Confederation of European Computer User Associations

CECUA Euro-news flash

US President gets democracy on the Internet!

Just before Christmas the White House issued directives to various government departments regarding Internet services for US citizens. In general the US President is putting citizens first and technology second: in other words putting the Information Society before the Information Highway, i.e. "moving us beyond the world of bits and bytes and into the fabric of our society".

What makes those directives so interesting is the focus: The US citizen is in the focus instead of the technology for delivering information. CECUA welcomes this turnaround from technology to people.,

These directives involve several user issues. Many of them the same as those raised by CECUA in the CECUA Bill of Rights for the Citizens of the Information Society. This White House initiative shows that the issues raised in the Bill of Rights are truly global ones, e.g.

· Access to Government agencies information on citizens terms, i.e. the information is first to be classified into categories of service the citizen/user needs and then the particular Government agency responsible for providing it. This finally puts the user/citizen into focus - as it should be.

· The agencies are directed to provide their services on the Internet, i.e. both information delivery and information gathering.

· The agencies are directed to provide qualified people to communicate with citizens using e-mail.

CECUA believes that these directives touch the core issues addressed by the Bill of Rights. Once the "safety net" for the citizens of the Information Society (as proposed by CECUA and Partners) is implemented, the need for a Bill of Rights becomes more visible.

The American government now recognises that for the US to continue its lead in the development of Information Technology there is no better way than have the citizens/users embrace it, or in other words "eat your own lunch".

Over the holidays, CECUA Public Relations, headed by Mr. Friedrich Dittmer, has been busy collecting press reactions to the initiatives of the US President. The reactions are really favourable. They raise many important and critical issues, for example, how do citizens who do not have a PC at home access the Internet?. Furthermore, what role can community centres and learning resource centres play to serve the Citizen in this respect ?.

While we welcome the American initiative we are looking around for similar EU activities. And ask whether the EU is building a similar "safety net" for European citizens? We are convinced that the best (and only) way to encourage the users to become active citizens of the Information Society is to do something tangible, something they understand and appreciate and helps them with their daily lives. And it should apply to all citizens of the EU Member States, not only to the privileged few.

The new US approach of putting people before technology has long been favoured by the EU and Member States. However, it raises many issues which need to be addressed and resolved if this approach to succeed. CECUA and Partners have been advocating those issues, after the highly successful conference, "The Citizen and the Global Information Society", CECUA and Partners presented a draft Bill of Rights for the Citizens of the Information Society to promote awareness and public discussion. (Please visit CECUA at www.cecua.org) This Bill is intended to provide a basic safety net for all citizens, both the haves and the have nots.

CECUA is very pleased that the Commission has supported the issues addressed in the Bill of Rights in recent Communications. We are equally pleased that the US President initiatives also do the same. To CECUA and Partners this is a confirmation that the issues are not only necessary for the protection of citizens, but also have a global dimension and can only be truly addressed at the global level.

Dr. Jon Thorhallsson
CECUA President