Re: [atlarge-discuss] Re: Recordings of Amsterdam Meetings and PROPOSAL

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Thanks for replying at length, Alexander.

The RALO's of course have to be "accepted" by ICANN and they have to sign a
MoU. Furthermore, if different groups take a different view on (eg)
individuals voting, and more than one group approaches ICANN ro form a RALO
for (eg) Europe, then it's going to be ICANN who decides which group to be
the RALO.

At the Amsterdam meeting, Denise sat on the fence about whether individuals
would be able to participate in the RALOs or merely organisations; and
Esther clearly takes the view that if it doesn't work we'll change the
rules.

Are you trying to tell me, Alexander, that you trust ICANN's good intents?

Look at the track record (or have they institutionalised you?):

Abuse of power.

Granting of contracts to friends and associates.

Expulsion of elected At Large directors (agreed upon and imminent)

Rejection of their own ALSG recommendations on the At Large.

Closing down of the GA.

Derisory comments about public contributions in their ICANN forums.

Expenditure of large sums of money to harrass fellow Board member Karl
Auerbach (in an action booted out of court by the judiciary).

Failure to respond to mail (eg Dan Halloran - now been waiting 250 days).

Craven laissez-faire attitude.

Cynical exploitation and manipulation of processes.

Where's the democratic accountability?

Where's the REAL cimmitment to ordinary users?

Do you seriously suggest we should trust ICANN, its RALOs initiative, or
anything else they propose?

If it starts to work against them, they'll just change the rules again, like
they have before.

For all these reasons, Alexander, I think I have the reason to be sceptical.

You seem to imply that User Groups and ordinary internet users can't
organise themselves without ICANN organising the RALOs and overseeing the
structures. Why ever not?

When do we stop kowtowing to ICANN and stop treating them as if they were
the centre of the universe?

If you want a free, independent and critical voice for internet users, why
tie it up with ICANN?

If we tie it up with ICANN, we'll be tied up with ICANN.

ICANN has no interest in the voice of the At Large. They have made that
quite plain. There interest is in running the root in the best interests of
the US Government and in the interests of Big Business, Trademark Lobby, and
their close friends and associates in the "Domain Industry".

Their only interest in the At Large at present is window-dressing.

Well by participating with them, we're helping to dress the window.

ICANN is out of order.

We should cease associating with their structures. We should keep our
structures independent of ICANN. We should develop our own Regional
Organisations and Umbrella Groups and Coalitions and Alliances. We should
mould a voice for the diverse groupings of internet users.

We should vocally highlight the ICANN "reform" coup which proposes to kick
the At Large off the Board.

We should NOT legitimise the coup by supporting it and building up a
"replacement" for the expelled At Large Board.

Alexander I was not trying to attack Denise as a person but only Denise as a
function. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that she has the long-term
interest of the At Large at heart. She is a paid up ICANN insider working
for the very people who have ejected the At Large from real positions of
power and decision-making.

And yet the millions of people on this planet who have a right to determine
the future of the Internet - THEIR internet - are to be somehow rallied and
drawn together by the organisation that wants them excluded from serious
power?

Alexander, I am not attacking you as a person. Why should I? But I suggest
you have been roaming these ICANN corridors too long. You seem
institutionalised in your approach and attitudes. You continue to try to
assist ICANN in their machinations and devices. I say: actions speak louder
than words.

Look at what ICANN has done. Look how discredited they are. They will NEVER
truly let in the At Large because ICANN is not a democracy project, but an
instrument of US policy.

Unfortunately the future of the Internet IS a democracy project. And therein
lies the battlefront and the clash of cultures.

ICANN (and Denise) cannot be trusted to oversee the evolution of the At
Large.

The At Large as the voice of the democratic rights of the world has to be
evolved OUTSIDE any influence from ICANN.

Let them get a hold on it, and ICANN will evolve the At Large to become a
talking shop of powerless groupings, rendered ineffectual by a labyrinth of
ICANN rules and processes, and prevented from democratic expression and
control of the Internet.

