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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Rony, your biggest problem is that you
seem to lack any vision regarding how things might change for the better, and
all your ideas amount to in the end is a rationalization of the status quo. The
problem is that the status quo is getting worse and worse from a libertarian
and a democratic standpoint. So standing pat, changing nothing, is not an
option, if you really stand for the values WPFC claims to stand for. Unless you
are happy with unrestricted government surveillance, growing content filtering
and censorship, and growing national assertions of terrirtorial jurisdiction. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Let me give you a clear example of the
contradictions – or perhaps just laziness – in your thinking. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div style='border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 4.0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>My dictionary defines that as 1. a legal
power to hear and make determinations of cases, 2 . an authority or sovereign
power to govern, control or legislate, 3. a sphere of authority.<br>
<br>
And <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Milton</st1:City></st1:place>
speaks of a "global jurisdiction."<br>
<br>
What could that possibly be but an international court, if not an authority to
govern on a global scale?</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>There's no way any of that could be
anything but governmental.</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Well, I already raised the example of
ICANN. As seems to be your habit, you eliminated this topic from your response,
perhaps because it’s inconvenient for your argument. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Now in this case I am not holding up ICANN
as a good or bad example, but purely as a fact which needs to be explained, and
as an existence proof of institutional innovation and where it might lead us.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>We could have used existing
intergovernmental organizations to do what ICANN does. But we didn’t.
Fortunately there was no Rony Koven around to tell us otherwise. (Interestingly,
it is an institution that you have been at pains to defend from most critiques.
Perhaps that is only because it is now part of the status quo) It is global in
its authority, it is not “an international court” that gives
authoritarian governments more power than they already have, on the contrary,
by shifting some decisions to this global nongovernmental authority many of
those govts are quite upset about it. While there has certainly been an increasing
assertion of governmental authority, the initial push to do things this way
probably reduced the amount of direct govtal control – and if the
original design had been adhered to, we would be even further along those lines,
with a democratic Board election mechanism and an end to <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> unilateral
oversight. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>So, when you say:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>I reckpon that a multi-stakeholder
authority is bound to turn into a mechanism in which non-governmental elements
are simpy coopted into legitimizing governmental authority. It's a little like
all the self-regulatory bodies privatized executors of governmental functions.
And then there's the the latest approach, less than a decade old, of
co-regulation. That's when distinctions between private and public break down
completely, and non-governmental elements join up with governments. That used
to be called corporatism, the political theory of Italian-style fascism.<br>
<br>
</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Geneva><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Geneva;color:navy'>Apparently you have not been reading my own
critiques of multi-stakeholder ideology, or my long-term critiques of the growing
informal power of GAC within ICANN, or perhaps anything else I’ve written
over the past ten years which shows that I (and many others, e.g. Karl and his
critique of “stakeholderism”) are quite aware of these dangers. Of
course these kinds of dangers exist. No one is saying it will be easy or
simple. But where are you going with it, Rony? What institutional options do
you propose other than….doing nothing? And isn’t it clear that
various powerful economic and political interests will take us if we do
nothing?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>Civil society people have fallen into a
kind of anarchists' mentality in which they imagine they can escape the
authority of governments. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#333399" face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:#333399'>Mostly this is
nonsense -- a completely wrong and unfair argument. What we are debating here
is precisely the development of new forms of governmentality at the global
level. In fact, Internet has and will continue to escape some aspects of the
authority of governments, a fact which has both positive (undermining
censorship) and negative (cybercrime) aspects. We have a new kind of governance
problem and thus we need new kinds of governance institutions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>It's playing with fire <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#333399" face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:#333399'>There is no way not
to play with fire. Decisions about Internet governance are being made and will
continue to be made whether we discuss it or not. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>What will happen is governmental or
intergovernmental assertions of authority -- jurisdiction, if you will. And
Milton Mueller is willy-nilly helping to create a conceptual framework for such
authority to be asserted.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#333399" face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:#333399'>So now YOU are the
one implying that we can escape governmental assertions of authority. <br>
</span></font><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Geneva;color:black'><br>
A little realism is called for. Messy disorderliness allows freedom in the
interstices. </span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I agree with this, it is a very important
insight. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>Attempts to create order lead straight
to assertions of authority. </span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Geneva><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Authority will be asserted whenever there
are social conflicts that have to be resolved. That is just a fact of societal
life. Again, the trick is to do it in a way that preserves essential values
such as freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Geneva><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;color:black'>The libertarian approach must include a
fine sense of when to leave well enough alone. </span></font><font size=2
color=navy face=Geneva><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Geneva;
color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I don’t see much that is “well
enough” in current developments. Let’s see if you can make a
credible case that the status quo – conceived dynamically, because it is
actively moving in certain directions which are anything but “libertarian”
– should be left alone. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>--MM<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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