[governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

Thu Jul 14 17:06:03 EDT 2011

If we take all the issues that are being discussed and peel off the layers
and coatings/vehicles whether government or private, we will see that the
underlying issue is:-

   - How should power be controlled?
   - How can the interests of all be considered where no one gets
   marginalised in the process?

Consider something like the social contract theory where John Locke develops
the argument that people give up part of their rights to a sovereign in
order to be governed?  There are many jurisdictions where people have freely
expressed their desire through the vote or revolution.  Despite the
diversity of governance systems and models - at the end of the day it is
about power and control.

How should that power be controlled? In Locke's time, the "death of
distance" was an alien concept. Imagine a clean canvas, how should power be
shared?

These are my thoughts.

Sala

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 8:25 AM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>wrote:

> Paul,
>
> I'm not an expert on CIRA although at this point I should declare that I
> have been nominated (by a civil society organization) as a candidate for
> the
> CIRA Board!
>
> That being said I think your comments are based on mistaken assumptions and
> are overall somewhat unfortunate.
>
> As I understand the situation CIRA has an election among its members (those
> holding .ca registrations) for its governance body--its Board. There are 3
> ex officio members on a fifteen person Board--a representative of the
> overall regulator/policy maker (government); the Executive Director: and
> the
> founder/registrar (Canada's equivalent of John Postel)--quite normal I
> would
> have thought for this kind of agency.
>
> I'm not sure what standards of democracy you are using but in my limited
> observation this would seem to me by most conventional standards to be at
> least reasonably "democratic". Always remembering of course, that CIRA is
> only concerned with the 1.5 million or so .ca registrants--there are
> approximately 25 million Internet users in Canada whose overall Internet
> interests presumably are covered through the ordinary give and take of the
> (democratic) political system and for specialized purposes participation in
> forums such as ICANN, the IGF and so on.
>
> I would very much like to see Canada and Canadians more involved in
> ensuring
> a "democratic" Internet (however that might be defined), but at this point
> I
> wouldn't see CIRA as being the appropriate vehicle for that participation
> since its interests/mandate and constituency is far too narrow.
>
> Mike
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance at lists.cpsr.org] On
> Behalf
> Of Paul Lehto
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:36 AM
> To: Kerry Brown
> Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on
> Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial
> period
>
>
> On 7/14/11, Kerry Brown <kerry at kdbsystems.com> wrote:
> > CIRA's board of directors is democratically elected by CIRA members.
> > Membership is free to anyone that registers a dot-ca domain. All
> > members get one vote regardless of how many domains they have
> > registered. There are three ex-officio non-voting appointed directors.
> > All voting directors are elected by the members. One of the ex-officio
> > directors is a representative of Industry Canada. The Canadian
> > government through Industry Canada plays an advisory role to the
> > board. The other non-voting directors are the CEO and John Demco the
> > founder of the dot-ca registry when it was operated by volunteers
> > working at UBC.
>
> Unless  you are claiming that CIRA does nothing that affects or impacts
> users of the internet (as opposed to .ca registrants) the above membership
> structure is still quite undemocratic by completely disfranchising users.
> On top of that, the structure  you identify heavily weights the right to be
> heard (via ex officio membership) to industry and the corporation and its
> founder.  Anything more restrictive than one person one vote for ALL
> GOVERNED or affected is a system that disfranchises and creates an
> aristocracy (rule by a few or a subset of all) rather than a democracy
> (rule
> by all the people).  It would seem that everyone would realize that despite
> the fact that a few .ca registrants are "ordinary folks", a system where
> only .ca registrants can be members and thus vote is a system that (1)
> gives
> votes to non-humans that are also non-voters in a real democracy (corporate
> registrants), and (2) is an aristocracy weighted in favor of those with
> above-average money and property (domain name
> registrants) and completely disfranchising users as a whole.
>
> I do realize that CIRA is touting that in the last year (i.e. in CIRA's
> 10th
> or 11th year of operation) CIRA was begun a general listening program and
> accepts, for the first time in its history, some types of feedback from
> mere
> non-voting users and others.  Anything less than real democracy (like CIRA)
> is an animal which one may call anything they want, but that can't call it
> democracy.  Certain aspects are "democratic" but it ain't democracy.  I
> won't throw out a name myself because there's a risk it could be perceived
> as name-calling. But it is what it is, and what it is ain't democracy.
>  It's
> delegation of governmental power to a basically unaccountable corporate
> aristocracy of some sort.
>
> I'd be happy to indulge you with the truly formalistic step of starting a
> new thread with a new name involving CIRA so as to not be "off topic" but I
> don't think (right now) that you should have to defend an entire thread
> based in significant part on your job or status with CIRA, even though that
> job is so coincidentally topical to how the conversation has evolved here
> in
> this thread.  Please accept my assurances that I intend nothing in the way
> of a personal attack here in any way -- I'm firmly convinced  you are a
> nice
> guy and intelligently got involved in CIRA in all good faith to be in the
> game of internet policy and rulemaking.  My one and only basic objection is
> that, however, is just that the structure in which you got involved and are
> committed to remaining involved in is fundamentally undemocratic in very
> significant ways, and you defend those shortfalls based on values like
> efficiency that are classically associated with non-democratic practices of
> government.
>
> In a democracy, efficiency is OK as  a value provided one very fundamental
> (and usually satisfied) precondition is met:  That the end or goal of the
> project is consistent with the objectives and principles of democracy and
> self-government as opposed to aristocracy or plutocracy.  That basic
> precondition is defeated the moment any level of government gives away its
> power and responsibility to a private person or corporation without
> retaining 100% of its oversight power AND providing all the standards and
> rules of operation such that it can be fairly said that even though "power"
> be delegated, it is really being exercised at the direction and control of
> the government, via those standards and rules.  But as to the procedure of
> arbitration for example, the CIRA rule that no domestic or foreign law or
> legislation may be used in a CIRA arbitration even if all the parties and
> the arbitrator agree means (beyond any serious doubt) that CIRA arbitration
> procedure has broken completely free of democracy's control, and therefore
> lost the legitimacy that only democracy can provide.
>
> CIRA not being democratic, it's not appropriate to wish CIRA to be
> "efficient" in accomplishing its goals for governance, since those goals
> are
> not fully democratic.  Here again, Harry Truman put it very well when he
> said of his corporate-supported opponent:
>
> "Hitler learned that efficiency without justice is a vain thing. Democracy
> does not work that way. Democracy is a matter of faith--a faith in the soul
> of man--a **faith in human rights.** That is the
> kind of faith that moves mountains--"   Human rights is key because
> they are possessed without precondition by all humans, and equally so.
> Picking and choosing who gets a say (registrants, but not users) inevitably
> leads to either social discord or even violence, because it disrespects the
> humanity and interests of those whose voice is not recognized or heard.
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
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-- 
Sala

"Stillness in the midst of the noise".
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