[ga] No room on the bus

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

Dear members,

It is my duty as your Chair to report on recent events.  As many of you know, 
the General Assembly will be meeting on the evening of November 12 from 8PM 
to 11PM.  The new.net organization kindly offered to sponsor our session by 
providing food and beverage during our meeting (which comes at the end of a 
very long day of back-to-back meetings).  

Protocol required that I contact Mary Hewitt as per the instructions posted 
at http://www.icann.org/mdr2001/  because "Starting with the Marina Del Rey 
2001 meeting, there will be a new format for sponsorship opportunities for 
this ICANN meeting."

Ms. Hewitt rejected the sponsorship application of new.net citing the fact 
that they did not support the authoritative root.

I sent a reconsideration request to Stuart Lynn.  Mr. Lynn responded that "we 
place bounds around whom we accept as sponsors. And new.net does not fit the 
package."

On the 1st of December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, 
was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for failing to let a white bus rider take 
her seat.   Today, ICANN has proven that discrimination is still very much 
alive, and that there is no longer any room on the bus for those that don't 
share the same views as ICANN staff.  

Although our Memorandum of Understanding with the US Department of Commerce 
states:  "Neither Party, either in the DNS Project or in any act related to 
the DNS Project, shall act unjustifiably or arbitrarily to injure particular 
persons or entities or particular categories of persons or entities," recent 
ICANN actions, from the issuance of ICP-3 to this sponsorship denial, make it 
clear that ICANN is indeed acting to injure a particular cartegory of 
entities.  

I thank new.net for demonstrating its commitment to participation in the 
ICANN process and for its support of the General Assembly.  It is to our 
shame that such efforts at participation are routinely being denied by those 
charged with the coordination activities of the Internet.  This is a sad day 
in our history, and I mourn the death of the concept of "fairness".  

--
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