+Title: Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?
+Tags: english
+Date: 2015-10-23 12:10
+
+<p>In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a
+list of every document or letter going in and out of the office.
+Internal notes should also be listed. The document list (called mail
+journal - "Postjournal" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks
+to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail
+journal is available for everyone. Most offices even publish the mail
+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
+<ahref="https://www.oep.no/">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -
+OEP</a>) to make it possible to search the entries in the list. In
+reality not all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service
+is not very good, but OEP does make it easier to find interesting
+journal entries for those that are listed there.</p>
+
+<p>In 2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the
+Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications that triggered my
+interest. The title of the document was
+"<ahref="https://www.oep.no/search/resultSingle.html?journalPostId=4192362">Internet
+Governance and how it affect national security</a>" (Norwegian:
+"Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet"). The
+document date was 2012-05-22, and it was said to be sent from the
+"Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations". I asked for a
+copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to the law
+paragraph they believed allowed them to do this
+(<ahref="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20,
+letter c</a>) and an explanation that the document was except because
+of foreign policy interests because it contained information related
+to the Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or
+similar. I was told the information in the document related to the
+ongoing negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union
+(ITU). The explanation made sense in early January 2013, as a ITU
+conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance
+(<ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29">World
+Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-12</a>) had just
+ended,
+(<ahref="http://www.digi.no/kommentarer/2012/12/18/tvil-om-usas-rolle-pa-teletoppmote">reportedly
+in chaos</a> when USA walked out of the negotiations and 25 countries
+including Norway refused to sign the new treaty). It seemed
+reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later.
+Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the
+Norwegian Communications Authority and the Ministry of Transport and
+Communications, which I guess is the reason the letter was send to
+that ministry. I also asked who had sent the document to the
+ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy Permanent Representative
+with the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva.</p>
+
+<p>Three years later, I was still curious what the document contained,
+and again asked for a copy. This time
+<ahref="https://mimesbronn.no/request/kopi_av_dokumenter_i_sak_2012914">I
+asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the
+receiver</a> and
+<ahref="https://mimesbronn.no/request/brev_om_internet_governance_og_p">asked
+the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender</a> for a
+copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the
+public. The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law
+reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a
+different law reference
+(<ahref="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20
+letter b</a>), thus claiming that they were required to keep the
+content of the document from the public because they contained
+information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation
+that the information were not made public. I asked the permanent
+mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained
+an account from a meeting held in Pentagon for a limited group of NATO
+nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content
+of the meeting to be publicly known. They explained that giving me a
+copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in
+the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway. They
+also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not
+the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of
+this had not listed it in their mail journal. Armed with this
+knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the
+author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the
+"sender" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications. The
+ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of
+the document. According to
+<ahref="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/unga69_rapport1/id2001204/">a
+government report</a> the author were with the Permanent Mission of
+Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (2014-09-22), so I
+guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending
+the report initially and
+<ahref="https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/mote_2012_i_pentagon_om_itu">asked
+them for a copy</> but obviously missed as I was told that the
+document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there
+when the document was written. I then asked the Permanent Mission of
+Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least
+tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with
+the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva. The Foreign Ministry also
+upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document
+to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with
+the Norwegian Embassy in Washington. I do not know if this is the
+same person as the author of the document.</p>
+
+<p>But if I understand things correctly, someone capable of inviting
+selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a meeting
+where someone attrepresenting the Norwegian defence attaché attended,
+and the account from this meeting is interpreted by the Ministry of
+Transport and Communications to expose Norways negotiating position,
+negotiating strategies and similar regarding the ITU negotiations on
+Internet Governance.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting?
+And what the content of the meeting really was?</p>
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