Are you going to collaborate with ICANN? That seems to be
what's in the air. I've seen Milton Mueller, the foremost opponent
of
the WIPO recommendations, allow himself to be sucked into an NCDNHC
that
is a farce staged by ISOC and the INTA and that will put its
imprimature
on WIPO; BWG people discussing the ICANN bylaws with its officers as
if
the only thing holding back their endorsement were the wording of a
few
articles; Ellen Rony and others say that if ICANN would open their
meetings there would be peace; Joop Teernstra's Individuals
Constituency beg on its hands and knees for recognition; and
all and sundry flock to San Jose to participate in an ISOC meeting
there
that is proceeding to consolidate ISOC's capture of the NewCo and
the root.
The ICIIU isn't going to join them. Personally, I'm incapable of
sitting down with cheats and liars like Heath, Sola, Crispin, Sims
and
the rest to discuss the new order. The only room I'll share with
them will be a courtroom.
As to the ICIIU, it was founded on the principle of an equal voice
for the users of the Internet. Since we've been given no voice at
all, the ICIIU cannot have anything more to do with ICANN. If we
did, we'd be in violation of our own Articles of Incorporation, and
there'd be nothing to stop people exactly like myself from accusing
the ICIIU of the same things that ICANN is guilty of. I'm not going
to let that happen.
Were NSI to make peace with ICANN, the ICIIU would not join them. We
started out alone in this process, and if we end up fighting ICANN
alone, so be it. So long as I am able to, I'm going to fight for the
freedom to choose how I use the Internet and from whom I buy
services. I won't sign the ICANN registrant contract. Ever. I won't
have my domain name in ICANN's root. If my ISP and his upstream
connections join the ICANN root hierarchy, I'll look for an ISP that
hasn't. If that means in the end that I can't be on the Internet,
then I won't use the Net anymore, and I'm telling everyone I can
influence to do the same. If the Internet is to become the fief of
MCI, IBM, AT&T, Microsoft, and the governments they control, and a
one-way sales channel for consumerism, then I'll forego the dubious
advantages of subscribing to it, just as I don't subscribe to the
Sears catalogue.
But for the present I'll fight. Those who haven't the courage to go
on fighting and who join ICANN are, so far as I'm concerned, mere
traitors and not worth another thought, except how to defeat them.
That goes for any who, for whatever reasons, may have supported the
ICIIU in the past; for friends I've made in this process; for NSI;
and even for the public at large if they allow themselves to be
fooled into believing that a corporate Internet is good for them.
I have only one object: to retain my freedom and my self-respect. I
hope there are other people involved in this process who will
continue to fight for those things as well. If not, the ICIIU will
part company with the process and fight it in the community, using
every means at its disposal to do dammage to those who have dared to
tell us how we are to communicate.
Michael Sondow
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"We need to be able to judge which is more important - the
images on the screen, the mechanisms that produce them, or
the world that they are striving to represent."
--Oscar Kenshur, in 'The Allure of the Hybrid'
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International Congress of Independent Internet Users (ICIIU)
http://www.iciiu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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