Hi Sunil. Warm Greetings FOSS-Comm-ers.
First, let me say that I can not think of a more flattering
association in which EFF could come up than under the subject thread
on Gandhi. Let me also, before going on, introduce my esteemed
colleagues on the international team at EFF - Gwen Hinze, the
International Policy Director at EFF (coming back from OECD meetings
in Paris) and Danny O'Brien, the International Outreach Coordinator
(who just came back from an Internet Law workshop in Kazakhstan).
On the narrower questions of methodology, I dare say that EFF's
activities do try to honor the history of the great social movements.
We have a deep respect for the institution of law and a fundamental
belief that the public interest ought to guide the shaping of the law.
In the knowledge economy, those digital rights and freedoms coincide
with technology and innovation policy that respects the open
infrastructure of the Internet. The public interest in the information
society includes the preservation of human dignity as well as
promotion of economic development.
Some of you may be familiar with EFF, but let me describe at your
indulgence the different parts of the organization that are combined
in our work. Our legal team has been engaged in a long series of
impact litigation cases over the last 19 years on surveillance,
digital copyright, freedom of information, and other digital rights
issues. Led by an activism team, we create public education websites
and run web campaigns, disseminate news, and help shape public debate.
We often work in strategic coalitions ranging in focus from telecom
regulation to freedom of information and privacy to intellectual
property, open access, etc.. We also have a technology team that does
original research and analysis on the technologies whose specific
implementation frames the social, legal, and policy issues.
Internationally, we work at international decision-making bodies of
the UN, the EU, the OECD, etc. on the major dossiers whose norm-
setting activities have global impact. We also often work in
collaboration with domestic groups working in their own countries on
copyright reform, privacy, cybercrime, and other legislative and
regulatory developments. Sometimes this takes place in the back
channels, other times as a joint effort, and and often in informal
questions and exchange of information. There are no other 'branches'
of EFF and we are not formally affiliated with groups such as
Electronic Frontier Finland, EF Australia, EF Bulgaria, etc. though we
communicate and work with them when the opportunity arises.
We have already been in contact and have had the opportunity to work
with several like-minded groups from India and we are very excited
about the Center for Internet and Society's great work, and impressed
about it having a real impact so soon into its existence. So even
though there is not an "EFF" in India per se, we are very much aware
of the great groundswell of activity in India around FOSS, digital
rights, and access to knowledge as well as many relevant innovative
ICT for Development initiatives. In addition to the Center for
Internet & Society, I've had the pleasure of working with great people
from the Alternative Law Forum, the Lawyers Collective, OLPC India,
Bangalore National University, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation,
the members of the WIPO India delegation, and many others.
We would be delighted to find ways to work with you, these various
organizations and communities, individually and in coalition. One
sustainable way of doing so we've tried in the past could be a
targetted campaign on something like the criminal provisions for
copyright mentioned below, or the privacy implications of the computer
crime act, or another related policy issue on the legislative or
regulatory agenda.
Thanks again for the introduction.
I have joined the FOSS-comm listserv as well in order to continue the
conversation and look forward to finding future opportunities for
collaboration.
Sincerely,
Eddan
On Oct 15, 2009, at 12:58 PM, Sunil Abraham wrote:
On Thu, 2009-10-15 at 23:03 +0530, jtd wrote:
On Thursday 15 October 2009, Amol Hatwar wrote:
** My Comments Inline **
On Oct 15, 2009, at 9:50 PM, jtd wrote:
*chop*
Think about it, I am not aware of any equivalents of EFF in India!
All
the intellectual
masturbation that we subject ourselves to and the Gandhiji
examples on
the list
won't help...
Afaik there isnt an equivalent of EFF in India. One of the reasons
why
copyright violations became criminalised.
Perhaps a sig will help in triggering one.
Alerting Gwen and Eddan of EFF to this. I am sure they would be
interested in starting an equivalent of EFF or EFF chapter in India.
Requesting Gwen and Eddan to read the thread in the archive.
Apart from some small time software patent opposition - CIS doesn't
have
the experience, expertise or budgets yet for court battles.
Hopefully in
the future we would be able to do more with support from EFF. We
need to
focus on raising public support first.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eddan Katz
Electronic Frontier Foundation, International Affairs Director
454 Shotwell St. San Francisco, CA 94110-1914
office: +1(415) 436-9333, x.133; mobile: +1(415)728-5800
skype: eddankatz; fax: +1(415) 436-9993
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