Re: [ga] European At Large meeting announcement (today)

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

No Stephane, I *don't* mean polling every citizen on earth. I mean
attributing a vote to each individual who actively seeks to take part in
issues of net governance... an ideal which is realisable and which will
grow.

At the legacy At Large which we are building outside ICANN, we have our
fourth set of elections taking place right now. We have a verification
policy and we are operating bottom up on the basis of one person one vote.
We are demonstrating that elections can work at a global level.

It's doable - there just isn't the political will from the ICANN Board
because *last time* they didn't like the result... didn't like the fact that
it introduced independent and critical elements into its Boardroom and
threatened its autocracy and isolation (the kind of isolation we see when
they hide away from awkward questions - and, as I've experienced, they
refuse to acknowledge fair questions in over 500 days).

You say : "I'm not sure you're serious." Stephane, doesn't my earnestness in
over two years of posting to this list, to the ICANN Public Forums, to
IcannWatch and the detailed work I've done deserve some acknowledgement that
I'm a sane, serious, and rational individual - albeit someone who is
perplexed by the *lack of seriousness* that is indicated by ICANN's evasion
of dialogue, and evasion of consensus.

I should remind you that their own task force was ignored when the future of
the At Large inside ICANN was being determined (just as ICANN ignored many
constituencies on various other issues, and just - in the end - did whatever
it wanted)... the ALSG was over-ruled, and the elected representatives of
Internet Users were expelled from the Boardroom.

Who are the people actually acting seriously, Stephane?

Why is ICANN afraid of democratic elections for seats on the Board? The
truth - I'm convinced many people will believe - is that they simply don't
want the independent-thinking people like Karl which that system would throw
up.

Should the ICANN Board be taken seriously? Have they lived up to their
supposed commitments on consensus, openness, transparency, due process? And
if the ICANN Board has lost people's trust...

What better way to introduce some accountability and straight talking to the
Boardroom than to actually allow people *bottom up* to determine for
themselves who they want represented on that Board?

Why are some people so shit-scared of democratic accountability?

Unfortunately the ALAC was invented by the Board, is financed by the Board,
is controlled through a maze of mechanisms by the Board. It may involve some
decent people, but it is still a capitulation. It upholds a status quo
called "reform" which was in fact a "coup" which isolated the At Large
outside the Boardroom. The ALAC helps to legitimise the expulsion of the At
Large's elected representatives.

And yet through it, ICANN suppresses the influence of individuals under
layer upon layer upon layer of process, and stacked up sifting processes
that block the way to the Board Room.

Individual Users themselves did not call for the ALAC to be formed. It was
imposed top down. The ALAC lists are almost dead. Contrast the thousand +
posts sent each month on the legacy At Large lists, the active elections,
the genuine involvement bottom up. These people predominantly believe in a
democratic one person one vote process, and *real* self-determination. These
people did not call for a Board initiative to contain the At Large in their
own structures.

You ask me if I'm being serious?

Democracy is worth taking very seriously indeed.

A democratic input in ICANN's autocratic regime is *exactly* what is needed,
and exactly what ICANN will try its utmost to marginalise.

It is the Board which is not being serious. They seek to marginalise the
biggest Internet constituency of them all.

The At Large must be given a decisive voting presence in the Boardroom, and
the principle of a self-determining At Large must be re-instated, based on
one participant one vote.

...

To acquiesce in the Board's ALAC sham is to abandon the most serious
principle of all : the serious need for individuals to vote as individuals
and call ICANN to account.

It is a risible irony that the ALAC which purports to represent individual
users refuses a vote to... individual users.

Yrs,

Richard Henderson

500 days since serious questions sent to Dan Halloran on ICANN-Registrar
matters : response ZERO
5 months since serious questions sent to Paul Twomey on Registry Evaluation
Reports : response ZERO
You try to be serious with this organisation but they don't act serious.
They just evade what they wish, and do what they choose, and you call that
serious, Stephane?
If the Board was elected, they could be thrown out at the next election.


----- Original Message -----
From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@xxxxxx>
To: Richard Henderson <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: [ga] European At Large meeting announcement (today)


> On Mon, Oct 27, 2003 at 10:58:42AM -0000,
>  Richard Henderson <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
>  a message of 50 lines which said:
>
> > What's wrong with simply letting each individual user have one vote?
>
> I'm not sure you're serious but in case you are, here are some
> problems with the ideal approach:
>
> 1) Defining the electing body. Should every human on earth vote,
> giving that many are very far from their first Internet use and
> therefore have no precise opinion about DNS wildcards in ".com"?
>
> 2) Ensuring a free election campaign, giving that many Internet users
> are in countries without free speech.
>
> 3) Ensuring only one vote per user, giving that some human beings do
> not yet have a PGP key or a X509 certificate.
>
> 4) Combining the secrecy of voting (unless you plan to drop it, which
> may be an option) with the ability to check the tallying (and not in
> the Florida way).
>
> 5) Spending less than the budget of Bangladesh on the vote.
>
> Etc, etc.