[governance] First Draft of Statement (suggested recasting)

[William Drake]

Hi Milton,

As I've said, I share you general concerns and do think governments,
particularly the US government, are playing political games that are
potentially troublesome for the future conduct of IG.  And I'm a little
surprised that the objections sometimes seem to focus more on the niceties
of internal ICANN processes and personality issues rather than the larger 
struggle for control in WSIS that this is part of.  But at the same time,
I think people are right to say that you should not call this a civil
society statement.  The fact that IGP is an academic body and hence part
of CS doesn't cut it as a rationale.  When something is labeled as a CS
statement, the nuance will be lost on governments, industry, and the
press, and people will feel there's been a misrepresentation that has to
be corrected.  Attempting to proceed on this basis will be very divisive
and counterproductive.

Look, you tried, and the caucus didn't agree, full stop.  No different
from any other text we've tried to work here.  You could try to do this
via NCUC instead, but since many of the people objecting in the caucus
context are also in NCUC, you might not get much farther.  Why don't you
simply release it as a IGP statement?  It will still garner press
attention (you're good at that), your views will be on the table and
become part of the larger discourse.  There's no need to try to force this
when you have your own organization that can speak clearly and loudly on
its own.

Best,

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
> [mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org]On Behalf Of Milton Mueller
> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 7:35 AM
> To: aizu at anr.org; governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Cc: alac at icann.org; NCUC-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu
> Subject: Re: [governance] First Draft of Statement onUS
> CommerceDepartment/GACchair intervention
>
>
> Izumi:
> Thanks very much for making your views clear! I appreciate the time
> spent and the honesty of your disagreements. I will send another message
> responding to your points.
>
> Let me first clear up one item of possible confusion. I quickly added
> the header "DRAFT CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT" before sending it out. I did
> not intend for the statement to claim to speak for all of "civil
> society." Global civil society has no unified view on any issue. The
> statement header was immediately followed by a statement referring to
> "the following signatories," indicating that I always had in mind a
> "sign on if you agree" model.
>
> But it is a "civil society statement" because it will come from civil
> society members who choose to support it. I use that term as an umbrella
> term for people in NCUC, ALAC and WSIS-CS, and other public interest
> groups who I expected to be supportive. There was no other convenient
> label. I hope to find a modification that avoids the "we represent all
> of civil society" confusion.
>
> The final group of signatories, in my opinion, has as much right to
> identify itself as "civil society" in the WSIS context as the 10-15
> active people on the Internet Governance Caucus list who issued a "Civil
> Society" response to the WGIG Report, because at the end of the day this
> statement will achieve many more signatories than there are members of
> the IGC list.
>
> Hope you can forward this to ALAC.




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