Re: [atlarge-discuss] My choices for a leadership team

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@vitaminic.net>]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 20:41:14 EDT, you wrote:

>Izumi, you wrote:  << dealing with US Congress is not the business of the new 
>organization, at least directly, in my opinion. >>
>
>I fail to understand your reticence to fight for the At-Large in all 
>pertinent venues.  We are clearly in a war with many battlefields and it is 
>our collective job to defend the rights of our community no matter where that 
>battle may take us.  If you wish to fight only within the Halls of ICANN that 
>is your privilege, but decisions are being made in other arenas which will 
>impact the ICANN organization and which will affect the general user 
>community.

Personally, I think we should fight wherever it seems useful, but without
forgetting that if we cannot gain some support in ICANN - if not from the
Board, at least from the other constituencies and its community in the
broader sense - it will be very difficult for any external party to force
ICANN to give us more weight, as it could cause an unanymous opposition by
all ICANN components, very difficult to overcome.

About the USG... it seems very unlikely to me that the US Government will
ever force ICANN to accept a truely global and international At Large
membership under any shape, because the primary interest of the USG is to
keep as much control over the Internet as possible, for economical and
national security reasons. If you look at the very difficult relationships
that the USG has traditionally had with the UN and other truely
international bodies, you'll have to agree that the USG does not seem very
interested in building "global governments" or whatever. The attention that
the ICANN Board has put towards security in the last months seems to me a
signal that it would be willing to get nearer to the USG and follow its
agenda to keep its support - thus, if we bet all our chances on USG, we
might end up with nothing, as the USG could choose the current ICANN
leadership instead.

So, if the purpose of this organization is to build a global membership
(which needs a global leadership) then it would be a deadly error to think
that the USG might support it. Perhaps, the USG might support it if it
became an US-controlled organization led by "patriots" (as per the meaning
this word is commonly used with in the US). But, personally, I would not
like to be a member of such organization, and I guess that most of the
non-US members, and perhaps also some US members, would not like it too.

By the way, if we had to find support for the internationalization of the
administration of the Internet, it seems to me more likely that we could
find it in the EU (at least, if it wasn't so divided and slow to act on
these matters). And if the US control over ICANN strengthened, I think it
would be very likely that the EU could start thinking at its own
alternatives, which might even end up being more democratical (you know, our
socialist roots :-PPP ).
-- 
.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39 011 23381220
Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for Technology

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