[liberationtech] Kroes No Disconnect Strategy

[Andre Rebentisch]

Colleagues,

today EU-Commissioner Neelie Kroes launched an initiative to help net
dissidents abroad together with the CSIS.org lobbyist Karl Theodor zu
Guttenberg, a former German defense minister,

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1525
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/player/streaming.cfm?type=ebsvod&sid=192684

Media coverage in Germany was pretty strong as the controversial former
minister zu Guttenberg still polarises the public in the aftermath of
his phd forgery scandal, and his inappropriate late resignation.

CSIS.org funding sources are undisclosed. For this project zu Guttenberg
just receives travel refunds according to the EU spokesperson.
Officially, according to Kroes spokesperson Ryan Heath CSIS is not
behind the project, was however listed as his affiliation at the
European Commission press conference.

We had recently a discussion on accepting funds from defense industries,
I would add that alleged ties may endanger dissidents who use these tools.

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"The "No Disconnect strategy" will assist people in four ways:

    Developing and providing technological tools to enhance privacy and
security of people living in non-democratic regimes when using ICT.

    Educating and raising awareness of activists about the opportunities
and risks of ICT. In particular assisting activists to make best use of
tools such as social networks and blogs while raising awareness of
surveillance risks when communicating via ICT.

    Gathering high quality intelligence about what is happening "on the
ground" in order to monitor the level of surveillance and censorship at
a given time, in a given place.

    Cooperation. Developing a practical way to ensure that all
stakeholders can share information on their activity and promote
multilateral action and building cross-regional cooperation to protect
human rights."