I repeat, the Internet IS a democracy project. ICANN is not. It's a clash of
cultures. They are trying to disarm the At Large and turn its democratic
rights and demands into a committee and a few 'liaison' officers with no
power at all. That's not democracy. That's the blocking of the democracy (a
continuation of what they've done in the past 12 months ).

But the Internet belongs to hundreds of millions of ordinary users who make
it what it is, who develop it, who communicate through it, who help one
another on it, who trade, who educate, who own its billions of separate
pages. There is an absolute democratic imperative there that these people
should be empowered to control its development - the development of THEIR
resource - and that these people should be put at the centre of its
administration and future.

Instead of which, ICANN and USG have developed an amoral/immoral
market-driven big business-favouring unaccountable model, and have spurned
the democratic process, and they are an affront to democracy.

I'm sorry, Alexander, you're entitled to your view (and I'm smart enough to
understand it) but it really just smooth-talks and coaxes people into
accepting "life under ICANN".

The At Large movement HAS to be developed as a separate alternative, and HAS
to be kept clearly separate.

The At Large movement is a democracy movement. ICANN has no place for
democracy.

Richard Henderson

----- Original Message -----
From: Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>
To: Richard Henderson <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>
Cc: <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: [atlarge-discuss] Re: Recordings of Amsterdam Meetings and
PROPOSAL


