[governance] note 1st Caucus meeting

[Adam Peake (ajp@glocom.ac.jp)]

Jeremy's notes from today's meeting.  Please review and send any
corrections to <jeremy.shtern at umontreal.ca>

Thanks,

Adam



CS Internet Governance Caucus- WSIS phase II meeting:
 (More or Less) Official Minutes


(First meeting of Two) Thursday November 17: 230pm, CS meeting room B

-Presentation of Agenda


1. Results

Hans- It is hard to figure out the way forward, we need to digest what
has just happened

Derrick- Moving with some speed, we don't have time to take a break.
Engage as quickly as possible.

Hans- ICANN has become a much more secure organization than it was 48
hrs ago, the govs made a collective decession.

Luca- Do we define the cacus define itself first or wait to see what
the forum is and then adapt to that.

POO (Jeanatte)- We have 2 meetings and I don't expect us to have a
final solution of the forum, these meetings are a basis of future
discussions.

Milton- ICANN has survived but not been endorsed. It is impossible to
declare that ICANN does only day-to-day and not public policy. Also,
US control of the root. Also, it is unclear what happens with names
and numbers. All we know is that there will be no new organization and
there will be forum. Otherwise it is quite muddled.

Ronda- There is wording about CCLTDs in the document, as I understand
it, ICANN still makes decisions about who controls CCTLDs, the wording
on this is not clear. The weakness of the cacus and the document is
that there is no mention about the online community feedback. It is
not just a document but a process, the process has a lot of countries
objecting to what the US is doing.

Andres- the forum points away from ICANN and to something new.

Adam- Associates with Milton's point, if we don't see a shift. The
govs are not going away.

Avri- The forum vs. prinicipals. They are defiantly separate. Fuzzy,
but defiantly separate. I actually think that the document on a
slipperly slop. The forum will keep the pressure on the US. As long as
ICANN as started to do the GAC reforms it is a slipperly slop. In
terms of the forum and the slippery sloop I am enthusiastic. In terms
of unfettered checks on enforcement of cybercrime etc, it is a
disaster.

Jeanettte- 2 isssues important. Forum, and oversight. My concern was
that the US would accept the forum at the cost of not putting in a
word about oversight. IT has started a process and the forum.

Lucha- 2 things missing- root zone and no oversight. We should
concentre on a strategy on what the UNSG should do.

Parminder- There are some things open. The GAC could be made stronger,
the public policy.  The online community is not respresented out
there- there is no online community, everyone has a stakeholder

Jeremy- The issue of gov oversight has been compromised out of this
doc, it hasn't gone away, but, it may well re apeer in the Forum, it
just clealy was not workable in this conext

Peng- Agree with Avri. Prospects for civil society are improved by
this documents.

David- What we have seen is not going to change. WSIS did not effect
ICANN at all…It could not be more important to organize yourself in a
workable way and draw in the rest of the world.

McTim- ICANN is neither strengthed or weakened, ICANN wants admin.
Control. The tech-community will not accept non participation in
anything

Bill- The European approach will eventually win out, you don't have to
create an intergovernmental org, countries can get together. We
started the forum idea, we drove it, now as we move forward, they are
defiantly expecting us to play a leading role in the forum in
generating new ideas, they are going to have no capacity to do
research, analysis etc. We clearly are at the point where we have to
agree- if that means that we can't include all IG cacus members and
have to reconstitute- we have to step up and make sure we have the
role of making new ideas….

??????- State's are still central to public policy, their notion of
internet constituency is the citizens who they provide internet
service to, if we have a different vision then we need to argue it

Wolfgang- This document embeds the principals of ICANN and unilateral
role into a document, the forum could be a process to pressure this.
The forum is vague, we need to take the lead on the forum. The forum
should be run by the doers, the forum, even the US says, is for civil
society leadership and private sector leadership

Bill- he doesn't mean us, he means ISOC

Wolfgang- Agrees with Bill, it is about more than names and numbers.

Michael- I am surprised, I don't think this is about ICANN at all. The
US started out with control, they still have control. I think that
regulatory competetion is good. I don't see the forum  as any
different than WSIS.

