Re: [ga] Letter to the ALAC

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

  Well said here Richard.  It is and has been true sense 1999 by some
and by many more stakeholder/users that ICANN lacked openness and
transparency after MDR2000 and the than BoD and staff which includes 
Esther Dyson. And Denise Michel along with Esther, during the first 
failed attempt in forming and at-large as part of ICANN shortly after 
MDR2000.

  What the ALAC wishes to represent is a cleansing or sweeping under 
the rug of the continued failure of it's meeting it's contractual
obligations to any and all of the stakeholders/users by making it 
very difficult for many to participate by setting exclusionary 
membership policies without the just cause of good reasoning in 
order to provide for the false assemblance to DOC/NTIA that ICANN 
and it's BoD and staff are addressing the requirements of the MoU 
and White paper.

 Of course some if not many here on this forum have recognized
the utter obsurdness of ICANN's ALAC as the farce and/or
fraud it truly is.

Richard Henderson wrote:

>    Sotiris
>
> My opposition to the ALAC concept, its structure, methodology, and
> intent is as follows:
>
> 1. It is entirely a top-down ICANN Board initiative, which was
> launched to "cover up" the disgraceful expulsion from the Boardroom of
> the elected representatives of the open At Large, in an effort to give
> ICANN a facade of credibility while in reality removing the most open,
> democratic and free voices of individual users from any substantial
> power in its organisation.
>
> 2. Nobody asked for this ALAC initiative - it was imposed.
>
> 3. The political purpose of ALAC is to create a semblance of
> "representation" (without any individual membership or elections)
> while keeping the potentially powerful Internet User constituency at
> arm's length from any real power in the ICANN organisation.
>
> 4. In replacing the elected At Large directors with ALAC, ICANN was
> flying in the face of its own ALSC task force, which recommended
> increased representation by At Large directors in the ICANN Boardroom,
> not their total removal.
>
> 5. It was clear (from lawsuits which ICANN failed to win) that the
> ICANN old guard saw At Large directors like Karl Auerbach as a total
> threat to their hegemony and 'insider' control. The ICANN old guard
> were faced with duly elected Directors who had a mandate and who spoke
> with freedom and independence, and it was typical that these
> threatening free voices were booted out. ALAC was part of this 'coup'
> process.
>
> 6. The 'control' aspect of the ICANN insiders is linked to the lack of
> any true mandate for ICANN itself - a Californian quango accountable
> only to the department of Commerce of a single country, which dictates
> its terms of reference without any further accountability to all the
> other countries of the world. In this carefully controlled US
> structure, lip-service is paid to other countries through GAC and
> lip-service is paid to the millions of worldwide users through ALAC,
> but power and control is retained by the US which enjoys a symbiotic
> relationship with ICANN which benefits both establishments. To this
> extent, ALAC as a structure supports a status quo which is lacking in
> any accountability to either users or governments anywhere else in the
> world.
>
> 7. It is transparently obvious that a structure for individual users
> should allow membership to individual users - something ALAC
> prohibits.
>
> 8. This lack of individual participation, membership and involvement
> explains to a great extent the 'deadness' of ALAC, the lack of
> activity in its mailing-lists, and the unwillingness of thousands of
> At Large individuals to get involved.
>
> 9. Many of the ALAC member-organisations lack democratic elections or
> representation themselves and simply send nominees who lack mandate
> and are largely just a small circle of people who have chosen to take
> the ride on the ICANN bandwagon, with free travel provided to
> locations around the world.
>
> 10. The ALAC structure and methodology in real terms just means a
> group of 6 or 7 of these unelected people running the At Large
> interests, drafting the policies, while all the rest of the vast user
> constituency just aren't involved at all - locked out from membership,
> and locked out of the structure.
>
> 11. There was a large electoral role of many thousands of At Large
> participants, used effectively at the earlier elections of the At
> Large directors, which ICANN has conveniently lost, mislaid or locked
> away. This electoral role worked perfectly well in bringing about
> representation for Individual Internet Users, and in generating a
> lively and participating At Large community. It is a transparently
> better way of involving the individual internet users because they
> feel more involved and feel they have more ownership of the process.
> Most interested Individual Users favour a self-determining At Large
> structure, with electoral representation, to the craven nominees and
> member lock-out which has resulted in a near-dead ALAC which is little
> more than a smal group of people drafting a few policies without
> accountability to anyone but themselves. They are not voted in. They
> are not voted out. They just enable ICANN to say "We have an At Large
> structure" as part of the "sham" by means of which it retains control
> of the DNS in co-operation with the department of Commerce.
>
> Sotiris - this ALAC pretence is a typical example of how people with
> power use devices and processes to hold onto power at the top. It is
> not a bottom-up structure. It does not help ordinary and individual
> internet users to determine FOR THEMSELVES the way they want the
> Internet and DNS to be overseen. It "does it for them", while locking
> them out, in a manner which is paternalistic and patriarchal in its
> methodology and structure. It does not involve the very people - and
> specifically those people as individuals - which it purports to
> represent.
>
> Because, apart from anything else, there IS no representation.
>
> That was expelled by the ICANN Board.
>
> Yrs,
>
> Richard Henderson
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sotiris Sotiropoulos" <sotiris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 10:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [ga] Letter to the ALAC
>
>
> > Richard,
> >
> > Happy New Year!
> >
> >  From what I've come to understand, in order for the ALAC to become
> some
> > sort of integral ICANN appendage, its chapter organizations are
> required
> > to have a representative presence at all ICANN meetings (to which
> ICANN
> > will fund the travel for approved organizations).  At this time, I
> see
> > nothing wrong with this approach, except for its painstakingly slow
> > implementation, and perhaps, the criteria for approval.  Sure, many
> of
> > us wish we could go back to the past At-Large structure (indeed to
> > implement its original scope and position), but as this is
> apparently
> > highly unlikely at this juncture, I think it is important for us to
> try
> > and understand what the proposed framework actually entails.
> >
> > Be Well,
> >
> > Sotiris Sotiropoulos
>
>

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

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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