[governance] Call for Action: Your comments can Support Civil

[Lee W McKnight]

Milton, McTim,

Thanks to both of you for the clarifying dialogue on what is at stake here for ICANN, and for civil society participation therein.

I look forward to reviewing the Robin/Milton draft; recall McTim you can also send your personal views directly to ICANN following standard procedures; which we are all being encouraged to do as well as, possibly, sigining on to the Robin/Milton draft.

Lee
________________________________________
From: Milton L Mueller [mueller at syr.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 11:26 AM
To: 'McTim'
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: RE: [governance] Call for Action: Your comments can Support Civil

I knew it was too good to be true...

> 1. NCUC wants to morph into the NCSG...
> My reading of the doc that many
> on this list seem to have shaped is that is quite negative.  For
> example, the list of folks you exclude is just as long as the list of
> people that are eligible.

You're coming at this perhaps without much context. You've never been involved in the GNSO so you are not aware of the parameters that shaped the document. Also we have ICANN staff template and their comments to deal with.

Regarding eligibility requirements, those are constrained by the ICANN GNSO (see the ICANN bylaws), which divides the world up into mutually exclusive "stakeholder groups." There is really no choice about that. If you're commercial you go into the Commercial Stakeholder Group; if you're a registrar or registry you go into theirs. Likewise, we have been told by large organizations, and by ICANN staff, that individuals cannot have the same voting power as organizations with hundreds or thousands of members.

Indeed, it was considered extremely radical and controversial for NCUC to even afford individuals membership at all. Many ICANN At LArge RALOs still don't allow individual membership. Registrar and registry constituencies don't allow individual membership. NCUC was the first, and we took all kinds of heat from the business constituencies and staff for it. But we seem to be winning on that score. Granted, it doesn't follow IETF-style norms and procedures, but this isn't IETF.

> It's way too complex for my liking,

mine too, but unavoidable. And much less complex than the alternative.

> it's got a very powerful Chair

Not really. Just administrative stuff. The NCSG chair is no more powerful than the IGC coordinators.

> a Policy Committee, which reads like a Star
> Chamber

Huh? ICANN staff and the CP80 crowd say the Policy Committee is too weak. They want to carve up the world into little factions that control council seats. If they have their way, a council of constituencies will negotiate over the heads of the members to decide what policy statements are made and who sits on the GNSO Council. Do you want that? 0

> complex rules about how to join, who can vote, Constituency
> building, etc.  What's wrong with one person one vote?  It's slanted
> too heavily towards groups for my liking..let's empower the end user,
> and make it easier for them to join and participate.

Would be nice, but I'd advise you to read the ICANN bylaws about the GNSO, and get a better idea of what framework this fits into.

> 2.  There is a competing proposal to form the NCSG authored by Cheryl
> B. Preston.  Mormon power play..nuff said.

OK, at least we agree on that.

> 3. There is a proposal to form a CyberSafety Constiuency within NCSG,
> also by Cheryl B. Preston.  This is a non-starter for me, as "The
> focus of the new constituency is Internet safety issues."   Which is
> nothing to do with ICANN, nor should it be.

> I can't support any of these 3 proposals frankly

Then you render yourself irrelevant in the current dialogue. And de facto, you support Cybersafety/CP80, because either our proposal or theirs is going to be selected by the Board. There is no question that the NCUC proposal is better for civil society. If real civil society doesn't stand up for it, it concedes the territory to the likes of CP80. And as you are always saying, it is far more important politically to be present in a real IG entity like ICANN than to talk among ourselves in the IGF space.

I (or Robin) will develop a sign-on draft. Don't sign it or do, it's up to you.

--MM____________________________________________________________
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