From: "Craig McTaggart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Michael Sondow wrote:
>> an age of authoritarian acquiescence and regression, NSI V-P Don Telage
>Uh, how about an age of unprecedented privatization and dilution of public
>authority in favour of unaccountable private force, the antithesis of
>democracy...
Demonstrated by the creation of ICANN to try to stem the tide of
the grassroots processes that have made it possible to build
the Internet and have it grow and flourish. And the Internet is
the child of the successful interface of science and government.
>Is there no connection at all between democracy and government anymore? I
>take it you're not a big Larry Lessig fan.
Without government people have no rights. Government is the experiment
in carrying out the will of the people via the procedures and authority
granted by the citizens who are supposed to be the basis of sovereignty,
at least in the U.S.
If there is a problem with government, people have to do something
about it, while some corporate entities seem to be preaching abolish
government and give them all power.
>I ask again, without the NTIA, just what could the Internet community do
>about NSI? Someone please say that nothing needs to be done about NSI...
Interesting. But the NSF could have and should have acted to constrain
what was happening with NSI. Instead the problem is being magnified
many times over by creating ICANN as a private entity to set up
many NSI's and with no oversight over it as the NSF had the
Office of Inspector General, the Congress, etc.
The problem with NSI is because the government procedures broke down,
and instead of the machinery being supported and allowed to function,
a process was set up, it seems from the President's office, to evade
the machinery and procedures, and Congress didn't step in to
provide the check they needed to provide to stop the evasion of
procedures by the Executive Branch of Government.
But to create ICANN rather than exploring what the problem was
is only to multiply the original problem manyfold.
And the silence of the U.S. press on the problem has only made
the problem worse.
>Craig McTaggart
Ronda
