We've chatted about this privately, so I'll just quickly (re-)offer... a. congratulations for the new move, b. gratitude for everything you've given to the Movement so far, and c. sincere hope to see you remain Movement-involved (or at least Movement-aligned, to the extent you can!) in the future!
While losing the direct involvement of good people is never a great thing, the quality of our governments' rulemaking and policymaking correlates directly to the quality of people they hire. So it's definitely a good thing to be seeing ministries like the BMI hiring good people like John. LG, Phil On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 at 15:56, Mathias Schindler <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear John, > > out of all German federal ministries, the BMI has the most consistent and > proven track record to claim its rightful place on the dark side. Even many > of the more well-meaning people will be part of a machinery that has a > traditionally hostile approach to civil rights, digital rights and civil > society whenever their interests collide with those of the security > apparatus. > > Having said that, there is always hope that one more well-meaning person > can help tip the scale and can help counter-balance the priorities within > the ministry (which is surprisingly immune to whoever the current minister > is) and I sincerely wish that you will be that person. > > Good luck on your journey. > > Mathias > > On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 7:33 AM John Hendrik Weitzmann < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> here's a little announcement for y'all: I'll be changing jobs in May, >> leaving the general counsel job at WMDE in order to work as a lawyer in the >> German federal ministry of the interior, in a department called digital >> society and information technology (abbreviated DG). My future team lead >> asked me whether people would see this as 'moving to the dak side', but I >> reassured her that policy Wikimedians are way too professional to >> misunderstand it that way ;) In DG I'll have opportunity to work on some >> of the very same government projects that we at WMDE tried to influence, >> and I'm pretty sure that they hire me at least in part because of that >> civil society background. So, if it is in fact dark over there in certain >> ways, they seem to strive for some additional light through recruitment >> (several people from NGOs were hired recently). >> >> As of now, I don't really know much about how close the DG department is >> to what the German government does in the Council and to European affairs >> in general. Much of that is done by / through the foreign ministry. But if >> you have specific suggestions or wishes around data policy in Germany and >> such, let me know. I cannot of course guarantee anything, but as mentioned >> above, there seems to be openness for the civil society mindset and good >> ideas are hard to stop. And, simultaneously to me moving to the ministry, >> the policy team at WMDE is now complete, with the last vacancy filled, >> There's now more people power available at WMDE for wikimedian policy work >> than ever before. That, plus all of you (plus WMEU as a platform) will help >> shape digital policy that benefits Free Knowledge. At some point I might >> re-join as a volunteer, still to be figured out, and there will probably be >> a replacement GC at WMDE soon to help with legistic stuff. >> >> In the mantime, find me on LinkedIn or get in touch via private email at >> [email protected], yours >> >> John >> _______________________________________________ >> Publicpolicy mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> > _______________________________________________ > Publicpolicy mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >
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