[ga] a few moments of your valuable time, please

["Judith Oppenheimer" <joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com>]

August 22, 2002

Nancy J. Victory
Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information
United States Department of Commerce
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
1401 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Room 4898
Washington, D.C. 20230

Dear Assistant Secretary Victory:

Please take a moment to read
http://www.icannwatch.org/article.php?sid=908&mode=&order=0 (copied below
for your convenience) by Professor Jonathan Weinberg.

It is one of the most concise and spot-on summations of ICANN's At Large
activity that I've seen to date.  Thank you in advance for your time and
attention.

Sincerely,

Judith Oppenheimer
recently elected to supervisory panel of icannatlarge.com
http://JudithOppenheimer.com
160 East 26 Street, New York, NY 10010
212 684-7210

cc:  icannatlarge.com
      DNSO General Assembly
      ICANNWatch



ICANN's At-Large Assistance Group (ALAG) has just released its report [
http://log.does-not-exist.org/archive-0208.html#02082014071029845261 ]
proposing an at-large structure for ICANN.


For those of you who've lost your scorecards: After the ICANN Board in
Accra trashed the report of the blue-chip At-Large Study Organization,
which had called for the creation of an at-large supporting organization
electing Board members (as had ICANN's Membership Advisory Committee, its
Membership Implementation Task Force, the NAIS study, etc., etc.[
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg03486.html ]), and as at-large
groups nonetheless had the temerity to self-organize, ICANN midwived the
creation of the new At-Large Organizing Committee [
http://www.at-large.org/ ], led by Esther Dyson and Denise Michels. After
that body too called for [
http://www.at-large.org/submission-to-evolution-and-reform-cmt.htm ]
"dedicated At-Large seats on the Board," ICANN created still another group,
to provide "implementation recommendations" for the Blueprint's rejection
of at-large Board seats. (Hans Klein's masterly explication of the
ever-shifting at-large alphabet soup is here [
http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/cyber-fed/Number_14.html ].)


The new group -- the ALAG, consisting of Esther Dyson, Denise Michel,
Gabriel Piñeiro, Tommi Karttaavi, Peter M. Shane, Núria de la Fuente
Teixidó, Edmundo Valenti, Vittorio Bertola, and Izumi Aizu -- has now
issued its report (part 1 here [
http://www.fitug.de/atlarge-discuss/0208/msg00886.html ], part 2 here [
http://www.fitug.de/atlarge-discuss/0208/msg00886.html ]). The document
notes that it is a response to the ERC's request for Blueprint
implementation recommendations, and that its recommendations do not
represent -- indeed, are contrary to -- "its members' preferred approach to
individual user (At-Large) participation or representation within ICANN."


In a nutshell: ICANN would create an At-Large Advisory Committee,
"available to provide advice and guidance to the Board and to other
organizations within ICANN." ICANN would ensure that the ALAC gets
"appropriate notice of upcoming and pending policy discussions and
decisions, to ensure adequate opportunity for At-Large input." The ALAC
would appoint a non-voting liaison to the Board, five delegates to the
Nominating Committee, and liaisons to the supporting organization councils
and the other advisory committees. ICANN would "review At-Large involvement
after a full year and consider providing At-Large with full representation
on the Board."


ALAC would sit atop a conclave of pre-existing organizations such as
icannatlarge.com, local ISOC chapters, public-interest organizations, and
local computer user groups. These organizations would be grouped into five
regional bodies, which would send representatives to regional councils. The
regional councils would in turn send delegates to the fifteen-member ALAC
and to ICANN's Nominating Committee. "To accommodate the ERC's wish to have
the NomCom appoint some of the ALAC's members," a third of the ALAC seats
would be filled by the NomCom rather than the member organizations. At some
point in the unspecified future, members of the ALAC constituent
organizations would participate in elections to choose ALAC members.


Make you feel warm and fuzzy all over? The ALAG had some good people on it,
and, plainly, some ALAG members worked quite hard and in good faith to
develop the best possible plan, subject to the constraints of the
Blueprint.


Just as plainly, though, those constraints are devastating. The main
accomplishment of the Blueprint is that it eliminates the At-Large as part
of ICANN's actual decisional structure. Even the best set of implementation
recommendations for that plan can't make the proverbial silk purse out of
the Blueprint's sow's ear.


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Judith Oppenheimer
http://JudithOppenheimer.com
http://ICBTollFreeNews.com
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212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert
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