Joop,
A private response here. Have you let Becky Burr know about any of this
or these events yet? You should in official letter to her and a separate one to
the Secretary of Commerce as well. I would also suggest that you have
Dennis possibly with a drafted official IDNO letter send it to the House
Commerce commission and his Congressman and Senator as well...
Just a suggestion...
Joop Teernstra wrote:
> This is a copy of my impressions from ICANN Santiago, sent to the IDNO
> discussion list . For brevity, some parts have been snipped. They can be
> found in our archive on the website.
> =================================================================
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Letter from Santiago
> Cc:
>
> Santiago 27 August, 1999
>
> Dear IDNO supporters,
>
> <snip>
> We were not the only ones to miss it. The audio/video server happened to be
> down too, for 20 minutes.
> So the only record we have are the scribe notes at
> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/icann/santiago/archive/
>
> Unfortunately, it turned out to have been the most interesting part of the
> meeting, where Esther apparently asked the Board searing questions as to
> why they didn't want to heed the GA's resolution to let the IDNO in, or at
> least discuss openly why not, and have it please on the agenda right now ,
> here in Santiago.
> These questions apparently were not answered.
>
> Perhaps the answer was revealed by Board Member Hans Kraaijenbrink, who
> said at the 2 p.m. press conference that he had felt to be playing part in
> a staged play.
> That was a press conference where I was not supposed to be, but thanks to
> our good spirit someone had briefly let it slip out at the Markle
> foundation's meeting, that took place simultaneously and had attracted all
> potential spoilers.
> The "open" press conference was a longish walking distance away.
> It was a very full press conference with interesting observers and Ogilvy
> doing its job.
>
> O yes, when I had asked one of the ICANN senior legal staff, about an hour
> earlier if there was to be a press conference, he said no. Hmm.
>
> The Markle Foundation is an 80 year old financial endowment, now interested
> to make sure that there will be public/consumer/non-commercial input in any
> future cyberspace governance.
> <snip>
> The Board meeting that was public with a working video link was boring,
> with a long string of resolutions passed and again nothing about the
> Individuals and their petition for recognition, now twice repeated and
> still meeting with stony silence.
> More on that separately.
>
> The DNSO council meeting in the afternoon was a shocking display of raw
> capture, a united alliance trying to ram through some quick rules of
> behaviour for the future NC, and for WG-C, by way of orders to WG-D,
> without any semblance of proper procedure. Attempts by the six independent
> spirits on the Council to put up some feeble safeguards were crudely and
> cruelly brought to a quick vote, where the lack of balance of the Councel
> clearly showed.
> Dennis Jennings (elected by the ccTLD's) even offered $10.000 dollars from
> his own registry's funds
> to finance development of a professional set of behavioral rules for the
> NC, drafted by an independent firm such as Price Waterhouse.
> The proposal was attacked swiftly and professionally by Theresa Swinehart
> and brought to an immediate vote, where it died.
> The astonished left-over of the GA (much of it now Latin American) was
> watching all this powerlessly barely understanding what went on and
> wondering why Raul Echeberria and the other elected delegate from Latin
> America could not do anything to help stopping this or why they never said
> anything about South America.
> They were allowed a minute comment at the end of it, under the pressure
> that the auditorium now really had to be closed.
> They were too stunned to speak.
> I had nothing better to add to the audio record than that the council's
> balance could have benefited from an additional 3 independent members.
> A listless applause from some Latin Americans who understood. Everybody
> felt dazed.
> For many of them this rapid english with no longer the (superb)
> translations of the previous day available, with the jargon of motions,
> tabling, seconding, resulting in instant rules appearing on the screen
> before them, was just another arrogant display of Northern Dominance
> especially when Amadeu and Javier became Chair and Assistant-chair
> (Amadeu's vision is poor) upon the departure of first-chair, Michael
> Schneider of the ISP' constituency.
> They had understood these two very well before, when they delivered in
> Spanish and they had not been impressed by any democratic leanings displayed.
> "That man talks too much", said someone beside me.
>
> <snip>
> I had very mixed feelings when I finally walked away from the Universidad
> de Chile.
> On the one hand, I was happy to see that even the physical GA, in spite of
> the fact that the back of the auditorium had been packed with expensively
> flown-in trademark lawyers, could now find favour with us in broad consensus.
> That was more than I could have hoped for.
> On the other hand, there was this slightly scary feeling that the now
> unstoppable momentum of ICANN, in it's critical initial stage now clearly
> captured by big money interests, would roll over even the most sincere and
> determined attempts to empower individuals in the ICANN structure, simply
> because they did not fit into their antique business models.
> ***************
> P.S. I appreciate very much the financial support that the ISOCNZ* (nothing
> to do with ISOC) council has voted for our effort in Santiago, and I hope,
> also for the crucial upcoming meetings in LA .
> Good on ya, kiwi's!
> *see www.isocnz.org.nz
>
> --Joop Teernstra LL.M bootstrap of
> the Cyberspace Association
> the Individual Domain Name Owners Constituency
> website www.idno.org
> join now and add your voice to the chorus
Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman INEGroup (Over 95k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Number: 972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208
