Re: [ga] Third Meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard and all former DNSO GA members or other interested
stakeholders/users,

  In part I agree with your concerns here Richard.  But try to remember
the "Internet" is not a nation.  However as such this distinction does
not
excuse Mr. Lynn from expelling the elected At-Large members from
the board.  In fact the number of At-large elected members should have
been expanded and the voting method much more open and inclusive
so as to allow many more stakeholders/users to actually vote.  This
would have and still should be a more democratic approach.

Richard Henderson wrote:

>    Commonsense says that if ICANN would only 'internationalize' its
> mandate - that is to say, make itself accountable to democratically
> elected representatives of the internet users of every nation instead
> of being accountable to the Department of Commerce of *one* nation -
> then it could still hope to earn credibility and legitimacy in the
> eyes of people all over the world.
>
> In short, if ICANN would only stop being so 'closed' to the concept of
> an elected At Large - and restore the democratically elected
> representatives of the user community who were expelled from the ICANN
> Board - then it could start to claim a truly international mandate.
>
> Otherwise, the inevitable logic of nations that believe they have as
> much right to representation as the United States will lead to
> increasing calls for oversight of the Internet's DNS functions to be
> transferred to the United Nations and to some kind of governmental
> control.
>
> I happen to think that governmental control and the interference of
> politicians (take for example, Chinese politicians with their shining
> record on human rights, but they are not alone) is the last thing that
> the Internet needs.
>
> Therefore I would much prefer to see ICANN regain the logical and
> moral high ground, by earning *true* legitimacy and a truly
> international mandate: by severing its subordinate relationship to the
> United States DoC, and allowing the peoples of the world to
> participate in a representational oversight of their own internet.
>
> The argument that such democratic elections wouldn't work just doesn't
> wash with me. If you can invade another country in order to impose
> democracy, you can hardly in the same breath reject the democratic
> principle when it comes to an Internet which you (United States) are
> still retaining controls over.
>
> While it is true that you could hardly get the whole world to vote for
> ICANN's Board, you could at least get interested individuals to do so.
> This was demonstrated when 100,000 people from around the world voted
> in the last At Large elections to the ICANN Board. There is absolutely
> no reason why this number could not be developed and increased many
> times over. The risks of block voting and vote-rigging could be
> contained by containing the number of people that any one particular
> nation or region could vote for. Nothing is perfect, but it would be a
> whole lot more perfect than the present At Large of about 10 active
> members, non-elected, non-accountable, merely appointed by America's
> quango's board. How is that better than democracy?
>
> The other thing is that once you have a democratic process and people
> recognise that their representatives are actually accountable to
> *them* - and once you really involve people and enable them to
> contribute to policy and determine policy by their votes, then you
> begin to see the extension of participation, and you will have
> thousands and tens of thousands of participants contributing to your
> forums and mailing lists, instead of the craven and moribund At Large
> lists at present, where people choose not to participate because they
> are *locked out* of any democratic process.
>
> So has Syria - branded a terrorist state or part of an axis of evil -
> got a bit of a case in calling for the internationalizing of the
> oversight of Internet functions? And is the United States the nation
> at odds with democracy when it comes to the Internet?
>
> How ironic that would be...
>
> ...And yet this is the direction of the logic and the arguments which
> well-respected participants like India support.
>
> Basically, the world is starting to ask more seriously: what possible
> right has the United States got to expect that an Internet Oversight
> Body like ICANN should be accountable to it?
>
> ICANN's only claim to an international mandate would be a Board which
> was accountable to Internet Users all over the world.
>
> Only then could ICANN argue that its mandate was better than a mandate
> built around all the governments of the world (which drifts inevitably
> towards the United Nations with all the political interference that
> might result from that).
>
> The expulsion of the elected At Large Board members was a catastrophic
> mistake made by Stuart Lynn and those he persuaded to follow him. It
> stripped away the only shred of democracy and international mandate
