Re: [discuss] Unofficial minutes June 11 1999 Names Council Meeting

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Michael and all,

  Michael, dispite the fact that you refuse to talk to me on the phone
I believ you have the sequence of events here correct, as well as the
relevent facts as well.  As such, it yet again seems that the ICANN
(Initial?) Interim Board seems to not be following it's own bylaws
the MOU with the NTIA and continuely violating the White Paper
without impunity.  This should not be overly surprising however as there
is a seemingly huge lack in the oversite either by a membership
organization, and/or the NTIA itself...

Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:

> This puzzles me.  If I understand what happened (and someone please
> correct me if I have gotten lost somewhere), the sequence of events is
> about like this:
>
> 1.  ICANN By-laws state that gTLD should have three delegates on Names
> council
>
> 2.  At some point prior to Berlin, it becomes evident that as (for some
> reason I do not know), no one from .mil / .gov / .int / .edu will be
> joining this constituency, NSI will be the sole elector of three Names.
>
> 3.  At Berlin, in light of (2), the ICANN board votes to ask NSI to only
> nominate one Name, and states that if they nominate more than that the By
> Laws will be amended.
>
> 4. Despite (3), NSI nominates 3 names.
>
> 5. Despite (4) no formal action is taken to amend the By Laws, which
> remain unchanged at the time of the teleconference.
>
> 6.  Despite (5), someone from ICANN, instructs Javier Sola to ensure that
> only one NSI Name is allowed into the teleconference, and he complies with
> this direction.
>
> Is that a correct summary of the events?
>
> If so, and this may seem like pettifogging legalism, how --even if the
> state of affairs is highly undesirable (and I am willing to stipulate for
> the sake of argument that it may be; indeed, it is only one a number of
> undesirable phenomena...) -- is that the By Laws do not control, contrary
> resolutions of the board notwithstanding?
>
> Particularly at a moment when there is no membership, and the ICANN
> Board's legitimacy is, to be frank, somewhat debated, it would seem
> essential to comply with the letter of the rules in order to build trust
> in the community.  Yet that does not seem to be what happened either in
> the case of NSI (or, I gather, MCI, which allegedly had two employees
> seated as Names).
>
> As I say, I may have missed some of the facts here, and if so I look
> forward to being set straight.
>
> On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Javier wrote:
> [...]
>
> > Don Telage was told that we had not received from ICANN the name of the one
> > gTLD constituency representative specified in the Berlin resolution of the
> > ICANN Board. He responded that there were three of them and was told that
> > we had been told by ICANN (Berlin resolution) that there was to be only
> > one, and that we were a committee of ICANN. The Board is in command on
> > ICANN procedural matters.
> >
> > As we had not received the name of the gTLD Constituency member of the
> > provisional Names Council, Don Telage was admitted as an observer.
> >
> > The bridge was set for an exact number of people, including representatives
> > from all constituencies. There were three lines for each constituency,
> > except one for the gTLD Constituency (which, as far as we know, has only
> > one representative or observer). Admitting anybody else to the
> > teleconference would have kept a member of the Names Council away from it.
> > We are considering webcasting future teleconferences, to avoid this problem.
> >
> > Javier
>
> [...]
>
> --
> A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin@law.tm
> U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
> +1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
>                     -->   It's hot here.   <--

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208