Hi all,
I am Saqib from the UAE.
There is no freedom of panorama in the UAE, however I am willing to
advocate for it.
Could we possible have a CN banner for advocacy of Freedom of Panorama for
the UAE?
--
Saqib,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Saqib
Hello friends
As some of you may know, in the U.S., Section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978…>
is up for reauthorization at the end of this year. This is the statute that
allegedly authorizes the U.S. National Security Agency’s mass surveillance
practices being challenged in Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_v._NSA>.[1] We briefly
mentioned the impending reauthorization debate in our most recent blog post
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/06/23/wikimedia-v-nsa-present-future/>
about the case.
While we firmly believe that mass surveillance is unconstitutional and
unethical, we are also monitoring the legislative debate around the
reauthorization of Section 702. Courts must evaluate the NSA’s surveillance
practices, but we also believe that certain reforms to Section 702 could be
a positive step forward.
One major issue on the agenda is what’s called the “backdoor search”
loophole. After the U.S. government amasses a vast amount of sensitive
internet communications, agents are allowed to search through databases of
these communications for individuals’ personal information, including the
personal information of U.S. citizens and residents. One problem here is
that they don’t need a warrant for this, which allows them to perform
searches without judicial oversight or a need to demonstrate probable
cause.
To be sure, we believe that the government’s initial mass collection of
these communications is illegal per se. However, as the ACLU’s Ashley
Gorski has observed
<https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/time-r…>,
backdoor searches of Americans’ communications compound the legal problems
associated with the U.S. government’s implementation of Section 702. We
think that closing the backdoor search loophole would be a small but
significant step towards addressing these many legal problems identified by
the ACLU. In addition, while the lack of a warrant requirement primarily
implicates the communications of American citizens and residents, we are
aware that the communications of people around the world are swept up by
this surveillance. We consider this to be a violation of the human rights
to privacy and freedom of expression.
Mass surveillance, by any government, and no matter the location of those
subjected to it, is repugnant to the spirit of the Wikimedia movement. We
believe that everyone should be free to read and share knowledge
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/policy-landing/privacy/> without government
monitoring.
Regards,
Jan
[1] You can read more about the case on our landing page
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/stopsurveillance/>.
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*new address (Oct. 2, 2017)*:
1 New Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Cornelius,
I have already noted the initiative and submitted its support as a topic for the upcoming WMCZ board meeting. Some of our members however ask (very valid!) questions, like for example: How does the initiative support our cause. I mean, I can clearly explain this, but any further text or materials related to this topic would be cool!
All best
Jan/Aktron
Wikimedia Czech Republic
vice-chairman
______________________________________________________________
> Od: Cornelius Kibelka <cornelius.kibelka(a)wikimedia.de>
> Komu: publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Datum: 26.09.2017 05:05
> Předmět: [Publicpolicy] Fwd: [Wikimedia-l] "Public money,
>
(Forwarding from Wikimedia-l, I though it might catch people that don't read wikimedia-l [anymore]).
--
Cornelius Kibelka
Program and Engagement Coordinator (PEC)
for the Wikimedia Conference
---------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht ----------
Von: "Cristian Consonni" <cristian(a)balist.es <cristian(a)balist.es>>
Datum: 25.09.2017 17:47
Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] "Public money, public code" campaign by Free Software Foundation Europe
An: <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>>
Cc:
Dear all,
I am forwarding below an e-mail about a campaign by Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) advocating for making software produced with
public resources available with a free and open license.
I would recommend that everybody, especially people and organizations
based in Europe, support this campaign, which I think is very close to
our movement's values.
The excellent video at https://publiccode.eu/ <https://publiccode.eu/> explains well the many
implications of using proprietary software as digital infrastructure.
Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia Italia already support this campaign
(and I do, as well, personally).
In particular there is this open letter, signed by over 10,000 people
and 78 organizations (including Open Knowledge International, Creative
Commons, Debian, KDE, GNOME, La Quadrature du Net, OSI and many others):
https://publiccode.eu/openletter/ <https://publiccode.eu/openletter/>
Thanks for you time.
Cristian
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Thanks to You, we're now 10,000 people strong!
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 13:38:38 +0000
From: FSFE <info(a)my.fsfe.org <info(a)my.fsfe.org>>
To: Cristian Consonni
Dear Cristian Consonni,
first of all, thank you for signing the open letter "Public Money?
Public Code!". Please find a quick update about the campaign within this
email.
