Do the coalition partners all draw from the same deep pockets? Kind of seems like it. And what do a lot of those deep pockets have in common? Click to zoom.
InfoWorld Nederland has the story:
Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., and two other technology companies will develop a code of conduct with a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote freedom of expression and privacy rights, they announced Friday.
Microsoft and members of its “business ecosystem” just happen to fund all the NGOs mentioned in the partial list of members of that “coalition,” note.
And Google’s chief lobbyist was previously Jim Moore’s right-hand man at the Hewelett-Packard-funded Open Economies Project.
The two companies along with Yahoo Inc., and Vodafone Group plc said the new guidelines are the result of talks with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.
Personally, I am not ready to declare the Berkman Center a “non-governmental organization” until I know exactly how much public money they are getting from the Depts. of Defense and State.
And that goes double for the BSR group, whose Web site lists its major funders as
- The Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation [Reebok]
- The Ford Foundation
Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund - Hewlett Foundation (HP)
- Hitachi Foundation (MSFT partner)
- U.S. Agency for International Development — Global Development Alliance (GDA)
- U.S. Department of State
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Among its members, according to its SourceWatch profile, are such distinguished global corporate citizens as Wal-Mart and Verizon. And H-P, of course, bugger of journalists. And Exxon, international grandmaster of astroturf PR. And Coca-Cola, whose corporate culture produced that fine, upstanding democratic reformer, Vincente Fox of Mexico. Sony. Disney, whose happy cartoon characters flack for the likes of Roberto Civita of the Grupo Abril and its partners, the Naspers Group.
And its local partner in Brazil, the Ethos Institute? Well, that will have to wait for another post. Suffice it to say that its Web site sponsor is Hewlett-Packard, and that all the companies involved in the Yellow Line collapse are proud and prominent members. Including the corruption-plagued Siemens. As is the Globo Organization.
All avid readers, it seems, of Moore’s seminal HBR paper “Predator and Prey.”
Now, in what sense, and to what degree, is a project partially funded with public money “non-governmental”?
Why should we not classify it instead as a GONGO, or “government-operated non-governmental organization“?
That all depends on the amount of public oversight and accountability and the transparency of the relationship, I suppose.
A complete lack of which seems to characterize a lot of sleazy public-private dealings we have been collecting in the NMM casebook over the past year. Including the “turnkey” contracts for the Yellow Line here. And the Gil Díaz-Hildebrando contracts in Mexico. And hundreds of millions in government contracts that go to Harvard.
GONGOs.
This is a network — after all, it is Jim “Second Superpower” Moore who constantly reminds us that the network, not the firm, should be the basis unit of analysis in postmodern global business — that functions as a GONGO.
I bet you.
Much as SWIFT got caught functioning as a GONGO under the aegis of the GWOT — while maybe violating a few trade secrets to get an edge on European competitors at the same time, who knows?
And you wonder why Doha collapsed?
U.S. trade negotiations are being run by freaking Moonies.
And it is a GONGO, I mean to say, in the service of global trade negotiations conducted in a manner that has succeeded spectacularly in pissing off most of the governments of countries where businessses and foreign investors that are not doing their damnedest to create and mercilessly exploit “captive markets” in the emerging economies might well find it advantageous to be doing business under local rules.
Provided those local rules are not adjudicated by bumbling, cartoonish crooks.
The Bovespa was up 33% in 2006. It was up 2.25% just today.
See what I mean?
(Of course the dread that I have now comes from seeing even level-headed friends here in São Paulo thinking seriously, “hey, maybe I ought to become a day trader.” But hey: If it’s not one thing, it’s another.)
The degree of influence over policy exerted by the tech and telcom lobbies at this point in history sometimes leads me to think, uncharitably, that it our current government is the real non-governmental organization in this scenario.
Or perhaps we could call it a quasi-governmental private-sector consortium, along the lines of the Pinochet government in Chile, or Mexico under Vincente “Sangue de Coca-Cola” Fox.
Our trade policy is being dictated by Bill Gates and executed by Moonies.
Because, after all, “technology is strategic.”
