Re: [ga] Karl's latest

[Andy Mueller-Maguhn <andy@ccc.de>]

Gentleman,
(and women)

allow me a short comment on this thread. 

Indeed (and also what Dany pointed out) it would make me more happy
if Joe Sims as legal consultant for ICANN would see himself and behave
a little more neutral. 

This whole discussions raises the "wag-the-dog" question in an obvious
sad way: is it the ICANN board making decissions based on consultation
with the community and then asking staff + legal consultant to work it out
or is it the legal consultant fighting with the community and even a member
of the board and then consulting the ICANN board what to do?!

I do not assume that Mr. Sims is "smoking some weird shit" because as a 
matter of fact, human beeings inhaling marihuana are normaly much more
peaceful as what at least my impression from this posting is. If this would
have to do with the abuse of drugs, I would guess some other substance 
associated with creating paranoia to be (ab)used here [1].

But I do not mind about private such matters  here and I also do not mind
if Joe Sims is allowed to practise law in california, but I do  mind if he has
and keeps the necessary neutrality to be in the position he is for ICANN and
the board.

This is what I dislike about the situation.

So, back to the issues.

Some of you might have wondered, why the resolution 02.75 - 02.80 [2]
was adopted unanimously. The reason was mentioned here already, but the
dimension of it is a little more bizzare.

As elected director from the european users, and if you want, call it
"at-large" elected, I of course worry about *how* the user representation
and participation of users will take place in the ICANN of the future. And
of course I want to have the attention of the board, especially the members
of the ERC to *really* think about mechanism, so that the policy-making
at the end *is* a balance of interests among all segments of the Internet 
community. 

Before adopting the resolution, I was able to change some phrases in there
with the help of other directors, main point was next to the setting of
the nomcom (originally this was ICANN community, changed to internet
community) the point:

*   devise and incorporate specific measures to ensure, to the extent feasible, 
   geographic and cultural diversity in all parts of ICANN structure

All parts of ICANN structure means all parts, including staff, legal advise,
technical structure (including root servers).

Obviously, this does not solve the problem of public represenation and
participation within ICANN and the board. And it still raises the question,
how and with what amount of will this will be practised.

So there is a long list of open questions, *how* this all will be realised,
because the precise and direct affecting decisions (by-law changes etc) 
will be made in the next weeks/months and there is good reasons to keep
the energy for paying attention to these next steps.

To come to the point: By all respects to the work of some ICANN critics,
especially to the US based, I simply cannot follow the idea, that bringing
the US government into the game (through DOC, through legislation,
through talking to US Senate members who might be more willing to listen
than some ICANN board members and staff people are) can improve the
accountability, transparency and/or user represenation/participation
situation at ICANN.

I simply do not know a single example in the past, where by involvement
of the united states government in global issues, anything improved.
Especially not for the reasons mentioned. Especially not as a european
citizen.

Also, I do not think, that anybody can use "the government as a tool"
because governments have their own interests next to the sometimes
existing tiny little bit of reputation some of them might have, through 
claiming to work on behalf of the citizens (which is of course different
for the different governments of the different countries and their
different understandings and procedures to do so). 

The meeting in Bucharest already took place under specific and more
or less extreme statements as well from governmental representatives
as from people involed with the ITU. If you look at the current international
situation outside ICANN, it is hard to guess in what kind  of issues
a strong governmental involvemend would bring us in what we can
see now as the "ICANN policy area" and what might it might end up to be.

Exactly this is at least my reason for voting in favour of the 
blueprint as at least a less-worse solution then strong governmental
involvement would be.

I hope that this improves your understanding a little bit of what is
going on here. Sorry for not beeing able to follow all threads here.


Andy Mueller-Maguhn



[1] see http://www.rawilson.com/main.shtml

[2] http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-28jun02.htm


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