[governance] ICANN/USG Affirmation of Commitments

[Paul Lehto]

It doesn't matter how diverse the "stakeholders" are in their country
of origin, race, creed, sex, or what have you, if the stakeholders and
the public as a whole do not have a CONTROL mechanism.  The
elimination of all remaining control mechanisms (elections, as an
indirect control) is precisely what's being accomplished with the
agreement between the US Commerce Department and ICANN to make them
essentially independent, subject only to an advisory board.

With politicians, every communication to them is utterly toothless if
it idoes not carry (as it always does) an implied threat that one will
vote the poltician out of office if they don't do the right thing.
With the new ICANN structure, even this vestigial remedy (attenuated
as it was by the insulation of the commerce department from the
electorate) is eliminated in every meaningful sense.

I'd be the first to welcome true and real global governance regarding
the internet.  The fact that they've put in the semblance of "global"
but zero "governance" means that the shift is an abdication of all
public, democratic control, even if that control was improperly
limited to a single country, the USA.  Even more importantly, there's
no mechanism with which to fight to CREATE true control on the global
level in favor of the public interest.

Thus, we can't fight, lobby or progress from the new posture of an
independent ICANN to a situation of true global control/governance
without (1) a nearly unprecedented act (in the history of Power) to
voluntarily create genuine and real accountability on a global scale,
OR (2) a revolution or revolt.  And just how does one have a
revolution or revolt against a corporation at all, much less a
corporation that has a monopoly on what it does, and which we all need
to exist or have a "domain" on the internet?

Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

On 10/1/09, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
> In message <1254397157.3941.611.camel at anriette-laptop>, at 13:39:17 on
> Thu, 1 Oct 2009, Anriette Esterhuysen <anriette at apc.org> writes
>>One question I have about the GAC, does it not become very important to
>>have input from different stakeholders at country level in the
>>identification/nomination of GAC members
>
> As a matter of simple fact, the GAC members are usually the most obvious
> career employee of the ministry charged with overseeing "International
> Telecoms issues", and are therefore likely to also turn up at ITU
> meetings, EU telecoms/Internet meetings, IGF consultations, UN-ECOSOC
> etc.
>
> Plus there are a few who might alternatively be their country's
> "Internet Czar".
> --
> Roland Perry
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-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box #1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026
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