uh mr. farmer before you make a fool of yourself with your inane
pontifications you ought to spend a few minutes following what you claim
to have figured out.....
farmer from on high
>
>But these jingoistic/paranoid attacks on ICANN (e.g. Gordon's claim that
>NTIA has "sold out" American Internet interests to the Europeans, or
what the hell do you know about the GAC? have you read their operating
principles?
GAC's Considerings:
1. The Internet naming and addressing system is a public resource that must
be managed in the interests of the global Internet community;
The "naming and addressing system" is NOT a "public resource. The
language is straight out of the gTLD-MoU. It is a clear unconstitutional
taking of private property.
2. The management of Internet names and addresses must be facilitated by
organizations that are global in character.
It's not clear why all Internet names and addresses "must be"
so facilitated.
... 4. Country code top level domains are operated in trust by the Registry
for the public interest, including the interest of the Internet community,
on behalf of the relevant public authorities including governments, who
ultimately have public policy authority over their ccTLDs, consistent with
universal connectivity of the Internet.
By what authority do they acquire such "public policy authority?"
Principle 2 The GAC shall provide advice and communicate issues and views
to the ICANN Board.
Intergovernmental bodies don't just provide advice. Their
findings and agreements have substantial force and effect -
as is obvious by the formalistic voting procedures they enacted.
If this were merely advice, they wouldn't have voting procedures.
Furthermore, the requirement that the EU placed in ICANN's Articles
of Incorporation that it "...shall carry out its activities in
conformity with relevant principles of international law and
applicable international conventions," effectively gives the GAC
absolute control over ICANN. Clever of the EU.
Principle 11 In addition to face-to-face meetings, discussions may be
conducted online via secure communications.
So why do they need "secure online communications" for discussions?
Principle 14 Members of the GAC shall be national governments,
multinational governmental organisations and treaty organisations, and
public authorities, each of which may appoint one representative to the GAC
Notice the wording. Members of the GAC are not individuals, but
the governments and intergovernmental organizations themselves.
By what lawful mechanism are governments constituting the GAC?
Principle 16 Governments or organisations not having a representative to
the GAC may nominate an accredited government/organisational representative
to represent its Membership on the GAC.
This will allow some governments to acquire potentially enormous
power. You could have the ITU representative potentially having
proxies from a hundred countries. It opens all kind of mischief.
Principle 19 If a Member�s accredited representative is not present at a
meeting, then it shall be taken that the Member government or organisation
is not represented at that meeting. Any decision made by the GAC without
the participation of a Member�s accredited representative shall stand and
nonetheless be valid.
Is this typical of a body merely providing "advice?"
Principle 20 In consideration of the GAC�s commitment to efficiency, there
shall be no attendance or voting by proxy. Members may only be represented
at meetings, both face-to-face and electronic, by their accredited
representative.
This will further encourage proxy gathering.
Principle 49 The GAC may deliver advice on any other matter within the
functions and responsibilities of ICANN, at the request of the ICANN Board
or on its own initiative. The ICANN Board shall consider any advice from
the GAC prior to taking action.
This is an open ended invitation to do any almost anything GAC wishes.
Also notice the "...Board SHALL consider any advice from the GAC PRIOR
TO TAKING ACTION." [emphasis added]
Principle 50 Records of the meetings of the GAC shall be in the form of
Executive Minutes.
There are no requirements to make available any documents, records,
or any other material except "executive minutes" - which are whatever
the Chair chooses to write up.
Principle 51 The meetings of the GAC shall ordinarily be held in private.
The Chair may decide that a particular meeting, or part of a particular
meeting, should be held in public
The default mode is closed meetings. Is this appropriate for
a mere advisory group?
another remark on the GAC
After listening to the GAC open meeting, it's
more apparent than effort that the real power
and action is taking place in the GAC - as it
no doubt long has.
Twomey rather candidly talks about the premises,
what they have been doing, and what they intend
to do. The bottom line is that the GAC directly -
as well as indirectly via ICANN - will do whatever
they want, however they want, to whomever they want -
all justified on the premise that another worse
intergovernmental regime will be put into place.
There are obviously some in the US government
who have bought this pitch - as well as the ISOC
gang. For the most part, they're people with zero
previous international experience who seem to accept
this on faith.
In reviewing Twomey's background, it's obvious why
fails to resonate with or even see the legal, technical,
or business issues. He's education is in "international
relations," and has spent his career doing trade
negotiations stuff. He doesn't even have any nexus
to the Internet except in the context of "the
information economy."
As chair of the GAC - presumably with the support of
the Dept of Commerce and the EU, he obviously plays
a key role in determining the characteristics of
GAC and ICANN. It's hard to determine who the rest
of the GAC types are, but is appears to me that they're
pretty much birds of a feather - probably assured by
Twomey basically inviting his contacts as GAC reps.
