Re: [atlarge-discuss] ALAC teleconference August 9, 2002 Notes

[espresso@e-scape.net]

At 01:15 -0700 2002/08/15, eric@hi-tek.com wrote:
>I mean absolutely no irreverence to the members.
>
>But this group is a sham.
>No it is absolutely not a bottom up open and transparent group.
>It is in no way representative of stakeholders.

I'm sure *most* of us are well aware of that, recognizing that:
1.  This is merely an organizing committee 
    (in its early stages, at that)
2.  It was initiated by a handful of people who had already 
    been members of ICANN's "At Large" --which was somewhat more 
    representative since it had 158,000 members with a definite
    interest in democracy and transparency, but which was
    apparently abolished for this-- and were unwilling to go
    along with the ICANN Board's notion that they could get away
    with doing whatever they wanted, regardless of the best
    interests of the Internet users around the world.
3.  The stakeholders are all the people on the planet, not just
    the people lucky enough to have Internet connections already,
    and it's likely to take some time and effort to create the
    structures which will enable them to register and vote.

If I read you correctly, you are not pleased with the notion that the "world at large" might be pseudo-represented by having this group (under 1000 people, most in the "developed" countries) elect and/or appoint from amongst its members a few people to sit as a minority on an ICANN owned-and-operated committee which can as easily be disregarded or abolished as the elected representation of the broader community on the ICANN Board of Directors.

>This might be a good time for JW to send something off to members who
>serve the USgov.

In fact, this would be a good time for ALL of us to think about communicating as individuals to the elected members of the U.S. government (and our own national governments, of course) how we feel about the need for democratic representation of all Internet users, as well as how ICANN has been behaving in regard to this.

It would also be an excellent time for this little group of 900+ to work on a more formal petition to the U.S. government (cc'd to the appropriate bodies elsewhere and to the media) requesting that ICANN's conduct toward the user community be taken into account in determining 
a) whether it has fulfilled the mandate it was given;
b) whether the existing body can be allowed to continue under a revised and more detailed mandate, or whether the exercise of letting the industry players make rules favourable to themselves as a "self-policing" body has been as great a failure as the similar exercise of allowing corporations to decide for themselves whether to lie to and cheat the public and requires remedies at least as serious;
c) how to launch (and fund) a worldwide register of Internet voters so as to ensure free and fair elections for the members of the board of ICANN or its replacement.

By the way, if such a document were written and circulated amongst all the potential constituents for an Internet governance body, I suspect we would soon have at least 90,000 members instead of 900. If ICANN could be compelled to send it to all those who registered for its "At Large" exercise, we'd be *starting* with a base of 158,000 and working up from there ... which sounds like progress to me. (This, of course, will take all the pressure we can apply on the political side.)

>This group is in no way representative of users of the Internet.  It has
>absolutely no dotcommoner base.
>If it is in any way used to suggest a consensus of users it is committing
>fraud.

I agree, except insofar as we are "dotcommoners" ourselves and have the right to speak for ourselves, whether individually or as mandated representatives of a small pressure-group which (we hope) will serve as the nucleus around which the worldwide Internet community can crystallize into a body capable of representative democracy.

If anyone is interested, I have a 138k list of e-mail addresses for members of various governments and for media around the world. (It may need a bit of updating, since I haven't tested it all lately.) It was my intention to set it up on my own Web site to make it easier for people in the non-profit groups to send out their press releases and sensitize their governments to issues ... but there's no reason on earth it couldn't be used to distribute copies of a petition or report from this group, too. [N.B. BTW, I know enough not to clog up the Net with useless multiple copies of petitions:  we'd need to set up a Web-based form and also an autoresponder-equipped mailbox to receive e-mailed copies of letters of support.]

I'm likely to be somewhat less available for the next week or so (I've got a conference starting tonight and am booked up until Wednesday) but I'll try to keep up with the mail and would **love** to work on a suitable text and HTML'ing the mailto: list if the rest of you agree that this would be a good idea.

Regards,

Judyth

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Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
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"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once 
they have exhausted all other alternatives." (Abba Eban)
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See the UNESCO OBSERVATORY ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY!
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/observatory  



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