>
> Hello Richard,
>
> At 20.12.2002 08:31, Richard Henderson wrote:
> >The idea that the At Large should be structured, promoted, and developed
> >WITHIN Icann is a disastrous wrong turning, as the whole issue has been
> >about ICANN's desire to stifle, control or eject critical voices from its
> >organisation.
>
> You realize that you are in agreement with ardent critics of
> the 2002 elections? The first At Large attempt was in fact
> At Large WITHIN Icann -- At Large members had to sign up at
> the ICANN website, they got PIN letters from ICANN and
> elected ICANN directors.
>
> The Regional At Large Organizations (RALOs) are NOT WITHIN
> Icann, and neither are the user groups which form the RALOs.
>
> >Since this is the battlefront which must be fought - the need and right
of
> >ordinary people to criticise the Board and challenge its undemocratic
> >authority - it is wholly unacceptable to allow ICANN to draw the
mechanism
> >for challenging it, into a structure that ICANN determines, ICANN
directs,
> >and ICANN develops.
>
> Ordinary people can at all times criticise and challenge
> anything. The point is that unless they organize, they will
> have little influence. The RALO structure has not been
> determined by ICANN, the RALOs are not directed by ICANN
> (the user groups will choose both the RALO leadership and
> the way they are chosen), and I don't understand how ICANN
> is supposed to "develop" the RALOs. If the RALOs are not
> self-organizing, getting user groups in each region together,
> we will simply not have any bottom-up user participation in
> ICANN except for comment periods.
>
> >It is absolutely plain that ICANN is trying to create a 'tame'
controllable
> >alternative to the REAL At Large, a kind of 'controlled' pretence of
> >user-involvement, whereas the real independent views of ordinary users
are
> >far more threatening to their powerbase and need to challenge the idea
that
> >Internet Users should somehow be orchestrated and manipulated 'inside'
ICANN
> >structures developed by ICANN.
>
> There's a major problem with your capital letters REAL At
> Large: It does not REALly exist at the moment. Yes, there
> is ICANNatlarge.org and there are user groups, but they
> are not well-organized and thus don't have influence. To
> see what Internet users want, you have to involve and
> organize them. And hey -- there are lots of user groups
> already out there, and I don't think they are willing to
> be orchestrated and manipulated. Getting such user groups
> in each region together to form a Regional At Large
> Organization -- that's one way to get the REAL At Large.
>
> >Ordinary Internet Users need their own structures and organisations, and
> >their own independent voice, and the initiative to develop this plain and
> >distinct identity is not helped at all by the appearance of a worldwide
user
> >structure *inside* ICANN.
>
> Again, the user groups and the RALOs are not INSIDE Icann.
> There already are organizations of individual users out there,
> and hopefully many more to come -- and all these organizations
> are not about to *join* ICANN or something similar. They are
> to form regional alliances.
>
> >A big problem I see is the confusion I think is created when leaders of
an
> >independent group like IcannatLarge.org are helping and aiding the
> >development of the ICANN 'pretence' which actually sidetracks and
detracts
> >and endangers the likelihood of an independent At Large emerging. ICANN
will
> >simply say (like a smiling tiger): "But we already have an At Large, and
> >RALO's etc etc". We are helping them build the very structure which helps
> >legitimise their fasle claim to be representing ordinary users (while
> >expelling User representation from any real power). They will claim that
the
> >reasonable and informed At Large already exists and has a home inside
their
> >(carefully-controlled) structures.
>
> IcannatLarge.org was founded with the intent of having a
> voice for user interests within ICANN. It is up to our
> organization to choose how it bests achieves this goal.
> If there is an opportunity to participate and IcannatLarge.org
> deliberately chooses to stay away, that's fine. I just
> don't think it makes much sense.
>
> >Whereas the truth is that ICANN itself is palpably illegitimate and
> >unrepresentative, has chosen to expel dissenting voices, and clearly and
so
> >obviously wants a captured At Large which it can contain.
> >
> >Vittorio and others, by participating in the development of this ICANN
> >agenda being created for ICANN ends, are helping to legitimise the coup
> >which ICANN has been carrying out : I believe that our organisation
should
> >be given the chance to vote and decide whether they want to be ICANN
> >insiders supporting the creation of an ICANN At Large, or whether they
want
> >to be independent outside voices for the At Large community worldwide of
> >ordinary internet users.
>
> This is a skewed set of choices. You don't become an
> ICANN insider by setting up a user organization or
> forming a regional organization of At Large groups.
>
> >Vittorio will say that he is present at these meetings in his guise as
ISOC
> >Italy rep but as Chair of IcannAtLarge I feel he is both compromising the
> >goals of that organisation and trying to draw IcannAtLarge.org into the
> >ICANN structure and organisation.
> >
> >I respect Vittorio as a person but I disagree with his apparent strategy.
It
> >is playing into the hands of Denise Michel (and for "Denise Michel" read:
> >"The ICANN Board" because she is of course their stooge). Denise has no
> >interest in helping Internet Users form their own independent identity
and
> >reclaiming their full number of places on the Board. Denise is carrying
out
> >a management task for the ICANN Board. It is clearly a damage-limitation
> >exercise.
>
> Suffice it to say that I disagree.
>
> >And we want to *help* ICANN limit the damage to its reputation following
the
> >expulsion of elected representation from its Board? We want to *support*
> >Denise Michel carry out her management goals? Denise is out of step and
out
> >of tune with the noble, idealistic democratic impulse of the At Large
> >movement, which wamts to protect the Internet for a future generation of
> >people all over the world. Denise is in it for the management and the
money
> >and the career. She is the wrong person to be trusting and entrusting
with
> >the future of the At Large.
>
> That's a harsh personal attack in the name of "noble,
> idealistic democratic impulses".
> But it is also factually wrong: The future of the At Large
> rests with no single person. The regional At Large
> structure is a way of influencing ICANN without "joining"
> ICANN or having membership lists under the control of
> ICANN. Independent, bottom-up user organizations can form
> Regional At Large Organizations. It's a chance for a
> network of Internet user groups in each region and
> worldwide instead of a monolithic At Large user organization
> (and the history of this organization's name/domain should
> teach us something about single points of failure).
>
> I understand that many people are angry and disappointed,
> but I hope they still consider the choices rationally:
> How much influence has IcannatLarge.org had until now? How
> has it achieved its (somewhat sloppily defined) goals?
> Is it the best way to influence domain name etc. policy
> development from a user perspective? Is a regional approach
> likely to be easier or more difficult to organize (think
> language, think communication, think time zones)? How
> do you get existing user groups to participate?
>
> These are the questions we have to discuss *before* we have
> the answer to the second question -- what IcannatLarge.org
> should do with regard to regional At Large organizing.
>
> Best regards,
> /// Alexander
>


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