Re: [ga] Jonathan Cohen elected for 1 year term at the ICANN Board

["Mark C. Langston" <skritch@home.com>]

On 19 October 1999, "A.M. Rutkowski" <amr@chaos.com> wrote:


>At 12:05 PM 10/19/99 , DNSO Listadmin wrote:
>>The Names Council noted and confirmed the election of Jonathan
>>Cohen from Canada, North America region,
>>as the ICANN Board member to serve for 1 year.
>
>I believe this should read "selected for election."
>
>ICANN's Bylaws are constructed so the the Board actually
>elects its own successors - thereby avoiding the
>possibility of a real membership organization where
>members can exercise the numerous rights that they
>would have under California law.

Wait...you mean that the ICANN BoD has to approve of the selections by
the NC?  *bwahahah!*  It just keeps getting more Byzantine, doesn't it?
Could you cite the appropriate Article, Section, and subsections, if any?


Just to recap, here's the whole bottom-up procedure:


1)  The ICANN BoD is appointed by the US Government.
2)  The ICANN BoD creates the DNSO and appoints the NC members.
3)  The DNSO NC creates the GA.
4)  The DNSO NC picks its favorites from among all the people the
      various political and economic factions of the GA want to see
      on the ICANN BoD.
5)  The ICANN BoD picks the new ICANN BoD members selected by the
      NC in Step 4.

...and, to further illustrate the wonderful bottom-up process:

1)  The ICANN BoD creates the At-Large membership (AL).
2)  The ICANN BoD charges for membership in AL.
3)  The ICANN BoD allows the AL to put forth candidates for an AL Council.
4)  The ICANN BoD appoints the AL Council from among those candidates.
5)  The AL body nominates people for the ICANN BoD.
6)  The AL Council (appointed by the ICANN BoD) picks the 9 people they
      want to sit on the ICANN BoD.
7)  The ICANN BoD accepts or rejects these people.
8)  The political forces in ICANN can eliminate these 9 people at any
      time by forcing the AL membership below the magical (and arbitrary)
      5,000 figure.



I'm sorry.  There's no point at which those affected by (and in essence,
governed by) ICANN have any say whatsoever in their leadership; in those
who will decide and effect policies and contracts.  If The ICANN BoD thinks
their actions describe a "bottom-up" process, someone needs to get a very
large piece of posterboard and very clearly write the definition of 
bottom-up on it, in large neon letters, in several languages, and show
it to them at 10 minute intervals.

-- 
Mark C. Langston
mark@bitshift.org
Systems Admin
San Jose, CA