[ga] On the ALAC's Request for Comments

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

This moronic plan surely must have been conceived by the feeble-minded idiots 
and stooges that participated as members of the At-Large Assistance Group -- 
it has all the hallmarks of a document hand-written by ICANN staff and 
rubber-stamped by the ICANN Board's hand-picked puppets (who apparently are 
too ignorant or too naive to understand that they are only being used as a 
conveniently pliable tool to promote the fiction that ICANN is in compliance 
with task number nine under the Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. 
Department of Commerce).

Having witnessed the complete and total elimination of all public 
representation on the ICANN Board these fools on the At-Large Advisory 
Committee now expect the Internet community to rally around a top-down effort 
designed to asininely further complicate communication between individual 
users and members of the ICANN Board.  

In the past, any individual user could write a letter to ICANN and feel 
confident that they would be ignored (as it has become rather apparent that 
ICANN only bothers to pay attention to those special-interest groups it deems 
to be "stakeholders" in its Cartel).  Now one has to do all of the following 
in order to achieve the same outcome:

1.  First one must find a noncommercial entity to join.
2.  Next, one needs to convince the members of this non-profit group that 
they must post on their website information that pertains to ICANN 
activities/issues, and further convince them to offer Internet-based 
discussion mechanisms so that such activities/issues may be evaluated. 
3.  Then it next becomes necessary to convince this noncommercial group that 
they must provide information on the group's general funding sources to the 
ALAC (so that this Committee of pseudo-accountants/analysts can ostensibly 
come to a determination as to whether the non-profit has commitments or 
obligations that would conflict with its ability to involve and represent 
individual constituents' interests). 
4.  At this point, one must now confirm that somewhere on the non-profit 
group's website is an articulation of its non-commercial goals and structure, 
a description of constituent group(s), its working mechanisms, leadership, 
and contact(s) -- unlike the ALAC which has no posted working mechanisms, an 
incomplete structure, no contact data on its discussion list (the e-mail 
addresses of all the "representatives" are replaced with XXXXX), no working 
public forum and no publicly archived public comments. 
5.  Then, the non-profit must be convinced to submit in electronic form a 
completed application and to provide the ALAC any further requested 
documentation (which may include references, documents to verify general 
funding sources, documents on the organization's leadership and operations, 
and documents that demonstrate the identity of all their individual 
constituents -- has anyone on this Committee ever heard of the concept of 
privacy?).  The non-profit must also be convinced that it must necessarily 
subject itself to the prospect of further possible interviews regarding the 
organization's contact(s) and must potentially provide other as yet 
unspecified information about the organization.
6.  If the ALAC then decides to designate this organization as an eligible 
"structure", the user that wishes to communicate with the ICANN Board must 
next find at least three other such structures (that must be located in at 
least two countries) and must persuade these structures to form a regional 
organization.
7.  In order to form this regional body, the user must then convince these 
other organizations to spend months and months developing a set of bylaws 
that all organizations can agree upon, and then the user must further 
convince each non-profit organization to share in the financial burden of 
establishing this new umbrella organization -- that means dedicating 
financial resources for the purpose of incorporation, and setting aside funds 
to provide for an organizational website, Secretariat services, and such.
8.  The user must also convince each such non-profit organization that it's 
limited funds should be applied to this glorious experiment instead of 
remitting such limited funds as the membership fee for direct participation 
in ICANN's Non-Commercial constituency (which at least gets to participate in 
the election of an ICANN director).
9.  If the regional organization is finally created, then the user must await 
the formulation of a formal Memorandum of Understanding with ICANN which 
consecrates this effort...  (for some reason, this Committee of the 
Mentally-Challenged seems to think that the At-Large is so gullible that it 
will willingly enter into a contract with ICANN in the full knowledge that 
ICANN has broken all of its prior promises, ignored the consensus conclusions 
of its own Blue Ribbon Panel (the ALSC) and has gleefully wiped out all user 
representation on its Board). 
10.  Finally, if this last stage is achieved, the user can then send his 
comments to the two members of the ALAC that his regional organization has 
elected.  Those two members will then transmit his message to the full 
committee that will next proceed to filter, mangle, distort, and re-write his 
comments (after sincerely thanking him for his input).  The ALAC will then 
transmit a non-binding "recommendation" to the Board that in turn will thank 
the committee for its efforts before proceeding to ignore the comments 
received.

As a user, I don't need this degree of structural bullshit just to 
communicate my sentiments directly to ICANN.  The problem is not the lack of 
a structured vehicle to serve as a communications conduit... the problem has 
always been that the Board has been comprised of members that can't be 
bothered to listen to the voice of the public that they purportedly serve.  

This ALAC plan sucks.  Unfortunately, the spineless worms on the Committee 
will never advocate for substantive change.  Instead, they will meekly accept 
the bylaws as written and will continue to pretend to "represent" the 
At-Large.  All hail the Company Union.
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