Hans- A practical issue is how are we going to participate in ICANN.
It is very positive that we now have a forum to look at broad public
policies etc. If we are going to have a voice in ICANN, how are we
going to do it? Attempts for CS to advise ICANN through the forum on
will probably meet by the response that ICANN already has a GAC, so
that means that the forum might not accept input form the forum.

David- Totally upposed to Hans.

Jeanatte- Some people critic this cacus, things seem better in the
meeting than I thought they would. Question? When does the MOU expire?
My sense is that the US is not happy with ICANN, what does the
document mean for the US Gov position?

Miltion- clarify what CS means. Moving forward, the category of CS is
very easily corroded, co-opted etc, there is serious overalap with CS
and other actors, so, when it comes to organize the forum it will be
hard to keep this going. Those of you who are not familiar with the
setting up of ICANN, need to keep in mind how CS in ICANN led to
certain commercial interests getting 3 votes at the expense of CS.

Anders- When it comes to the forum, it is important not to get obsses
about the structure. You have reckognized the fact that countries
should have a say.

Mctim- September MOU- we need to be involved as much as possible , we
need a better way to measure consensus…

Ronda- ICANN asked who should have control of the Internet, people who
want control of the Internet are still here, CS in its best mode is
there pressuring on behalf of citizens to prevent the private sector
from getting too much control, this asks about inclusivity we need to
have a much broader set of discussions what is needed to protect the
vested interests from controlling the internet?

Jeremy – likes bill framework – IG caucus may have been criticized for
being political – there are wide diffenrces – we need to reconstitue
the framwkrk in which work we acknowledge that, although we have come
togther on certain points like non-us status quo, but we don't always
do so for the same reasons, ie some want no govs, some want more
accoutabiltiy



Adam- do not obsess on process in regards to the forum


ITEM 2

Jeanette- the forum is going to be the basis of our ongoing work


****Nisha- If you look at the debates, they are actually debating what
the Internet is, if we are going go forward in this, we have to figure
out who the interent is for, what it is and why it matters to US.

Jovan- The private sector can also protect the public interest  It is
a question of promoting certain public interests in regards to the
internet. We have to remember that we are entering into what amounts
to a face saving exercise for the US government, I think there will be
an exit stratagey built in for the US. It is our job to push the
public Interest.

Parminder- we do need to rethink what the internet is, informal
coalition did this. We should talk about this where whether or not we
agree on it.

 Hans- no one knows what the forum is going to be right now, we should
lobby and if we move force, we might be able to have a lot of say in
the matter.

Avri- The what is the internet discussion is interesting but, in the
end we will just end up concluding it is all of those things. We have
ideas, but we need to move on the building of the forum right now, we
don't even need concensus, if we have two good, different ideas, we
can submit them both.

Miltion- I think we have a serious operational problem. My belief is
that the IG cacus as it functions is the best foot we can put forward.
We don't have leaders, membership, etc. One option is two bless the
leadership we have, I can't help it, but I said this 6 months ago. We
are stuck with what we have, but….


ITEM 3

Izumi- presents photo albums as gift of thanks to Adam and Jeanette on
behalf of cacus (Thanks adam and jeanette!!!!)

Avri- tension between to do something and do organization. We need
working groups and we need to do more outreach. But, we need to get
stuff done while doing so.

Lucha- I am uncomfortable with talking about restricting, this org
could become identified with the ego of one person, I think we should
be loose and stay loose.

Adam- One of the things we have been trying to do is to work closely
with other cacuses. This forum is going to touch on thematic issues,
we have to make effort to include them. We also don't know what is
going to go on with the larger WSIS CS structures after Friday.

Jeanette- In response to Milton. What I value most about IG cacus is
that it is  a platform for discussing IG issues for everyone. Most of
the people who are on the list are people who have never spoken up.
Thus, making voting etc, could result in unreliable resultsÅDOn the
other hand, we risk being completely disfucntional. New members for
example, join and then immediately disagree with everything we have
done. Our statements are compromise positions that do not always
results of equal participation and some people are not always happy
with that.

Bill Drake- 4 things. There are meetings tomorrow. There is going to
be a discussion about CS going forward tommorow. It is going to be a
challenge about keeping the different groups together. As the agenda
narrowed from phase I to phase II, it is going to be diffiecult to
keep those people engaged if there is not an overaching activity. The
IG forum is going to be primarily for people interested in IG issue.

