[governance] Reinstate the Vote

[Kieren McCarthy]

I think there are some reasonable discussion points in here, although why
they need to be provided in such a negative fashion is beyond me.

In the same way that I think the public comment process is gradually
improving (check out the past few comment periods - more comments; better
comments); I am also hoping that the remote participation element for
ICANN's meetings can be improved and increased.

But it's difficult because at the moment most people don't bother trying to
interact online. I am hoping this will gradually increase, people will then
make suggestions for improvement, the improvements will encourage more
participation, and we eventually end up in a position where it is
*preferable* to attend an ICANN meeting in person but that you don't feel
disadvantaged if you don't.

It's a long road though.




Kieren



-----Original Message-----
From: Milton L Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 6:44 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: RE: RE: [governance] Reinstate the Vote



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kieren McCarthy [mailto:kierenmccarthy at gmail.com]
> 
> I'll tell you quite bluntly what the problem with public comments are the
> moment: it's a vicious circle. Poor quality comments (for whatever reason)
> means the input isn't valued, which leads to people not bothering, which
> leads to whatever comments are made not being taken seriously.
> 
> I am trying to break this circle by making sure summary/analyses of
> comments are produced and are then explicitly reviewed by the body in 
> question.
>

Actually I agree with much of what Kieren has written in that message and
it's good to see that he has some appreciation for the problems of dumping
out three or four 120 page policy reports full of acronyms and technical
references and then asking for meaningful public comments in 14 days. Even
those of us deeply steeped in the ICANN GNSO processes were simply unable to
keep up. 

That system can be rationalized, and I trust Kieren to help do that, and I
trust ICANN's board members to sincerely address it. 

But that's not really the problem!

The real problem is that there is very little high-level political
accountability of the sort that would come from electing Board members or
other external checks and balances. 

Look folks, this is not all that difficult to understand. We don't expect
millions of ordinary Indians, Brazilians or Americans to keep tabs on the
day to day regulatory processes of every specialized federal government
agency. This applies in spades to a global agency. We do, however, want the
public to have the power to throw the bums out of office, either directly or
indirectly, when something goes seriously wrong and the agency makes a
decision that has bad consequences. That is what is lacking with respect to
ICANN.

After the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, the President and others
completely bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina, what was needed was
not more "public comment" and not "more public participation in FEMA." What
was needed was direct accountability. Thank God we had midterm elections not
too long afterwards and the Republicans paid the price for their mistakes by
losing control of Congress. 

If ICANN makes a similar mistake what happens? Kieren invites you to spend
$3000 traveling to an ICANN meeting and spend the better part of your life
fixing the problem? 

If you look at US regulatory agencies, which are required by law to
institute notice and comment, there are only a few professional or
semi-professional lobbyists who can afford to keep up with everything a
specialized regulatory agency does on a weekly basis. The day to day policy
machinations of ICANN will increasingly become the province of specialists
-- industry vested interests and a few dedicated public interest groups. But
there still must be broader public accountability. It is impossible for this
accountability to take the form of large numbers of ordinary people directly
participating in ICANN processes. It can only take the form of some low cost
preference aggregation mechanism such as voting. 
 


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