On Wednesday, February 09, 2000 9:56 PM Kent Crispin wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 09, 2000 at 07:08:56PM -0800, A.Gehring wrote:
> > Richard J. Sexton wrote:
> > > >I believe one of the reasons we are in Year 2 of ICANN without an At
> > Large
> > > >membership is because that membership was defined too broadly. That
> > >
> > > You mean you don't think I should be able to walk across the street
> > > to the Bannockburn general store and tell old Harry that he's a voting
> > > member of internet government?
> > >
> > > Limit it it to nameserver owners. That's who it's supposed to be
> > > coordinating isn't it? (Like they ever asked to be coordinated).
> >
> > Provided that 'Old Harry' and his children will never be impacted in any
way
> > whatsoever by the Internet, I would then and only then emphatically
agree
> > that they should not have an avenue for their voices to be heard within
the
> > halls of Internet Governance.
> >
> > Nobody wants to be coordinated. But that is exactly what government
does.
> > Whether her mandate is narrow or broad THE ICANN WILL COORDINATE ALL OF
US,
> > not just those of us who own nameServers. We all ought to get in on the
> > voting. Even Harry.
> >
> > Arnold Gehring
>
> A nice sentiment, but simplistic to the point of uselessness. The
> fundamental complexity in this situation stems from the fact that the
> Internet is largely owned by private interests. To be concrete, Old
> Harry doesn't have any right to tell me how to run my computers -- not
> directly, and not indirectly through the medium of ICANN. Nor does he
> have the right to tell ISPs how to do things, except through the medium
> of the market. The fundamental issue here is the assertion of
> authority over private entities that actually own the Internet
> infrastructure. The issue is not individual rights, at least not in
> the sense that ICANN would be considered as a representative organ of
> the "people".
>
> ICANN has no authority to tell ISPs how to do things without their
> consent. Though proponents of internet governance would like it to be
> otherwise, it is the ISPs and other infrastructure providers that are
> the "governed" in this situation -- not individuals. This is the
> fundamental reason that individuals have little power in the ICANN
> structure, and there is essentially nothing that can be done about it
> unless you turn ICANN into an arm of government.
>
> That is, if you were to modify the ICANN structure so it was operated by
> popular vote of the "people", then the ISPs, registries, IETF, etc would
> simply ignore ICANN, and the "people" would have no more power than they
> did before.
My neighbor owns the largest grass seed farm in the world. While I may not
agree with the action his government brings against him, I do not believe
that because he 'owns' the land that he should be exempt from governance.
Your arguments Ken, are deeply disturbing.
Arnold Gehring
>
>
> --
> Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
>
>