> that ICANN could claim.
>
> Now it's just a US quango, with a clique of industry insiders, largely
> serving the interests of the domain supply industry and the
> Intellectual Property tsars and the political best interests of the
> United States.
>
> Internet Users - the actual real-life people who make the Internet
> what it is and need it and use it - are locked out of the process.
> They are hugely marginalised. And that has been achieved as a
> conscious policy by ICANN, starting with Stuart Lynn's boardroom coup
> and continuing with ICANN's imposed ALAC... an extraordinary creation,
> set up to represent individual users but barring individual users from
> membership in their capacity as individuals.
>
> Democracy is dead. ICANN is ultimately accountable only to the United
> States. Syria has a point and other nations increasingly share this
> feeling of injustice.
>
> Why is democracy OK when you impose it on Iraq, but not OK when it
> comes to the Internet?
>
> Yrs,
>
> Richard Henderson
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Danny Younger
>   To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>   Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 8:42 PM
>   Subject: [ga] Third Meeting of the Working Group on Internet
> Governance
>
>
>   Some interesting comments from the Third Meeting of the Working
> Group on Internet Governance today:
>
>   >>SYRIA: THANK YOU, CHAIRPERSON. CHAIRPERSON, IF THIS SUBJECT WERE
> NOT GLOBAL AND INTERNATIONAL, IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED AT THE
> SUMMIT, THE WORLD INFORMATION SUMMIT, AND SO THERE WOULD BE NO NEED TO
> ASK OURSELVES WHETHER WE SHOULD INTERNATIONALIZE MANAGEMENT OF THE
> INTERNET. WELL, THE ANSWER IS YES. IT WAS DISCUSSED AT THE SUMMIT, IT
> WAS DEALT WITH AT A NUMBER OF LEVELS, INCLUDING THE HIGHEST LEVEL.
>   SO IT'S A BIT ODD TO ASK THE QUESTION HERE AND NOW. THERE'S NO DOUBT
> AS TO THE ANSWER, CHAIRPERSON. AND I FULLY SUPPORT WHAT THE DELEGATE
> OF SAUDI ARABIA SAID. I ENDORSE, ALSO, THE STATEMENT MADE BY INDIA.
> WHY REPEAT OURSELVES?
>   WE ARE NOT IN FAVOR OF THE CURRENT STATE OF THINGS, AND AS I SAID
> EARLIER, PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN MADE. THERE WILL SOON BE A MEETING TO
> DEAL WITH THE DEFINITION OF THE INTERNET AND A PROPOSAL WILL BE PUT
> FORWARD.
>   UNFORTUNATELY, NO PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN PUT FORWARD HERE; OTHERWISE,
> WE WOULD HAVE COMMENTED ON SUCH A PROPOSAL.
>   IN ALL EVENTS, I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU, CHAIRPERSON, FOR HAVING
> STRESSED THE NEED TO COME UP WITH A PRACTICAL WORKING DEFINITION OF
> THE INTERNET AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
>   THE SYRIAN-ARAB REPUBLIC WOULD HAVE A PROPOSAL HAD THERE BEEN A
> DRAFT TEXT. AT ANY EVENT, THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE INTERNET IS
> A NATURAL PROCESS. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THE INTERNET BEING MERELY AN
> AMERICAN BODY SUBJECT TO ANOTHER AMERICAN BODY, WHICH I WON'T MENTION.
> WE ALREADY SAID THIS AT THE SUMMIT. SO THE SITUATION IS CLEAR, AND OUR
> POSITION IS CLEAR. AND WE DON'T NEED TO REPEAT OURSELVES HERE.
>   THE INTERNET TODAY IS GOVERNED BY AMERICAN LAW AND MANAGED BY AN
> AMERICAN BUSINESS. IT'S NO SECRET. WE ALL KNOW IT, AND WE CANNOT
> ACCEPT IT.
>   YOU'VE ALREADY HEARD A NUMBER OF SPEAKERS REFER TO PUBLIC POLICY AND
> YOU CANNOT DEVELOP OR COORDINATE PUBLIC POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE
> INTERNET OTHER THAN THROUGH AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION WHICH CAN
> GUARANTEE TO ALL THEIR RIGHTS. OTHERWISE, WE HAVE ! TO FIND SOME OTHER
> EQUITABLE BODY WHO WILL DEAL WITH THE ISSUE.
>   THANK YOU.
>
>   >>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN.
>   MY DELEGATION WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE WORKING GROUP ON INTERNET
> GOVERNANCE FOR ALL THEIR HARD AND CONTINUING WORK.
>   I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ANSWER -- OR REPLY TO SOME EARLIER COMMENTS
> ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION OF AMERICAN DOMINANCE IN INTERNET
> GOVERNANCE.
>   I WOULD JUST SAY TO EVERYONE THAT THIS MAY BE THE SITUATION NOW
> BECAUSE IT'S THE WAY THE INTERNET DEVELOPED IN THE PAST.
>   AND IT IS A MATTER OF HISTORY RATHER THAN DUE TO ANY KIND OF
> CONSPIRACY.
>   AND I WOULD ALSO REMIND PEOPLE THAT THE JURY IS STILL OUT ON WHAT
> WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.
>   AND THIS IS THE REASON WHY WE'RE HERE, TO DISCUSS WHAT WILL HAPPEN
> IN THE FUTURE.
>   AND SO NO CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE DRAWN AS TO WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
>   THANK YOU.
>
>   The full transcript at these URLS:
> http://wgig.org/April-scriptmorning.html
> http://wgig.org/April-scriptafternoon.html
>

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" -
    Pierre Abelard

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