[governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest

[James S. Tyre]

> I am that board member.

And I was your lead lawyer.  (Which, obviously, you know, but most here presumably don't.)

> Attacks on me made by ICANN in their legal filings were, to my mind, personal,
> gratuitous, unprofessional, and, of course, unfounded.  A decade has passed and I
> can't remember whether we moved to exclude those on the grounds that ICANN's
> "evidence" was not relevant to the case at hand or whether we left it in as
> demonstrative of ICANN's way of reacting to those it considered hostile.

We filed token objections to some of it.  The Court ruled in your favor without really addressing those objections.  My particular favorite was Vint introducing a strongly worded email from John Gilmore to Vint as "evidence" of your supposedly bad character.

> Even after the court threw out ICANN's defenses and granted me nearly every thing that
> I had asked ICANN's press releases tried to characterize their utter defeat as if they
> had won a great victory.

At least Louis gave us ICANN Staff coffee mugs to show for it.  I still have mine.  '-)

--
James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org


> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-
> request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Karl Auerbach
> Sent: Monday, September 03, 2012 10:31 AM
> To: fahd.batayneh at gmail.com
> Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest
> 
> On 09/02/2012 01:49 PM, Fahd A. Batayneh wrote:
>     Le 02/09/12 09:27, Roland Perry a écrit :
> >
> >         What's different about the ICANN system is that a lone voice can
> >         make a complaint which will be heard.
> 
> > Maybe a good example would be the court case that was filed by an
> > earlier ICANN board member to get access to documents that ICANN
> > rejected to reveal to him.
> 
> I am that board member.
> 
> Have you ever tried to chop eucalyptus logs with an ax?  The wood is so rubbery that
> the blade just bounces off, leaving only a small notch: a lot of effort for little
> progress.
> 
> ICANN is like a eucalyptus log.  If you want to affect it don't bring an ax; bring a
> chain saw.
> 
> ICANN did not change much after my law suite prevailed.  In fact in some ways they
> changed their procedures to become even more secretive.  For instance their law firm
> changed their billing procedures so that rather than enumerating the specific items of
> work and charges for that work the monthly statements became a one-line statement of
> the total amount of money due for the month's work.  This was done, I believe, to
> prevent any future board member from evaluating the nature and quality of ICANN's
> massive outflows of money to the law firm that created ICANN.
> 
> Attacks on me made by ICANN in their legal filings were, to my mind, personal,
> gratuitous, unprofessional, and, of course, unfounded.  A decade has passed and I
> can't remember whether we moved to exclude those on the grounds that ICANN's
> "evidence" was not relevant to the case at hand or whether we left it in as
> demonstrative of ICANN's way of reacting to those it considered hostile.
> 
> Even after the court threw out ICANN's defenses and granted me nearly every thing that
> I had asked ICANN's press releases tried to characterize their utter defeat as if they
> had won a great victory.
> 
> And I am still ostracized by many former ICANN board members for taking (and, of
> course, winning) that completely justified legal action.
> 
> Many of the case materials are online:
> 
> > https://w2.eff.org/Infrastructure/DNS_control/ICANN_IANA_IAHC/Auerbach
> > _v_ICANN/
> 
> What surprised me the most was the degree to which ICANN was, and I believe remains,
> an entity that does not comprehend the role of its board of directors, both as a
> collective body and as individual members.
> 
> The larger consideration is that ICANN has always had an institutional paranoia the
> engenders an automatic, visceral hostility to things that are not delivered wrapped
> with almost sycophantic deference.
> 
> 	--karl--
> 
> 
> 



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