Re: [icann-europe] [fwd] [ALSC-Forum] Re: a proposed action statement (from: mmr@darwin.ptvy.ca.us)

[Cameron Smith <cameron_ord_smith@yahoo.co.uk>]

I have not mailed anything to this list for a very
long time now, but I feel I must express my disgust at
this shallow attempt to confuse issues by Mike
Roberts.

I am a citizen of the U.K. - while we have not, I
think, felt the sense of absolute shock and loss that
the U.S. has at the events of September 11th, there is
no question here that those events have fundamentally
altered our own view of the world.

Therefore, I accept that if a reassessment of national
security priorities means changes to the governance of
the internet, so be it.  However I do not accept that:

a) Those changes should be approved in a 'knee-jerk'
fashion by the clique who runs ICANN.
b) The broader issues of accountability and
impropriety which have plagued ICANN almost since its
inception, and which the ALSC is the latest attempt to
deal with, should be 'swept under the carpet' because
to raise them is somehow 'unpatriotic' as Roberts seem
to suggest.

Life has to go on, and it has to go on democratically.
 A key aspect of any democratic process is debate and
criticism.

Therefore debate about, and criticism of, the
governance of ICANN must still be dealt with by
reasoned argument, and not, as in Roberts' mail, by
the sly imputation that dissenters are somehow
unpatriotic or irresponsible.

Cameron Smith,
Edinburgh,
Scotland
   
------------------
Thomas Roessler  wrote: FYI.-- Thomas Roessler
http://log.does-not-exist.org/

----- Forwarded message from Mike Roberts -----From:
Mike Roberts To: Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 20:59:42
-0700Subject: [ALSC-Forum] Re: a proposed action
statementWith apologies to the non-US members of this
list, I'd like to make some comments that are
inevitably US-centric.Today marked a watershed day in
the history of the Internet. In some sense, the real
date was September 11, when the leadership role of the
United States in world peace, in economic development,
and in technology innovation was challenged by a group
of determined religious fanatics using our own
technology on us to cause the death of thousands of
innocent people.But the legal date between the "old"
Internet and the "new Internet was today, October 26,
2001,when President George Bush signed the
anti-terrorism bill that was passed by the upper house
of Congress yesterday with one dissenting vote.This
legislation brings the Internet and its developers,
providers and users directly into the new war on
terrorism. It extends extensive new power to law
enforcement to find, capture, and punish those who use
the network for terrorism or other criminal activity.
It removes the previous barriers between foreign and
domestic anti-terrorism investigations and establishes
the principle that whoever you are, wherever you are,
if you use the net for terrorism, you are in the
sights of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and their foreign
counterparts.In the New York Times this morning, under
the heading "We are All Alone," widely respected
columnist Tom Friedman said, "Focus instead on the
firemen who rushed into the trade center towers
without asking, 'How much?' Focus on the thousands of
U.S. reservists who have left their jobs and families
to go fight in Afghanistan without asking, 'What's in
it for me?' Unlike the free-riders in our coalition,
these young Americans know that September 11 is our
holy day - the first day in a just war to preserve our
free, multi-religious, democratic society. And I don't
really care if that war coincides with Ramadan,
Christmas, Hanukkah, or the Buddha's birthday - the
most respectful and spiritual thing we can do now is
fight it until justice is done."After a week of tough
fighting in Afghanistan where the battle is rapidly
deteriorating to the same "take no prisoners" ethic
that prevailed on September 11, the same week that
professionally prepared anthrax kept showing up in new
places everyday on the U.S. east coast and killed two
postal workers, there is a determined and deadly
resolve to follow the Friedman advice.A resolve that
will affect many if not most institutions, among them
ICANN.It's different now for ICANN. What started out
as your typical ritual White House privatization
effort; one that parroted the young Clintonites'
"Agenda for Action" of 1993; the Al Gore "Information
Superhighway" speech; that provided a last hurrah for
Clinton advisor Magaziner at the end of the second
term. A sly political move that solved, or maybe
solved, the National Science Foundation's honest
mistake in giving Network Solutions and SAIC a billion
dollar monopoly. That is not the ICANN of post-Sept
11.It's different now. It's not world government
because national governments are evil; it's not
Internet governance because national laws are unjust;
it's not a response to some abstract imagining of the
global popular will; it's not solving poverty, famine,
infanticide, drug abuse and political oppression in
the DNS.It's serious. It's first things first. It's
about keeping people from being killed by terrorist
plots hatched over the net. All of a sudden it matters
that you know what you are talking about. If you are
an Internet engineer, what about nailing down the
RFC's needed for secure new functionality in the DNS?
If you are a root server host organization CEO, all of
a sudden being a volunteer in Jon Postel's army takes
on new meaning. If you're the manager of a top level
domain name registry, it's not a pc in a closet time
anymore. Important people are watching, people who
have the ability to nationalize you overnight if
you're not carrying your weight in making the Internet
more secure. The Japanese government and the United
States government are sending cabinet level officers
to speak at the November ICANN meeting about how
serious this really is.So what does this have to do
with At Large? First, don't expect to get the
attention of the study committee, your fellow
stakeholders in ICANN, the dedicated members of the
Board, or the governments whose sanction makes this
privatization effort possible, with a continuation of
the shallow rhetoric that has characterized the
postings on this list. Second, think seriously about
constructive improvements in the recommendations of
the ALSC. Nobody cares that you don't like a
particular recommendation, they want to know whether
you have a better idea, an idea that is good enough to
gather the support of a lot of other interested
parties that may not share your individual political
or social or economic background but are nevertheless
interested in the future welfare of ICANN. Third, be
prepared to compromise your goals in the interests of
forging an At Large organization that contributes to
an ICANN that is going to operate in a far different
environment than its founders envisaged.The study
committee has worked hard. It doesn't deserve the
abuse it has received on this list. The several points
of the action plan are reasonable, centrist, and
provide a basis for moving forward. They deserve your
support.- Mike Roberts-- ----- End forwarded message
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