We are amazed to see that we already have more than 10,000 signatures
since we launched last week. We have received international support from
organisations like Creative Commons, Debian, Open Knowledge
International. Thanks to many volunteers who have come forth to help
bring the message to others in their native language: The website and
the open letter are now available in Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, French,
German, Greek, Italian, and Turkish. We already uploaded a German
version of the video and will soon start translating and recording it
into French, Italian and Spanish.
For the German elections, we have already used your support, sending the
open letter with names and comments to over 1000 promising candidates.
In the coming months, we will file and evaluate freedom of information
requests about public spending and create material for political
decision-makers to help them in making the right choice for Free and
Open Source Software.
The feedback from you was enormously positive: We have heard from some
of you the video helped you convince family members, friends and
colleagues, to sign the open letter.
Imagine how many signatures we can have if each one of us convince three
more people to support the open letter!
So please help us to spread the word further!
https://publiccode.eu/#spread <https://publiccode.eu/#spread>
Best Regards,
Matthias Kirschner, President, Free Software Foundation Europe
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l>
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l>, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>?subject=unsubscribe>
----------
_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list
Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy>
(Forwarding from Wikimedia-l, I though it might catch people that don't
read wikimedia-l [anymore]).
--
Cornelius Kibelka
Program and Engagement Coordinator (PEC)
for the Wikimedia Conference
---------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht ----------
Von: "Cristian Consonni" <cristian(a)balist.es>
Datum: 25.09.2017 17:47
Betreff: [Wikimedia-l] "Public money, public code" campaign by Free
Software Foundation Europe
An: <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc:
Dear all,
I am forwarding below an e-mail about a campaign by Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) advocating for making software produced with
public resources available with a free and open license.
I would recommend that everybody, especially people and organizations
based in Europe, support this campaign, which I think is very close to
our movement's values.
The excellent video at https://publiccode.eu/ explains well the many
implications of using proprietary software as digital infrastructure.
Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia Italia already support this campaign
(and I do, as well, personally).
In particular there is this open letter, signed by over 10,000 people
and 78 organizations (including Open Knowledge International, Creative
Commons, Debian, KDE, GNOME, La Quadrature du Net, OSI and many others):
https://publiccode.eu/openletter/
Thanks for you time.
Cristian
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Thanks to You, we're now 10,000 people strong!
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 13:38:38 +0000
From: FSFE <info(a)my.fsfe.org>
To: Cristian Consonni
Dear Cristian Consonni,
first of all, thank you for signing the open letter "Public Money?
Public Code!". Please find a quick update about the campaign within this
email.
We are amazed to see that we already have more than 10,000 signatures
since we launched last week. We have received international support from
organisations like Creative Commons, Debian, Open Knowledge
International. Thanks to many volunteers who have come forth to help
bring the message to others in their native language: The website and
the open letter are now available in Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, French,
German, Greek, Italian, and Turkish. We already uploaded a German
version of the video and will soon start translating and recording it
into French, Italian and Spanish.
For the German elections, we have already used your support, sending the
open letter with names and comments to over 1000 promising candidates.
In the coming months, we will file and evaluate freedom of information
requests about public spending and create material for political
decision-makers to help them in making the right choice for Free and
Open Source Software.
The feedback from you was enormously positive: We have heard from some
of you the video helped you convince family members, friends and
colleagues, to sign the open letter.
Imagine how many signatures we can have if each one of us convince three
more people to support the open letter!
So please help us to spread the word further!
https://publiccode.eu/#spread
Best Regards,
Matthias Kirschner, President, Free Software Foundation Europe
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Dear all
Yesterday, a Senate hearing was held in Washington DC to discuss a proposed
bill, called “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act”, or SESTA (bill S.1693).
As we noted in a message to this list earlier this month
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/publicpolicy/2017-September/001683.ht…>,
SESTA aims to address the problem of online sex trafficking by creating new
holes in the intermediary liability rules for websites hosting
user-generated content.
For yesterday’s hearing, we submitted a letter
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/sesta-letter-to-law…>
in support of the current legal framework for freedom of expression and
intermediary liability protections to the Chairman of the U.S. Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation. In our letter, we explain
that, without the protections for internet platforms, afforded by the
Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230 and similar laws, there would
be significant legal barriers to building and sustaining collaborative
projects like Wikipedia.
The existing notice and takedown systems have proven to be scalable and
effective solutions to remove illegal content. The current legal
protections allow us to abstain from editorial decisions and empower the
communities to develop and enforce their own content policies. It is clear
that Wikipedia is no place for sex trafficking and content that would
violate these policies is removed swiftly.
