Re: [ga] Karl's latest posting

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, Joe Sims wrote:

> Karl's latest posting contains his usual careless reasoning.

Ah, I remember when Sims called me an "idiot" and claimed that my lawsuit
against ICANN was without merit.  As it turned out, an impartial judge did
find ICANN's actions clearly unlawful and that they compared poorly
against the already ultimately poor standard of Enron.  See
http://www.eff.org/Infra/DNS_control/ICANN_IANA_IAHC/Auerbach_v_ICANN/

One might hope that Sims would be honorable enough to admit that he erred.

A general matter, I find that I must dismiss Sim's comments as emotional
outbursts rather than as thoughtful opinions made with due consideration
of the concerns and interests of his client(s).  I know that Sims is
capable of intelligent decisions, I have seen him do it ... on occasion.
But unfortunately, such occasions are becoming increasingly rare.  I have
received comments from people in the legal community that express
embarrassment at these outbursts from one who was once a highly respected
member of the legal community.

One might wonder at the motiviation behind Joe Sims' statements.  How much
money has he made from ICANN's existance?  How much more money will he
continue to make, even if he withdraws from ICANN has he claims he will,
as ICANN continues to pay fees, on the order of a million dollars a year,
into his law firm?

If ICANN were to lose part of its role to the ITU, then one might expect
that ICANN wouldn't be paying as much to Sims's firm and thus Sims'
portion or the receipts would drop accordingly.

And looking at it from the ICANN perspective - Has ICANN received value
for the money it has spent on Sims?  I have looked at many of ICANN's
records, and have examined much of Sims' work product.  My own business
judgement is that ICANN has not received value for its money.

(Lest my brush be too wide, Sim's law firm is cable of very high quality
work.  I am very impressed with JDRP people like Jeff LeVee.  And some of 
the work from lower level attorneys at the firm has been top notch and has 
exhibited efforts that are to be lauded.  However, as Benjamin Franklin 
said: "The rotten apple spoils the barrel.")

>From Sim's comment it appears that Sims considers that we citizens have no
power to affect the activities of our government.  There is some truth to
that - with paid advocates like Sims lurking around behind the scenes and
wandering in and out of Nancy Victory's office, there is indeed a question
of whether a mere citizen can have an effect or whether governments of
today are captured by highly paid lobbyists and lawyers.

And again, lest the brush be too wide.  There are business advocates and
lawyers who, while attempting to influence, are also broadminded and who
attempt to find answers to hard questions.  There are people here on this
e-mail list who represent their companies and clients with honor and with
whom disagreement is a creative and constructive process in which both
sides come out with better answers and increased knowledge.

As for Nancy Victory's credentials to represent the United States - The
United States is a country of delegated powers and administrators, such as
Nancy Victory, obtain authority only via Congressional legislation or
delegation of Executive authority.  Neither of these occurs by telepathy.
Unless an explicit and express chain of delegation can be shown, the claim
of authority is specious.  I have been asking to see such a chain of
authority since the late 1990's - and I have not been alone in asking that
question, see http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann.pdf I
have yet to see an adequate answer.

And finally, Sims asks whether I have had an ability to influence anyone.
I believe I have.  Sims, however, appears to be afraid of testing the
question by the one test that is the hallmark of democratic systems - an
election.  If ICANN were to hold elections for board seats, it is likely
that I would win against any existing board member who chose to run
against me.  And does anyone doubt that I would win against Sims?

		--karl--






--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html