[governance] "Oversight"

[Lee W McKnight]

Parminder,

As more of a political than technical guy...at least hard-core Internet techies would say so : ) -  again permit me to play interpreter/historian; which also has implications for Norbert's recent suggestions:

David said:

- a viable alternative has not been identified;

My comment: Exactly

David said:
- historical experiences by the Internet technical community with one such international body (the ITU) were less than positive and have soured folks in that community on all international bodies.

My comment: If one has a long enough memory, the ITU WAS actively trying to kill the Internet, back in the 'Bell Heads v Net Heads' days late 80s to mid 90s...as a stalking horse for national government ministries of communications, and their (still) national monopoly state-owned telcos.

That's a fact, not an opinion. David's being too kind - or should I say impressively diplomatic ; ) - calling experiences in that era merely 'less than positive.'

Even if since then there has been an ITU/IETF liaison (originally Scott Bradner) for quite some time now, and a basic detente was long ago reached; and eventually IETF joined ITU and there is reasonably good tech specs coordination between the 2 organizations of late; at least that is my impression.

Still, I'm sure many in the 'Internet technical community' remember having to literally and not figuratively fight off UN (ITU) efforts not to regulate the net, but to kill it.

Yeah it is all good to say we should let bygones be bygones, but.

Anyway, point remains, the nuances we are addressing here are all super-important and we/you need to think precisely about what you/we are aiming/asking for.

Norbert's suggestions are a good starting point for further discussion, in a 'put your (engineering) money where your claimed priorities are' way. IF noone is putting up alternatives to the present, then the present continues to the future. You may or may not share McTim's view that change cannot be made/implemented, but if no demonstrably viable alternative exists, then we remain where we are.

Lee





________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] on behalf of David Conrad [drc at virtualized.org]
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 8:51 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] "Oversight"

Parminder,

On Jun 7, 2012, at 10:00 AM, parminder wrote:
I take form the discussion that you and many of the so called tech community are convinced that US government cannot do anything bad to the Internet's architecture vis a vis what has been called the CIRs and the associated phenomenon.

To clarify, a think a more accurate view of my position would be that, like with MAD nuclear doctrine, it is entirely possible for the USG to do something bad, however the potential repercussions are more than sufficient to discourage such actions.

If so, why would you and others be against giving a UN body exactly the same role as the US gov has at present, as long as the relevant guarantees that the distributed system will be maintained as present vide an international agreement, which inter alia cannot be changed without US and its allies agreeing to any change.

Why would you think I'm against such a role? While I was at APNIC back in mid-90s, I actually argued against the US unilaterally asserting it had the ability and prerogative to establish Internet governance policies via the white/green papers. Unfortunately, the governments of the AP region at the time couldn't be bothered to even discuss potential alternatives (after all, the world was moving to the OSI protocol suite and this TCP/IP stuff was just going to fade away).

However, being new to this discussion and largely ignorant of the relevant international bodies, I'm unaware of actual potential alternatives (well, other than the ITU).  Which UN body are you proposing?

In other words, why does an arrangement looks so innocent when when in the hands of the US government, and the same arrangement when shifted to an international body backed by inviolable international law  becomes the resounding shrill cry of 'UN control of the Internet'.  Can you help me understand this apparent paradox.

While this is outside my bailiwick (I tend to be viewed as a technical person rather than a political one), a couple of potential explanations I can think of:

- a viable alternative has not been identified;
- an international body can be viewed, rightly or wrongly, as being insufficiently nimble to adjust to the rapid changes inherent in Internet technologies;
- an international body can be viewed, rightly or wrongly, as having the ability to impose policies that would impact negatively impact Internet operational efficiency; and/or
- historical experiences by the Internet technical community with one such international body (the ITU) were less than positive and have soured folks in that community on all international bodies.

However, I'm just guessing (and note I do not necessarily agree with any/all of the above).

And there can be no doubt that US law and exercise of US's executive power is much more liable to arbitrary use and possible sudden changes than international law and its execution. The fact that many US based and pro US actors simply dont accept this simple and patently clear fact is quite, well, bugging to most non US actors,

I have to admit seeing a bit of irony here: in the past (both while I was at APNIC and as IANA general manager), I was in numerous private meetings with government officials in which they told me that while publicly, they will continue to rail against the USG's "control" of the Internet, privately, they welcome it since the know how to work with the USG, don't trust (or perhaps more accurately, have less ability to influence) the alternatives, and it's the devil they know.  However, that was some time ago, so perhaps the positions of those individuals have changed.

More pragmatically, as I'm sure you're aware, there is a perception, particularly within at least part of the Internet technical community, that international bodies have in the past retarded innovation in the telecommunications sector in order to maintain the political/economic status quo, much to the detriment of human society as a whole. Regardless of the accuracy of this perception, I suspect unless/until concrete guarantees can be provided that this won't happen again, there will be resistance to change towards an international body.

Regards,
-drc

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