Re: [ga] ITU Powergrab

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The great shame though, Eric, is that ICANN could have validated its own position if it had had a little more vision and leadership.

It is exactly at this time - when governments and agencies around the world are starting to say: "Hang on a minute, why should Internet Governance be accountable to the United States Department of Commerce, when the rest of the world shares its use and development?" - that ICANN might have defended its position and claimed a moral authority, had it only developed the At Large as a credible movement representing the ordinary internet users around the world.

If there had been a development of an At Large based on membership on an individual basis... if there had been the promotion of democratic representation of ordinary users, on a one member one vote basis... if, instead of Denise Michel's fantasy At Large, ICANN had embraced the exciting idea of a huge worldwide community of individual users... then ICANN would now be able to turn on its critics and say "Here is an idealistic and engaged movement of all the peoples on the Earth... here is our authority for overseeing the DNS... here is our credibility... how much better than governments, agencies or politicians!"

Instead of which, we have the extraordinary spectacle of Denise Michel's so-called "At Large" for individual users, creating an At Large which is for organisations only, NOT individual users - a membership to be further curtailed and restricted by requiring as a condition of membership that the ICANN meetings have to be attended.

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00843.html
Vittorio: "I have tried to formalize the additional questions we might want to pose to
shortlisted applicants for ALAC membership" (this begs the question - why do you need to be "shortlisted" or "selected" to belong to the At Large?)... "Are you aware that being an ALAC member involves the following commitments: - Physical participation in three ICANN meetings per year (5 days each)" This requirement in itself locks out the vast majority of internet users! Why should *physical* participation be mandatory for membership? Vittorio then continues his theme in a leter thread:

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00854.html
"I take it for granted that, if I am a member of a certain group, I am expected to attend all physical and virtual meetings of the group unless I have specific reasons not to do so. Is there anyone in the Committee who thinks that showing up on conf calls and reading the mailing list should only be an optional commitment for ALAC members?" This setting of such impossible criteria (for most people) serves to institutionalise a User organisation that locks out the vast majority (hundreds of millions) of ordinary users and bars them from membership. Admittedly, they are barred anyway, because ALAC refuses to accept individual users in their individual users organisation, which in itself is arbitrary and exactly the WRONG way to promote the At Large.

Izumi Aizo (a decent fellow) agrees with Vittorio: "I support what Vittorio says here - asking for good amount of commitments
from new applicants". FIFTEEN (15) days physical attendance at ICANN meetings a year, to qualify for ALAC membership??? Can this be serious!!! This is more like a conspiracy to stop the At Large developing freely (though I prefer to think it is just a mistaken plan).

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00858.html
Roberto Gaetano then writes: "I agree with Vittorio on the fact that participation in meetings should be taken for granted.If individuals cannot contribute to this, no point in joining: we go to ICANN and say that it is difficult to "recruit" volounteers, and that we need to consider the idea of having more staff." Ah! I see... so instead of having more members, you turn to ICANN and say can you please run the At Large with ICANN employees because we can't attract new members?

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00860.html
Herr Roessler then chips in and says "I couldn't have put this better."

Vittorio confirms these new conditions for ALAC membership here: http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00868.html



Let us be clear: ALAC was set up - under the auspices of Denise Michel - as an attempt to face-save their expulsion of the elected At Large representatives from ICANN's Board. These were the most transparently elected Board members, representing the largest constituency of the Internet (hundreds of millions of users), and they were summarily kicked out in a coup d'etat. Then ALAC was set up so ICANN could say "We still have an At Large... here it is!". Only... ALAC is NOT the At Large. ALAC is unelected. ALAC allows no individual members (though it purports to be FOR individual members). ALAC is simply a product of "spin", set up to create the semblance of user involvement, while seeking to lock users out of its own membership, and keep users out of the ICANN Boardroom.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hugh Dierker 
  To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 3:30 PM
  Subject: [ga] ITU Powergrab


  ITU is clearly positioning itself to grab more control and a large chunk of the beauracracies involved in the Internet. I swear some of those folks actually used to run a telegraph with the visor and sleeve garters, I can see them counting money in a shed spitting tobacco and "wiring Washington" for more money to fight the Injuns. Their representative structure does not warm my heart to them. They, as they have proven over 100 years are more inclined toward structures that establish telephone monopolies than consumer protection. Please ask these questions;
  Who is ITU responsible to?
  Who pays for ITU?
  Do you know any consumer (not expert) that has had any interaction with ITU?
  Did they teach you what branch of government the ITU was part of in Secondary School?
  Which of your elected officials deals directly with ITU?

  I think you may come to my conclusions.

  Eric


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