[ga] Re: [atlarge-discuss] Trashing Our Founding Principles

["Micheal Sherrill" <micheal@beethoven.com>]

How about the following for a form letter to sent to any and all federal and state congresspersons and representatives?  Your additions and comments are welcome for consideration.

Dear Senator ---------:

I urge you to focus your attention on the current state of dysfunction of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).  ICANN was formed in 1998 as a non-profit organization to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities.  Unfortunately, it is not doing this well, if at all.  Although it alleges to represent the Internet worldwide it allows no feedback mechanism nor any avenue of communication that would permit commentary from those that best know the Internet, the users.  In fact, there would seem to be a purposeful effort within the ICANN executive management to suppress and restrict all democratic discourse both by it’s own governing body and from at large organizations that seek information, data, and resolution to numerous actions.  It has gotten so bad that even a member of the ICANN Board of Directors has sued for access to documents needed for the day to day operation of the business.  ICANN is broken and we seek your help to fix it.  Please contact the US Department of Commerce and demand action.  

Respectfully,

John Q. Public

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>
Date:  Mon, 3 Jun 2002 19:28:38 +0100


I agree with Danny Younger that, whereas originally ordinary internet users
were to be properly represented in the administration of the DNS, this vast
worldwide constituency is now to be disenfranchised, and a worldwide
resource
is to be put in the hands of a group of people who have already shown
themselves to be remote and unaccountable. (As an example of this, I have
now
been waiting 22 days for an acknowledgement of my questions on
registry/registrar
agreements, which I have sent to Dan Halloran, and which I have now been
asking in various forms for nine months.)

A self-perpetuating regime is exactly what may be achieved, if alternative
viewpoints are effectively filtered out by a Nominating Committe "stacked"
in
favour of the ICANN establishment. Moreover, it was a founding principle of
ICANN that the millions upon millions of ordinary users would get effective
representation in the organisation.

The anti-democratic trend in proposed reforms is so pervasive that the
DNSO/GA replacement is not even to be allowed to choose its own Chair, but
must accept a Chair "imposed" upon it. This is symptomatic of a "top-down"
management agenda, designed to control critical elements.

Like Danny Younger, I call on all At Large movements to write to DoC to call
for
a return to the founding principles. As British representative for
IcannatLarge,
I am in the process of submitting a review of ICANN for the British
Government
(in liaison with Joanna Lane). We also need to represent the British At
Large
community in correspondence with the American Department of Commerce.

ICANN needs to acknowledge that ordinary internet users in their millions
have
a right to "bottom-up" representation, organised through existing and
developing
At Large groups, with effective and executive representation on the ICANN
Board.
Fundamentally, people have a right to determine their own lives and their
own futures,
and in Internet terms, this means a right to determine for themselves the
way the
Internet is administered, advanced to others, and developed. The Internet
belongs to
millions of people (including our constituency of millions of users here in
Britain).
It should not be administered like some petty fiefdom by a small group of
powerful
people who are fearful and scornful of public and accountable
representation.

Thank you Danny, and we'll be writing.

Richard Henderson
IcannatLarge (UK)

"The Internet belongs to Everyone"   "It's YOUR Internet"

----- Original Message -----
From: <DannyYounger@cs.com>
To: <ga@dnso.org>
Cc: <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>; <discuss@icann-ncc.org>
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 4:56 PM
Subject: [atlarge-discuss] Trashing Our Founding Principles


> The Palace Coup d'Etat Committee has presented us with a plan that
> permanently disenfranchises the at-large membership, eliminates all
> elections, and creates a self-perpetuating regime accountable to no one.
We
> will now "evolve" from a democratic representative model to control by an
> oligarchy of technocrats.
>
> This is not evolution, it is the repudiation of our founding principles.
> This ICANN Board has forfeited our trust.
>
> I call on all those that support the at-large initiative to set aside
> whatever mundane tasks that currently occupy their time, and to
immediately
> draft a letter to the Department of Commerce to call for a return to the
> founding agreements of 1998.  We should settle for nothing less than ICANN
as
> a true membership organization with the membership electing their own
> leadership and Board.
>
>
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