2nd point. CPSR is going to transfer the listserve. I think we ought
to link it to the forum webspace.

3rd- the cacus needs to be reconstituted, there are 280 people on the
listserve, maybe 15-20 on the ground who are working here on the
ground contributing. We can't have people we don't know objecting to
work that is being done here from around the world. We don't respresnt
them. We need to perhaps make a statement of principals that says what
we are about, and, if you don't agree you aren't part. We need to work
out what it means to be part of  the group, we need to be able to
close on issues and texts. We need to replace the listserve as a tool
as well. Perhaps that we should apply for a grant from ford foundation
.

Michael Geist- The broadening of the issue to include other issues
such as privacy etc is going to make other more established groups get
interested in IG as those issues come under the umbrella of IG.

Adam- Some of the more established groups are north American focused
and are not well placed to lead on international policy.  While we
look narrow, we are actually more broad in our participation than most
of the other civil society lists. When people come in late with total
different perspectives, it sometimes lead us to productive
deleberation as well as to realize when we should not focus on certain
issues and focus on others instead (ie oversight) I think what we have
done has worked very well so far.

G- Non internet users have been very unrepresented in the IG internet
caucus, we need to figure out how to create new structures to be more
representative. We should look at disruptions very positively- the
internet is a disruption.

Michael Gerstien- I participate and I moniter the list on behalf of a
large number of people, telecentres America, 10 000 telecentres + more
in Europe. I am designated to moniter because they don't have the
resources to do  so themselves. I am concerned that the issues in the
forum are going to be important to this ICT4D stakeholder, the
challenge is how to represent you discussions of them, their position,
their voices.

Lucha- I don't think you can speak about open architecture in the
Internet but have closed architeture here. Generarte good ideas, steer
the directon. Closed group will equal closed ideas. People in the
closed group will bring in more like minded friends etc. I like that
people from other places like ICANN are on the lists, it shows that
things are open and we have nothing to hide.

Milton- We have a serious issue here, we can have an open list, but we
need to have clear decessions going into the forum. How can we evolve
the IG cacus into a backbone of CS participation in the fourm. Bill is
correct in his diagnos of the problems, how long does it take? The
MSUC took 3 months to write a chater, but then, how do we legitimate a
charter? Its not that I want to exclude people, its just that we need
to do something go forward.

Slobodan- We all gathered here for some change. We need to secure our
position to lobby whoever is organizing the forum. There are 2
positions (Milton) basically focus on getting our position effectively
to decesion makers, (others) we are broad group whether we want to
create an open group or whether we want to focus on pursuing certain
ends.

Bill- I did not suggest the gov list should be closed, I did not
suggest that we should not partipate in the list, I did not suggest
that we are a closed little group. We do not have a monopoly on
participating in IG form on behalf on CS. I am just saying that a
certain group of people who agree need to work things through in a
structured matter. We have to operate in a struture.

Deserai- I do not think that IG cacus has a legitimacy problem. I
think that more groups need to come in.

 Izumi- the architeture thus far has worked, I am not sure it has
worked perfectly. We need much better, more clearly defined roles.
There is also a huge problem with non-english speakers in regards to
posting on the list, participating in meetings and even to reading
messages on the list. I think it is largely an experiment, I think we
should leave some space to make mistakes and continue the experiment.

Avri- I endorse the idea the we need to keep the cacus alive, whilst
having another group that is focused on the forum. The cacus can then
bring people in and educate them about the issues of IG. There is one
thing that this group is the foremost expert on, and that is what the
forum needs to be. We are the experts on that.

Adam- Outreach, do we think that telecentres would want us to try to
help them? there is sometime an sense that people think that we are
trying to tell other experts how to do their business, in some respect
we need to find a way to do outreach and education in a way that the
other actors think is.

Jovan- There is a Diplo conference in Malta in Feburary on how to
structure 10-12th the forum, promotes

Peng- We need a globalization representation, gender, geographic
diversity, The working langague is most easily English, but we need to
be aware.

Michael Gerstein- people need to participate in discussions that concern them,,
END

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