had just
47 <a href=
"http://www.digi.no/kommentarer/
2012/
12/
18/tvil-om-usas-rolle-pa-teletoppmote
">reportedly
48 in chaos
</a
> when USA walked out of the negotiations and
25 countries
49 including Norway refused to sign the new treaty. It seemed
50 reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later.
51 Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the
52 <a href=
"http://www.nkom.no/
">Norwegian Communications Authority
</a
>
53 and the
<a href=
"https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dep/sd/
">Ministry of
54 Transport and Communications
</a
>. This might be the reason the letter
55 was sent to the ministry. As I was unable to find the document in the
56 mail journal of any Norwegian UN mission, I asked the ministry who had
57 sent the document to the ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy
58 Permanent Representative with the Permanent Mission of Norway in
61 <p
>Three years later, I was still curious about the content of that
62 document, and again asked for a copy, believing the negotiation was
64 <a href=
"https://mimesbronn.no/request/kopi_av_dokumenter_i_sak_2012914
">I
65 asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the
66 receiver
</a
> and
67 <a href=
"https://mimesbronn.no/request/brev_om_internet_governance_og_p
">asked
68 the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender
</a
> for a
69 copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the
70 public. The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law
71 reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a
73 (
<a href=
"http://lovdata.no/lov/
2006-
05-
19-
16/§
20">offentleglova §
20
74 letter b
</a
>), claiming that they were required to keep the
75 content of the document from the public because it contained
76 information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation
77 that the information should not be made public. I asked the permanent
78 mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained
79 an account from a meeting held in the Pentagon for a limited group of NATO
80 nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content
81 of the meeting to be publicly known. They explained that giving me a
82 copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in
83 the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway. They
84 also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not
85 the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of
86 this had not listed it in their mail journal.
</p
>
88 <p
>Armed with this
89 knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the
90 author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the
91 "sender
" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications. The
92 ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of
93 the document. According to
94 <a href=
"https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/unga69_rapport1/id2001204/
">a
95 government report
</a
> the author was with the Permanent Mission of
96 Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (
2014-
09-
22), so I
97 guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending
98 the report initially and
99 <a href=
"https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/mote_2012_i_pentagon_om_itu
">asked
100 them for a copy
</a
> but I was obviously wrong as I was told that the
101 document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there
102 when the document was written. Next, I asked the Permanent Mission of
103 Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least
104 tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with
105 the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva. The Foreign Ministry also
106 upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document
107 to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with
108 the Norwegian Embassy in Washington. I do not know if this is the
109 same person as the author of the document.
</p
>
111 <p
>If I understand the situation correctly, someone capable of
112 inviting selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a
113 meeting where someone representing the Norwegian defence attaché in
114 Washington attended, and the account from this meeting is interpreted
115 by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to expose Norways
116 negotiating position, negotiating strategies and similar regarding the
117 ITU negotiations on Internet Governance. It is truly amazing what can
118 be derived from mere meta-data.
</p
>
120 <p
>I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting?
121 And what exactly was said and done at the meeting? Anyone know?
</p
>
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