Re: [ga] Comments on ICANN Reform Recommendations

[Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>]

Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Jun 02, 2002 at 11:43:45AM +1200, DPF wrote:
> [...]
> > Some ICANN insiders sneer at the idea and call it "global democracy
> > experiments" when in fact it is nothing of the sort.  What should
> > happen is as simple as what happens in millions of other organisations
> > - you allow people to become members and allow members to elect most
> > of their Board.  This is not an experiment - this is a model that is
> > absolutely normal throughout the world.

In 1998, ICANN chair Esther Dyson sent the US gov't the proposed ICANN
bylaws, and wrote in her covering letter:

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/ICANN111098.htm

" ... elect the nine At Large Directors. ... the Board has an
unconditional
"  mandate to create a membership structure that will elect the At Large
"  Directors of the Board

Note that word unconditional. There's a very good argument to be made
that, if ICANN is to live up to the comittments made to gov't and
community at its founding, it must find some reasonable way to define
membership and to have those members elect half the board.
 
> That is not correct.  Direct elections in the ICANN context *are* an
> experiment.  Here's a document I prepared as input to the ALSC ...

> Both kinds of elections are tremendous overhead for the kind of entity
> that ICANN is supposed to be,

Yes.

> and a quite reasonable argument can be made that a global scale election
> of directors, direct or indirect, is a waste of time, money, and energy,

Sure, but an equally reasonable argument can be made that it is
absolutely
mecessary, both as one of the founding principles of the organisation
and 
as the only way to ensure adequate public representation.

Personally, as long as the principle that people with some plausible
claim
to represent the public interest must be at least half the board is
agreed,
I'd be open to discussion on how to do that. Perhaps a constituency
built
from the NAIS bunch, EFF, etc.? Some variant of Lynn's scheme to involve
gov'ts? Some version of Kent's indirect elections? Something else?

I don't have any passsionate committment to any particular scheme. What
I
want to see is some sort of guarantee that, when the public interest
conflicts with that of the "intellectual property" crowd, or the
Internet
infrastructure businesses (registrars, ISPs, ...), or whoever, there's
a good chance ICANN will come down on the public side.

To convince me that open, direct elections are not necessary, you'd have
to make a convincing argument that some other scheme can provide that
guarantee.


> SECURITY PROBLEMS WITH DIRECT ELECTIONS
> 
> ... both
> the NAIS report and the ALSC report failed to address the intrinsic
> technical security problems with direct elections.  This is a major
> oversight, in my opinion, ...

I agree.
> 
> The problems with Internet elections are in fact very well known.

Yes.

To illustrate this, Kent quotes five people. I work in this field.
I recognize all five names, and I know at least three -- Weinstein,
Metzger and Rubin -- are well-known and highly respected.

Metzger:

>     Electronic voting schemes make me extremely nervous.  They smack of
>     the "this is new and therefore better" fallacy.  In general, they
>     lack all of the checks and balances ...

Rubin:

>     This paper discusses the security considerations for remote
>     electronic voting in public elections. ... We conclude that at
>     present, our infrastructure is inadequate for remote Internet
>     voting.

In short, Kent is definitely pointing to a real problem here.

That is not to say that the conclusion that we should scrap elections
necessarily follows. I'd be inclined to argue that we should accept
the idea of elections "warts and all" on grounds that we /must/ try
to ensure adequate public representation and none of the alternatives
are demonstrably better as ways to achieve that goal.
 
> (It should be noted that crypto people in general tend to be strongly
> supportive of privacy, individual rights, and so on.  These are not
> people one would normally accuse of being "anti-democracy".)

See for example, Weinstein's comment on ICANN:
http://www.pfir.org/statements/icann

> The bottom line is that from a purely technical standpoint there are
> serious questions as to the feasibility of running large-scale,
> elections over the Internet.  ....
 
I certainly agree that there are serious technical questions, and that
they call into question the feasibility of elections. However, I do not
agree that that is "the bottom line", the most basic point.

I think the bottom line is that ICANN is a "public benefit" corporation.
Without a pausible plan to ensure that the public interest is adequately
respresented, it loses all legitimacy.

I'd define "adequately" above as "at least half the board".

> CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
> 
> Both the NAIS and ALSC reports recommend global direct elections,
> without sufficient recognition of either the practical difficulties or
> the security problems involved.  ...
> 
> ... The at-large councils
> described in the ALSC report are quite suitable bodies for election of
> directors, and that responsibility could simply be given to them.  In
> addition, instead of redefining the region structure of ICANN, the
> proposed ALSO could have 5 regional councils, each of which would elect
> a director; and a single global council, which would also elect a
> director.

I could accept that if you added a 'public interest group' constituency
so EFF, etc. could elect a few directors. I don't think five are enough.
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