Re: [gnso-igo-ingo] Nature of the problem / Evidence of harm discussion

["Christopher Lamb" <christopher.lamb17@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Alan and Thomas,

One thing you might like to have in mind is an experience we had in IFRC 
after the 2004 Tsunamis.  A web fraud based on abuse of the redcross name 
was brought to the attention of the FBI because, among other things, it 
asserted a fax address in Los Angeles.  The response was that they wouldn't 
take action until and unless we produced evidence of an American citizen 
victim.  We pointed out (to sympathetic people in the State Department) that 
this wasn't the point at all, and furthermore that by the time we had a 
"victim" the game would have been lost.  These fraudsters set out to get 
their money in the first couple of days after the disaster strikes, when 
it's still newsworthy, and the victim doesn't usually know that s/he is a 
victim at all for much longer than that.  The FBI remained unimpressed, but 
we got what we needed in the end from Interpol after the intervention of a 
police force in another country named in the fraud.
This is, however, something of a distraction from the point about the 
provision of protection to those organisations which receive it at all other 
levels of public information dissemination.  International and national law 
and the obligations on governments therefrom are critically important 
considerations, and were obligations accepted by governments for specific 
reasons (for example in the 1949 Geneva Conventions) without the need for 
any discussion of the quality of evidence of harm.
All the best

Chris

-----Original Message----- 
From: Alan Greenberg
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 10:18 AM
To: Thomas Rickert ; gnso-igo-ingo@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [gnso-igo-ingo] Nature of the problem / Evidence of harm 
discussion

1. Yes, but I think the question is phrased slightly incorrectly.
Your wording could be taken to mean that we would only grant
protections to a particular organization if they can demonstrate
previous harm. My interest is to try to understand the range of harms
and protective actions taken prior to trying to establish the
criteria for granting special protections.

2. Not applicable.

At 07/02/2013 03:18 PM, Thomas Rickert wrote:

> All,
> following up on yesterday's call I would like to ask all of you to answer 
> either of the following questions. As you will remember, there was some 
> debate surrounding the question if and what evidence of harm needs to be 
> presented to the group and Chuck proposed the following questions, which I 
> have modified a bit:
> 1. Are there those who want to see evidence of harm before considering 
> granting protections?
> 2. Are there those who are requiring protections who are unwilling to 
> provide information? If so, are you offering other or a subset of the 
> information required according to the survey sheet.
> Please answer the question by next Tuesday.
>
> Thanks,
> Thomas