[atlarge-discuss] Re: FC: ICANN attorney replies to Politech post on "self-regulation's end"

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Declan and all,

  Of course, many of us that have been around for awhile, like myself,
recognize that old Joe had to put some sort of spin on this.  That's
what he gets paid to do after all, and handsomely to boot.  Hence
giving his comments of this nature much credence or consideration
would be a huge mistake or at least quite misleading...  Same Ding-Dong,
Sing-Song...


Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Previous Politech message:
>
> "Michael Geist on ICANN, Congress, end of 'self-regulation'"
> http://www.politechbot.com/p-03653.html
>
> Joe Sims is ICANN's chief outside counsel.
>
> -Declan
>
> ---
>
> To: declan@well.com
> Subject: Michael Geist's column
> From: "Joe Sims" <jsims@JonesDay.com>
> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 11:03:28 -0400
>
> Of course, Geist has it all wrong.  I hope you will consider publishing
> this response.
>
> The notion that not enough happens at ICANN in public, and that the answer
> to ICANN's problems is more transparency, illustrates a profound lack of
> understanding about what ICANN really does, and how it really does
> it.  Prof. Geist is not the only one that doesn't get it, but since he has
> the ability to publish columns, it is probably worth while trying to
> correct his misunderstanding.
>
> Contrary to Prof. Geist's assertions, ICANN is not a self-regulatory
> body.  It was never intended to be a self-regulatory body.  It was intended
> to be a forum for the possible discovery of consensus solutions to global
> issues related to the DNS -- a way, quite frankly, for national governments
> to find a place for the resolution of global DNS issues that did not
> require a new treaty organization.  It is true that its original structure
> called for half its Board to be selected by a general At Large membership
> of some kind, but that was certainly not the consensus view of the Internet
> community at that time.  Prof. Geist, having not been part of the
> discussions with the US Government that produced that construction, is
> undoubtedly unaware of the fact that no one involved in that decision, and
> I include those in the US Government (feel free to ask them) was convinced
> that such an approach was really workable.  The ICANN organizers wanted to
> insert the words "if feasible;" the US Government position at the time, for
> reasons I leave to the reader to imagine, was "we'll figure out how to do
> it later."  The then brand-new Board of ICANN, without the assistence of
> Jon Postel who had died a month earlier, acquiesced to this position,
> notwithstanding a quite clear concern that it might not be possible to make
> it work.  In hindsight, I am quite sure most regret this decision.
>
> We now have almost 4 years of experience by which to test the concepts on
> which the original construction rested, and we actually know some things
> that we did not know then.  We know that the notion of global on-line
> elections is fraught with problems that are too complicated for ICANN to be
> on the bleeding edge on innovation in this area.  We know that there is no
> consensus in the ICANN community on exactly how the public interest should
> be represented in ICANN's structure, notwithstanding the insistence of
> those like Prof. Geist that there is only one possible solution.  We know
> that part of the reason there is no consensus is that those who insist on
> direct elections of Board members have refused to consider any other
> alternative way of representing the public interest; this religious
> approach is not conducive to compromise or consensus.
>
> We also know that a purely private organization, without the support and
> involvement of governments from around the world, will not be able to carry
> out thes mission assigned to ICANN (if you believe that mission requires
> the agreed participation of all the relevant infrastructure
> providers).  ICANN has no guns, and no soldiers; it has no coercive
> power.  It can succeed only if the relevant portions of the community
> voluntarily agree that they want to participate and make it succeed.  To
> date, that has not happened.  We can argue all we want about why it has not
> happened, but it is clear that the reason is not the failure to hold
> on-line elections.  The fact is that the root server operators, the address
> registries, and the ccTLD registries must be persuaded to come to the ICANN
> table, and it will not help that process to make ICANN a less stable, less
> predictable organization.
>
> Finally, we know (or at least some of us strongly believe) that the path to
> ICANN success is an appropriate public/private partnership, with the
> private sector and global governments working together within an ICANN
> structured to accept input from all but also able to make effective
> decisions in a timely way.  We are clearly on the path to such an ICANN,
> and I hope we will take another step toward that goal at the meeting in
> Bucharest later this month.
>
> The notion that government interest in ICANN is heightened by the failure
> to adopt some form of global elections is laughably naive.  Governments are
> properly interested in ICANN because the Internet is increasingly critical
> to the well-being, social and commercial, of their citizens, and because
> what ICANN is responsible for is critical to the continued stable operation
> of the Internet.  This would be true whether all or none of ICANN's
> directors were elected by the general public.  And it is this fact that is
> driving the process of gaining the proper level of government participation
> in ICANN, nothing else.  This is the real world; Prof. Geist insists on
> occupying some academic construct of a world.  This longing for some
> utopian construct is not useful in trying to reform ICANN into a body that
> does reflect, as best it can be done, the views and concerns of the entire
> Internet provider and user community.
>
> Joe Sims
> Jones Day Reavis & Pogue
> 51 Louisiana Avenue NW
> Washington, D.C. 20001
> Direct Phone:  1.202.879.3863
> Direct Fax:  1.202.626.1747
> Mobile Phone:  1.703.629.3963
>
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Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 124k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208



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