SESTA would open the door for state specific obligations for platforms,
which is in conflict with the nature of the internet that unites people
across borders. Despite its laudable goal, the bill endangers projects like
Wikipedia which would not be possible in an environment where website hosts
are required to constantly monitor for possible violations of rules and
defend against a multitude of lawsuits. Open platforms have significantly
expanded free access to the world's knowledge, and new rules should not
come the expense of an open internet and collaboration online.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Dear All,
Earlier this year, we wrote to let you know that the Wikimedia Foundation
had joined amicus briefs that supported challenges to executive orders on
immigration and travel[1] to the United States.[2][3] We’re writing now
with an update on these cases: the US government has petitioned the Supreme
Court to review the court of appeals decisions in State of Hawaii v. Trump
and International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump. [4][5] Arguments
will take place on October 10.
Last week, the Foundation was again invited to join an amicus brief to be
filed in these cases. This new brief makes similar arguments to our
previous filings opposing the executive order.[6] It describes how the
order’s restrictions would impact the international operations of the
Foundation and other signatories. It also detail legal problems with the
order’s provisions and proposed implementation. The brief, which was filed
today, was signed by 161 organizations.[7] We have also published a blog
post with additional information.[8]
As you know, we constantly monitor legal and policy developments around the
world for issues that impact the Wikimedia projects. The order’s
restrictions on international travel and immigration would affect our
ability to collaborate within the movement, among community members,
Foundation staffers, members of our Board, and other stakeholders in the
free knowledge space. Already, community conferences for our movement are
experiencing difficulties in obtaining visas for some volunteers and
further restrictions would endanger our work towards participatory and free
knowledge for everyone. We will continue to monitor the outcome of these
cases, and related developments.
Best,
Jan
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_States)
[2]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/06/amicus-brief-immigration-travel-restr…
[3]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/15/amicus-brief-us-travel-restrictions/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13780#Hawaii_v._Trump
[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Int%27l_Refugee_Assistance_Project_v._Trump
[6]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Amicus_brief_of_tech_companies_%2…
[7]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Trump_v._IRAP_Amicus_Brief_Filed_…
[8]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/18/amicus-brief-us-travel-immigration/
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Hi all,
As you may have seen earlier this week, we're looking for a Deputy General
Counsel to join the Wikimedia Foundation's legal team. Join us in our
mission to empower people to create and share the sum of all knowledge:
https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/837894
<https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/837894>
This position will offer the opportunity to help lead and develop a highly
collaborative team of 9 lawyers and 2 paralegals who represent and advise
on the Wikimedia Foundation's work around the world. The Deputy General
Counsel will focus particularly on advising the Foundation technology and
engineering teams about legal issues such as open source licensing and
international compliance for a variety of public-facing features, and much
more.
Please share the position with anyone who may be interested!
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Director
Wikimedia Foundation
*NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical
reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
Dear All,
As many of you know, we have closely been tracking the dispute between Equustek
and Google
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/07/11/canada-online-free-expression/>,
which began in Canada but has recently moved to the courts of the United
States. Today, we have filed an amicus brief
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_google_v_equustek_amicu…>
in this case, opposing global takedown orders that threaten free expression
and access to knowledge, two central pillars supporting the Wikimedia
movement.
In June 2017, the Canadian Supreme Court ordered Google to remove search
results leading to products that likely infringed Equustek’s trade secrets.
This removal order was for all searches run worldwide. We intervened
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/10/14/intervention-google-v-equustek/> in
that litigation, and earlier this summer published a blog post
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/20/google-v-equustek/> detailing our
concerns about the result. Google has now asked the Northern District of
California to declare <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment>
that enforcement of the Canadian court order would violate the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution. Initially, they are
seeking a preliminary
injunction <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preliminary_injunction>, to stop
the order from going into effect.
We filed our amicus brief to help the court understand how global takedown
orders violate US and international law, and the effect that such global
orders could have on the Wikimedia projects and communities, as well as
internet users generally.
The Canadian order encroaches upon the human right to freedom of
expression. People have the right to access and impart information through
any media, including the internet. In the United States, these fundamental
human rights are protected by the First Amendment. Internationally, they
are enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political…>
and other such instruments.
