Fwd: WSIS? We Seize!

[Chris Croome]

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Hi

Are there any FSF plans for the WSIS? 

Following is a call for organising some stuff at it that I
think the FSF could plug into somehow...

Chris

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WSIS? WE SEIZE!

Over the past months, activists and artists with different
backgrounds ranging from indymedia centers to the
noborder-networks, from the Free Software movement to
community media, from grassroots campaigns to hacker
collectives, have been discussing how to intervene in,
outside of, counter to, or as an alternative to the agenda
and organisation of the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) from December 10th to 12th in Geneva,
Switzerland.

WHAT IS WSIS?

WSIS is the first of two global summits dealing with
information and communications to be held by the United
Nations in Geneva. But the Summit is a smokescreen.
Although it talks about the digital divide, knowledge
dissemination, social interaction, political engagement,
media, education, and health, this language is used to
mystify the continuing use of information to protect and
advance the interests of global capital.

GENEVA_03

Geneva_03 is an open, loose and temporary association of
groups and individuals who are currently preparing a
series of events around the WSIS.  Its common goal is to
create autonomous physical and network spaces for diverse
tactical, grassroots, activist and community media actions
and discussions in and around the WSIS meetings.

The issues at hand are many:

* Shaping and subverting the information technologies that
  are now part of everyday life.

* Refusing both war and infowar.

* Countering the exploitation of  immaterial work and
  informalized labor.

* Resisting border management and digital rights
  management.

* Defending our commons of ideas, including indigenous
  knowledge, scientific data, free software, educational
  systems and  creative expression against the immense
  pressures of privatization.

* Fighting for freedom of movement and freedom of
  communication for all people, not just those who promote
  and benefit from capital. The actions taking place at
  WSIS? WE SEIZE!  will seek to promote new ways of
  communicating, what is communicated, by who and for
  whom: to create new social formations that can address
  the systems of domination that surround and inform our
  world.

The struggle takes place from the local, regional and
global infrastructure (radio and TV spectrum, wireless
frequencies, cable rights of way, satellite orbital paths)
to the content that traverses those structures.  These
networks should be for the benefit of and use by all the
world's people, organised to nurture and sustain social
cooperation.

WSIS? WE SEIZE!

The event will work around these areas:

* A strategic convention before the UN summit in Geneva,
  comprising discussions, panels and presentations.

* A polymedia lab to share tools, skills, experiences, and
  knowledge.

* A three day netcast which will follow the revolution of
  the earth, streaming independent media activism and
  community media projects from across the globe.

Geneva_03 is asking all interested people to get involved
with this initiative.

We are working to establish venues and schedules, as well
as options for accomodation and general survival in the
expensive city of Geneva.

There will be a further preparation meeting at the European Social Forum in
Paris in November.

For all people interested in the Geneva_03 project, this
is the open working list:

  http://lists.emdash.org/mailman/listinfo/prep-l

and the website:

  http://www.geneva03.org/

The Geneva_03 website is an open publishing forum where
you can post your proposals, ideas and contributions.

- -- 
http://chris.croome.net/
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