As if North Korea would not be able to shoot off semi-successful little missiles unless it upgraded to Vista. Gimme a fucking break.
Berkman certainly has enough former revolving-door government employees on hand, as I never tire of noting, to staff upper management positions in a “shadow government” cabinet department — Ethan the failed search emperor, from a “digital divide” company he sold to a company that contracts for exclusively for USAID, Moore himself, Clippinger, lawyers from Ken Starr’s office and U.S. v. Microsoft, congressional aides.
A motley crew of K-street and redundant military-industrial complex revolving-door jockeys of all shapes and sizes, all of them taking their hat off to Larry Summers of Kissinger & Associates The Kennedy School of (Overthrowing Other People’s) Government(s) …
Technology companies have come under fire for providing equipment or software that permits governments to censor information or monitor the online or offline activities of their citizens. For example, last year, Google’s approach to the China market was criticized over its creation of a censored, local version of its search engine.
That it is to say, tech companies have come under political pressure from nasty little political stooges in the service of Alberto “What’s wrong with nepotism?” Gonzales.
And Alberto Gonzalez is hardly what you would call a friend of privacy, having tried his damnedest over the years to get Google user data into government hands for data-mining purposes.
These companies have also come under fire for providing equipment or software that lets democratically elected governments do their own law enforcement work online, even while holding out for due process rights that permit the companies to defend the privacy of their users against government abuse.
At the same time, no one is seriously proposing a serious code of conduct for U.S. companies that continue to manufacture and export massive amounts of military-grade weapons that blow people’s motherfucking heads, or legs, off.
Where, I ask you, is the sense of priorities here?
A Yahoo subsidiary was cited by human rights groups for working with Chinese police to identify political activists, who were ultimately arrested and prosecuted for posting anti-government opinions and information online.
Yes, maybe. But not a subsidiary that Yahoo effectively controls, as I understand it.
Foolishly, perhaps, Yahoo lets people whose actions it cannot control drive its brand.
Then again, the same charge that can be be laid against Yahoo might be laid against Xinhua Finance Network, as I understand the murky terms of the U.S.-controlled Caymans corporation’s relationship with the government news agency.
So why are we not including it, and other media companies in its same situation, in this discussion?
The parties involved said that would [sic] a framework that would hold signatories accountable for their actions in the areas of freedom of expression and privacy rights.
The main verb is missing there.
Hash out? Haggle over? Pretend to work on? Filibuster for the cameras about for a while, then table?
Frameworks do not hold signatories accountable.
Does the UN Charter hold the U.S. accountable?
Organizations and coalitions with enforcement power hold signatories accountable.
So who will have the enforcement power here?
The groups participating in development of the guidelines include: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Business for Social Responsibility; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights Watch; and Reporters Without Borders.
All of which accept either government or corporate funding, or both. And often from the same circle of donors.
HRW is emphatic that it does not receive government funds:
Human Rights Watch accepts no funds from any government, directly or indirectly, nor have we ever.
But it did get “more than $100,000” from both the Hewlett Foundation and the Packard Foundation in 2005, which do tend to fund a lot of projects that the government also funds.
Like the iCommons project.
Who did Kenneth Roth litigate for, and against, by the way, during his years in “private practice,” after his Reagan-era Justice Dept. service?
And what did he do, exactly, in the Iran-Contra investigations?
Because a lot of those people never went to jail, you know. Like they freaking should have.
So that makes for a good resumé highlight why, exactly?
I will have to read some of his legal writings on “universal jurisdiction,” which rings some bells about a potential way to understand he might understand a convergence of interests between HRW and the donors and trade negotiators …
But for now, just a thought.
One which, however, given Berkman’s role here, especially — Jim Moore has a high “gatekeeping betweenness coefficient,” or whatever the the hell the network topology geeks call it — deserves an organizational network diagram to see if it pans out, or puts us on the path of any other key influentials.
Unfortunately, Cmap does not seem to work in 64-bit Ubuntu, but maybe I can run it on the VMPlayer …
The OEI, an institutional sketch. Click to zoom
The New Market Machines 