Global takedown orders like the Canadian one in Equustek will impact access
to information on the projects, and undermine the mission of the Wikimedia
movement. The removal of search results will restrict the global public’s
right to find and access information, even on Wikipedia. Additionally, it
will make it more difficult for Wikimedia contributors to locate sources
for the knowledge they share via the projects. Enforcement of such global
orders could also lead to increased ease of global censorship, not just on
search engines like Google, but also on sites like the Wikimedia projects,
which are dedicated to providing access to information to people around the
world.
We asked the court to grant Google’s application for a preliminary
injunction, and to be mindful of these broad concerns as it consider the
issues going forward. We will keep you updated on the case.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Dear Public Policy wikifolk,
As some of you may be aware, I've been working with Jessica Coates (cc'd) -
of the Australian Digital Alliance(ADA) - formerly from Creative Commons
international - on a Wikimedia advocacy campaign in Australia with regards
to the possibility that Fair Use legislation could be introduced into the
Australian Copyright Act. This has been recommended many times before by
various government enquiries, and the Library and Education sectors of
Australia have long hoped for its introduction. Our current system - known
as Fair Dealing - is extremely limiting and prescriptive, which is why it
was illegal, for example, to use a personal VCR recorder in Australia until
2006, just to take one example...
Having sought and received confirmation from WMF-Legal that the proposal is
technically and legally allowable, and also received confirmation from the
ADA that their staff/communications/documentation resources would be
available to do the 'heavy lifting' in terms of public communications, I
have been running this straw poll/consultation with the Australian,
english-Wikipedia community:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians%27_notice_bo…
You can see there the details of the proposed advocacy campaign on-wiki,
and also the background details of why this legal issue is relevant right
now in the Australian political landscape.
In short - I'm proposing to run banners on en.wp to logged out users in the
Australian-IP range who are viewing WP articles which include a Fair Use
image (e.g. corporate logo, album cover, film title card...), which will
point them to a landing page [probably on meta] explaining what Fair Use in
Australia would mean in practice, and why it's not nearly as scary as the
Copyright Lobby would have them believe. It can then point people to
further resources on the ADA website, ask them to contact their local
politician on the matter etc. [I do NOT intend for wikimedians to be
collecting a petition]. In this regard it is rather similar to the FoP
advocacy campaign run in Europe.
here's some local political context:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/productivity-commission-to-say-fair-use-could…
and here's a video that ADA produced a couple of years ago for their
previous lobbying campaign in this topic (which was pitched to an audience
of online-creative industry in general)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ACreationistas_-_Aust…
And here's the actual government enquiry report which is currently sitting
in front of the politicans waiting for a formal reply:
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/intellectual-property/report
As you can see at the Straw Poll/Consultation page the comments so far are
heavily (though not unanimously) in favour of running this advocacy
campaign on-wiki. It has been advertised through watchlist notifications in
the Australian IP range, emails to the Australian-chapter mailing list, as
well as talkpage notices to the 1700 people in the category:Australian
Wikipedians.
So, as people involved in wikimedia/open-access advocacy in general, you're
welcome to comment on that page yourselves (though - do please indicate if
you're actually going to be affected by this proposal, since it's only
going to be visible in Australia). Equally - I'd love your feedback and
help in designing the banner and landing page (on meta?) IF the
consultation is eventually closed as demonstrating confirmed
relevant-community consensus to support. Obviously there's a Communications
side of this as well.
Sincerely,
Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
Hello everybody
Some of you may know SXSW ("South-By-Southwest"), an annual tech/music/film
festival in Austin, TX. For next year's event, held in March 2018, we have
submitted a proposal for a panel that will discuss a worrying trend:
countries increasingly enforce their national laws globally to take down
content from the internet.
We believe that this trend causes harm to the internet and access to
knowledge. (See our blog posts about this problem in the context of a case
in Canada <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/20/google-v-equustek/>
and another
one in France
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/31/global-search-engine-delistings-petit…>.)
The panel will address how countries that enforce their national laws
globally online threaten to break the internet into pieces and hurt
fundamental rights. We're very happy to have secured the participation of
three fantastic speakers:
- Nani Jansen Reventlow (a Dutch freedom of expression litigator)
- Malavika Jayaram (a privacy researcher and the Executive Director of
the Digital Asia Hub)
- Carlos Affonso Souza (Director of the Institute for Technology and
Society, Rio)
Now, before the proposal is considered for the official program, it has to
go through a voting process. Everybody can vote (after creating an account
on the SXSW website):
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/70062
We need your help to get as many votes as possible. Please vote for our
panel, help spread the word,
<https://twitter.com/Wikimedia/status/897847012082806788> share with your
friends and networks.
THANK YOU!
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org