We would definitevely agree with the report from the Youth caucus, that the Intersession meeting was more fruitfull than expected from the very name of the meeting. I don't know if is the Parisian atmosphere that pervaded into the conference hall, but it seemed to me that discussions with state delegates as well as conference officials, were much more friendly and efficient than in Geneva. The speech by world famous Richard Stallman in the plenary session, on behalf of the WG-PCT had a significant impact. Its conclusion with the sentence including the word electronic colonization had a most dramatic effect. The speech by Dr. Francis Muguet in the plenary session had also definitively a positive impact concerning "Open Access", an issue that has some relationship with Copyrights. In paragraph 21-22, we were pleased to see that "Open Source" is now also listed. It remains to the FSF to lobby so that it should be replaced by "Open Source / Free Software ". The states have formed working groups : "Communication Rights" (Chair: Canada), "Cybersecurity & Privacy" (Chair: EU) and "Internet Governance" (Chair:Kenya). Session of these groups were openned to observers, but we did not have time to attend to them, as many meetings were taking place in the same time. Of course, when reading the Latin Amercia caucus report, it is clear that some "frustration" remains, depending on each level of expectation. One troublesome paragraph is the new paragraph 40C proposed by the USA. Only IPR owners are mentionned, leaving the true IP creators without any protection. This point has been included in the Statement by Meryem Marzouki on behalf of the whole Civil Society ( 18 July ) Another worrisome aspect is that the creation of a Digital Solidarity Fund appears difficult, as the European Union opposes it. Without funding, we can hardly see how infracture "actions" can be taken.

The inner working of the Civil Society was, on the whole, satisfactory. Some improvements should be made, however, concerning the openness of the debates in the Civil Society Bureau (CSB). The first project sponsored by the CSB chairperson to organize informal meetings between states delegates and the Civil Society was finally rejected in favor of requesting a right to speak in the plenary sessions. The civil society plenary initiative of a general response of the Civil Society that was presented by Meryem Marzouki was extremely good. The text is very well written and sticks to the important points of difficulty.

It is clear that the Civil Society has gain much credibility within the ranks of diplomats and conference officials. A huge victory is that the Civil Society has been allowed, in the next PrepCom3, to make statements during the plenary session; before opening the discussion about each paragraph. The Civil Society is not part of the negotiation process, but its intervention occurs before each step of the diplomatic negotiation. The hopefully specific and convincing recommandations of the Civil Society should be still fresh in the mind of delegates when the diplomatic word to word negotiation starts. It is going to impose on Civil Society actors a very hard work of suggesting realistic and precise recommandations, but it is worth it.

For the future PrepCom3, if the Civil Society wants to keep its hard won credibility, one should avoid at all costs long and monotone "vanity speeches" that intend to boost the importance, the representativity, the alledged achievements of an organization and that suggest only very vague recommandations in "techno speak". Instead one should focus on the true reason to be part of WSIS which is advocacy. The Civil Society should promote very short ( 3 to 6 minutes ) powerfull speeches that underlines some key advocacy points while always mentionning to which paragrahs, or even sentences, in the documents they refer to. Some would complain that there might not be enough time. I am not certain that the efficiency of a speech is proportional to its duration. These short advocacy speeches can be completed by giving printed docuements to delegates (before or after the speech). We believe also it is quite important and democratic to give the right to speak to as many actors as possible, within the time constraints of the plenary sessions.