[governance] First Draft of Statement on US CommerceDepartment/GAC chairintervention

[Izumi AIZU]

Milton and all,

Thanks for making revision to the first draft.

I have to fly to Taipei tomorrow morning for ICANN AtLarge
Asia Pacific activity/meeting, and I just came back from one-night
trip inside Japan, I have very little time to spend on this issue.

First, I appreciate your effort, including separation/deletion of GAC Chair
letter and focus only on USG. That makes things much clearer.

However, I am still not convinced with the other parts of revisions.
ICANN's original design etc is one area, "content-regulation" is another area,
and final para's "it must occur through careful, deliberate negotiations and
multilateral agreements among governments and other stakeholders."
is problematic with me.

AND I don't see that urgent need/impact this statement
would bring about at this point of time where ICANN already
differed by one month, ICM accepted that, etc.

As for ALAC, I forwarded the messages to our list, but so far
I see no support to go forward with the drafts, had a couple of strong
reservations instead, and the rest of ALAC members are silent.

With this, I must say that your draft has very little support from ALAC.
Too bad, but this is a fact.

Sorry for not giving more explanation, but it's 3 am Sunday night,
or Monday morning... already.


izumi

At 18:13 05/08/19 -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
>Avri:
>Those were really excellent comments. They inspired me to make major
>changes. Here they are. I imagine you might find it acceptable and,
>based on his comments, possibly Adam. Regardless, however, I plan to
>distribute widely something very much like this on various lists
>(including HR, Robert.)
>
>Key changes:
>- All mention of GAC letter eliminated, focus is exclusively on U.S.
>DoC. Puts the heat where it belongs.
>- Focus is exclusively on role of government as it affects content
>reg./censorship
>- Process is gone. You didn't convince me that this is not a serious
>issue, but you did convince me that discussion of it diverts us from the
>more serious problems (asking ICANN to respect process? --laugh)
>- It's much shorter
>
>======
>
>DRAFT STATEMENT on .XXX
>v 2.0 8/19/05
>
>The following civil society groups and individuals wish to express our
>concern over the recent request by the U.S. Department of Commerce to
>delay, and possibly deny, a gTLD delegation decision by ICANN's Board.
>The intervention by the U.S. Commerce Department raises important issues
>regarding the role of governments in the administration of Internet
>identifiers.
>
>ICANN was intended to globalize the governance of the domain name
>system by placing responsibility in the hands of a private sector/civil
>society-based authority. Under ICANN's original design, business,
>civil society and the technical community all had roughly equal status,
>and governmental representatives acted in an advisory capacity.
>Non-governmental internationalization of Internet administration was
>intended to keep the Internet's core coordinating functions free from
>national politics, geopolitical rivalries and territorial jurisdiction.
>
>
>The Commerce Department intervention, however, raises the possibility
>that governments will assert authority to overrule ICANN decisions in
>response to national and international political pressures. The concern
>is particularly strong in this case because of the open acknowledgement
>in the Commerce Department's August 11 letter of the influence of an
>organized campaign by domestic political interests devoted to content
>regulation of the Internet.
>
>In reviewing its decision regarding the .xxx delegation, we urge the
>ICANN Board to be mindful of the need to restrain the influence of
>governments, national politics and advocates of content regulation in
>the Internet's operation. We urge it not to make any concessions that
>would encourage more such interventions in the future. We call to your
>attention the conclusion of a recent U.S. National Academy of Sciences
>expert report that "Governance of the DNS is not an appropriate venue
>for the playing out of national political interests." We believe that
>administration of Internet identifiers should be content-neutral;
>censorship and content regulation are appropriately the province of
>national-level policies and should not be extended into the global
>management of the domain name system.
>
>We acknowledge the existence of legitimate demands for revising the
>oversight relationship between governments and ICANN. If change is to
>take place fairly and legitimately, however, it must occur through
>careful, deliberate negotiations and multilateral agreements among
>governments and other stakeholders.
>
>
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>governance at lists.cpsr.org
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