blog/draft/2015-internet-governance.txt

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