Public Knowledge said Thursday the ITU needs to take steps...

Public Knowledge said Thursday the ITU needs to take steps to make documents available to the public, especially as ITU is headed into the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in December, which will take up calls to regulate the Internet. “It’s disappointing that, despite calls for transparency by a number of member countries and the Secretariat of the ITU, countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates apparently want to keep these documents inaccessible,” said Rashmi Rangnath, director of PK’s Global Knowledge Initiative. “The proposals in these documents represent the countries’ plans for the International Telecommunications Regulations -- plans that can affect citizens of all nations, and the future of the Internet as an open, democratic medium. Denying public access to these proposals is no way to conduct such an important process.” PK said so far ITU has released only one document on the proposal, which had already been leaked weeks earlier. PK President Gigi Sohn raised similar concerns at a recent FCBA seminar (CD July 2 p1).