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

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

Cameron and all,

  Many of us here in the US also share you disgust in Mike Roberts
post to which you refer that he made to the Atlargestudy.org Mailing
list.  I personally responded after recieving a number of calls
from our members, ex-military,or retired military personel, and
an assortment of others.

Cameron Smith wrote:

> 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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> ____________________________________________________________
> Nokia Game is on again.
> Go to http://uk.yahoo.com/nokiagame/ and join the new
> all media adventure before November 3rd.
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members 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:  972-447-1800 x1894 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208



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