It strikes me that this stacked deck here assures
an outcome on Internet matters that is clueless and
vicarious at best, and really outrageous at worst.
This really needs to be nipped in the bud. The
construct is outrageous. It would be really edifying
to have Twomey in his own words replayed before
American policymakers and ask for reactions.
=====
farmer again: his [cook's]
>direct implication that ICANN intends to support governments' efforts to
>intercept Internet traffic) are way off the mark.
>
cook: CITE what the hell you are t alking about buddy....otherwise don't
put words in my mouth
farmer:
>
>My hope is that you not get all hung up in the "who knew what and when did
>they know it" story of how the interim Board was selected. The selection
>was at best messy and chaotic. No question. So it is with the formation of
>most new organizations.
>
cook:
of course to make an omlette you must break eggs: joeseph stalin
farmer
>Instead --
>
>- Focus on the ICANN bylaws and the method for structuring the ICANN board
>**going forward**
>
did you bother to read any of the exchanges between sims and auerbach on
what the board can do?
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 09:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Karl Auerbach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: IFWP Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IFWP] The Sims-Auerbach Correspondence (was: The CPT- ICANN
Correspondence
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
joe sims;
> I know, I'm violating my own very recent commitment to not do this, but on
> this one, I can't resist. You keep quoting the bylaws, but you always omit
> Section 2 (g), which reads as follows:
I don't mention (g) because under the obvious intepretation, it is not
relevant.
But you seem to have found a new interpretation that I very much like - an
interpretation that turns the Supporting Organizations into mere advisory
committees that the board can use or ignore at its pleasure.
Unfortunately for us to accept your interpretation, it is necessery to
toss out various sections of the by-laws that your interpretation reduces
to useless deadwood.
> The first are Sections
> (e) and (f), which taken together set forth specific criteria by which the
> Board may reject a recommendation of an SO and the procedures that will be
> followed in those circumstances; since those include a finding that the
> recommendation "furthers the purposes of, and is in the best interest of,
> the Corporation," these provisions leave ample room for the Board to make a
> judgment, where appropriate, that is different than that of the SO.
I would like it very much if the board had total power of review, which is
what you are saying the language added in Cambridge provides.
I would be very happy to accept your intepretation -- I've always
advocated that Supporting Organizations be merely advisory bodies and that
the ICANN board have final responsibility.
So, if you really believe your interpretation, then you should remove all
that now meaningless, deadwood language that purports to constrain the
board's ability, and let's give Supporting Organizations the name that
they would then deserve - optional Advisory Committees.
> The net of all this, in my opinion, is that the Board has ample power to
> make its own decisions, following the recommendations of the SOs if that
> seems appropriate and not if, in its considered judgment, it is not.
> thus, the notion that this is a weak Board is a figment of either your
> imagination or desire; it does not derive from the bylaws.
You have been a major proponent of a weak board. You resisted the efforts
of the BWG and elsewhere to have a strong board.
And here you are today saying that you wrote a strong board with SO's that
are purely advisory.
I'm happy to hear you say it. It's a breath of fresh air. And it destroys
the SO's as the sole source of policy.
It means that now we can form another Domain Name Advisory Committee and
it can make proposals and if the board adopts them, those proposals become
the law of the net no matter what the DNSO might say.
It's good to see you come around and finally espouse the
strong-board/SO-as-advisory committee approach that so many of us wanted
for so long.
You do, of course, recognize that you have today destroyed the concept of
Supporting Organizations as the focus of policy development.
That's something I can very much support.
Indeed, I pointed out last summer that the Supporting Organization concept
was improper as it transfered power from the board and thus made board
members unable to fulfill their fiduciary obligations. I'm glad to see
that by last autumn you came to the same conclusion.
I do have a suspicion, however, that you don't mean the implications of
what you have written.
But it's going to be hard to put that cat back into the bag, now that you,
as ICANN's legal advisor, have indicated that Supporting Organizations are
nothing more than advisory committees and have no more power to create
policy than does any other group that might form.
So let's take the next step -- let's get rid of the DNSO, ASO, and PSO.
Since, as you now agree, they are nothing more than advisory, they can be
elided from ICANN's structure and the buget can be reduced.
>- Look in particular at the prospective election of at-large Board members
you are naive beyond belief
>- Review ICANN's policies on due process, sunshine, conflict of interest,
>etc.
maybe 100 or so of us have on a half dozen mail lists 60 hours a week for
months...... where the hell have *YOU* been buddy?
again raed sims auerbach and you tell me where the sunshine is....
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The COOK Report on Internet Index to seven years of the COOK Report
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA Exec summaries, glossary etc
(609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) http://cookreport.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED] What's Behind ICANN and How it Will
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