WASHINGTON - September 30 - The American Civil Liberties Union and London-based Privacy International today wrote to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to express their concern over a process to draft technical standards that would allow Internet communications to be traced to their origin.

"This secretive process threatens to stifle free speech and privacy on the Internet, and increase the ability of governments around the world to repress dissenters and political opponents," said ACLU Technology and Liberty Program Director Barry Steinhardt. "When the National Security Agency and the Chinese government see eye to eye, you know you're in trouble."

According to press reports, the NSA and the Chinese government are both participants in the ITU process, which has refused to release key documents or open its meetings to the public.  The ACLU and PI called for the ITU to end the secrecy that has surrounded its work, admit representatives from civil liberties and human rights groups into the group working on the issue, and look to alternatives to the proposed mechanism, known as "IP traceback."

"It is simply amazing that the ITU is engaged in a process aimed at a radical change in the nature of the Internet, behind closed doors," said Gus Hosein, Senior Fellow at Privacy International. "The interests of virtually every person on the planet are at stake, yet the public does not have a seat at the table, while the Chinese government and the NSA do?"

According to a report by CNet News, one ITU document justifies the program as necessary in such cases as when "a political opponent to a government publishes articles putting the government in an unfavorable light," and the government, "having a law against any opposition," is unable to identify its critic. The ITU denied the authenticity of that document, but refused to make public documents posted on its password-protected web site.

"Whether or not a participant in the ITU process wrote openly about suppressing dissent, that quote sums up the effect that this effort will have," said Steinhardt. "Anonymity is not a problem to be solved, but a freedom to be celebrated - and protected, especially against the likes of the Chinese government and the NSA, which are so keen to strip it away.

The ACLU-Privacy International letter to the ITU is online at:

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/internet/36958leg20080930.html

CNet's press account of the ITU effort is online at:

http://tinyurl.com/4hkvxp