At 08:02 AM 11/8/99 -0500, you wrote:
Well, H. Ross Perot had it all wrong. That great "sucking sound"
you hear is not U. S. jobs heading for Mexico because of NAFTA,
but rather GAC in the person of Paul Twomey workin' on the Congress
critter.
Bill Lovell
>At 12:42 AM 11/8/99 , you wrote:
>>Who was that southern bell you crashed the GAC meeting with? And I
>>understand the Irish delegate allowed you to speak - what happened there?
>
>It's a wonderful story with a happy ending.
>
>The three activist lawyers in LA - Nader's
>Theresa Amato, Cleve Thornton representing
>Tajikistan, and myself decided we would
>insist on our rights under the ICANN Bylaws
>to open meetings of the GAC.
>
>So, on Tuesday morning at the appointed hour
>of the GAC, we stood in the room as all the
>good GACsters stared and wondered who we were.
>
>The GAC Secretariat representative - a slight
>young Aussie - came over and insisted that we
>leave. We respond with a polite "no," that we
>were going to stay and watch.
>
>She went and huddled with her boss, Paul Twomey,
>and then came back and re-iterated her order.
>Cleve then looked down and in a polite southern
>drawl, and said "young lady, if you want me to leave,
>you're going to have to pick me up and move me."
>
>To appreciate this sight, one has to see Cleve.
>He's about 6 ft, 5 inches, tall and must weigh
>300 lbs. He also ran the ACLU in Alabama during
>the heydays of the civil rights movement, and
>is quite experienced in passive resistance.
>
>More huddling with Twomey.
>
>Meanwhile Theresa went to the tables and found
>a list of attendees. It listed several "observers"
>at the bottom. We then approached Twomey and asked
>if we could be observers. He responded that we
>needed the sponsorship of a governmental representative.
>
>So we went over to the US government representative
>and formally asked to be observers. She firmly
>declined. However, the representative of Ireland,
>Aidan Ryan, overhearing our plea, came over and
>offered to make us accredited observers of Ireland!
>
>So we returned to Twomey with this arrangement.
>However, the response was "no can do - you need
>your own government representative."
>
>So then we noticed that ICANN staff were present,
>and questioned the appropriateness of a double
>standard. At this point, Paul Twomey to his credit
>relented and established a new rule for everyone
>that as long as there was a non-governmental person
>in the room, it would be an open meeting. As a
>result, both the ICANN report and subsequent ccTLD
>dialogue portions of the GAC became open, and a
>new, more open general rule was established.
>
>What was particularly amusing, however, was that
>a few minutes later, one of the most powerful U.S.
>Congressmen in Washington, Chris Cannon, and his
>legislative assistant Todd Thorpe, unexpectedly
>strode into the room and sat down prominently up
>front. When it came time for us to leave, the
>US GAC representative quickly added Cannon and
>Thorpe as observers, and were not asked to leave.
>
>During the open ccTLD session, Twomey even volunteered
>to distribute the Internet Rights Coalition brief
>to the GAC and allowed a short presentation on the
>legal issues.
>
>--amr
>
