[governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest

Chaitanya Dhareshwar chaitanyabd at gmail.com
Tue Sep 4 03:27:49 EDT 2012 

James,

I think what Alex wanted to illustrate is that it's easy enough to 'buy'
votes - maybe by making a commitment, or people are 'sold' because they see
the candidate's profile and are happy to have a leap of faith believing
their choice of candidate will make a difference.

The difference between voters and votes - in India at least - is usually
the number of people that get pulled in by the campaign versus the number
of people that made a researched choice to vote for a given candidate. The
flare up effect would happen because of this - say I advertise that I
intend to bring in massive projects for farmers - maybe free electricity -
the farmers are likely to vote for me; however these are the 'flares' that
may not have any real interest in me, my capability or my future in that
seat.

The last part about evidence, etc - see Alex is not saying that he didnt
deserve the win. He's just saying that the result of that didnt change much
- which is in line with what Karl said "ICANN did not change much after my
law suite prevailed."

-Chaitanya

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 12:16 PM, James S. Tyre <jstyre at jstyre.com> wrote:

> See below****
>
> ** **
>
> --****
>
> 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****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:
> governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] *On Behalf Of *Dr. Alejandro
> Pisanty Baruch
> *Sent:* Monday, September 03, 2012 10:41 PM
> *To:* governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Chaitanya Dhareshwar; Karl Auerbach
> *Cc:* Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
> *Subject:* RE: [governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest****
>
> ** **
>
> Chaitanya, all, ****
>
> ** **
>
> 1. the At-Large election procedure was deprecated because of its serious
> flaws, which Karl unfortunately fails to mention. They break the most basic
> principles of democratic election theory.****
>
> ** **
>
> Elections are meant to split a given electorate among options
> (propositions, parties, or individual candidates.) The At Large election
> fails to do that. Instead, a candidate like Karl can bring in more voters
> than, say, the former President of the University of Maryland - not more
> votes: more voters - and the election result therefore is prescribed.****
>
> [] ****
>
> Alejandro, this makes no sense.  Please explain the difference between
> more votes and more voters.  In any event, who, other than the voters, is
> to say whether Karl, the former President of the University of Maryland,
> Larry Lessig, Barbara Simons or others was the best candidate?****
>
> ** **
>
> This is like when in older Mexico or in India a party can ferry voters in
> trucks. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Similarly, in the At-Large election Karl so unfairly romanticizes,
> arguments like "it is time Germany gets its deserved place in governing the
> Internet" were used by German-speaking media (not only in Germany but also
> in Austria) and there you are, the European space is taken.****
>
> [] ****
>
> Pretty much all is fair in political campaigns.  What was inherently wrong
> with that?  Or are you just upset that the winner of that seat, Andy M-M,
> was almost as unlikely to toe the ICANN party line as Karl?****
>
> ** **
>
> The same thing happened in Latin America. In every country there were
> 100-300 people interested in ICANN who took part in the election. "It is
> time Brazil gets its deserved place in governing the Internet" was argued
> by some entities in Brazil, including the ccTLD manager CGI Brazil
> (Internet Steering Committee), and action was directed even to
> non-Brazilians. There you get 2000 votes from Brazil. ****
>
> ** **
>
> In most cases not a word was heard again from any of the voters so we can
> be sure that the results were at best a flare-up. ****
>
> [] ****
>
> In the 2008 US Presidential election, I voted for [Obama or McCain, take
> your pick].  I have done nothing involving presidential politics (other
> than to vote in the primary this year) since.  At best, then, according to
> your logic, I’m a flare-up.****
>
> ** **
>
> That’s a fairly serious misapprehension of politics and voting in a
> democracy (or Republic, as the case may be).****
>
> ** **
>
> We substituted this supposedly ideal mechanism by a more complicated one
> but which ensures at least some level of trust in who is participating and
> some accountability and transparency. It hurts when you ask for
> accountability and transparency from individuals or organizations which are
> used to asking for it but not for providing it.****
>
> [] ****
>
> ICANN had, and has, less trust in the electorate, than do virtually all
> elected governments.  Good to know.****
>
> ** **
>
> We continue to struggle to build the At-Large organizational space but are
> light-years better than with the old "bring your electorate" (not win over
> your fraction of the electorate) method. Add to that the NomCom, which
> usually can look much further out, and the At-Large influence in the
> NomCom. Count also the enormous contributions to deliver the At-Large views
> made by Roberto Gaetano and Vittorio Bertola. ****
>
> ** **
>
> 2. Karl's lawsuit's victory in court had no more result for Karl than a
> victory in court. He never found enough skeletons in the closets to avenge
> the fact that the ICANN proponents defeated the Boston Working Group in the
> bid for "Newco" as the concept-ICANN was known till the organization was
> formed. I have a long-standing (albeit at times contentious) friendship
> with Karl, I like a lot of what he does,have learned a lot from him,
> appreciate his many interests beyond technology and politics (we had a
> delightful run over the National Gallery in DC once, for example, and ask
> him about rebuilding old locomotives), and have always been sad that he
> wasted the opportunity to teach more and contribute more as a good engineer
> for trying to outlawyer the lawyers. I still expect to see that Karl
> Auerbach's contributions make a difference.****
>
> [] ****
>
> Please give some actual evidence that Karl had any objective other than to
> assert the right that ICANN unlawfully denied him, that he had to go to
> court to assert because ICANN was so intransigent, and that he won.****
>
> ** **
>
> 3. There is something called esprit de corps and/or duty of loyalty to the
> organization. It is not in conflict with the duty of independence. There is
> a slight generralization that some non-USians tend to decide for a balance
> in favor of performing on both instead of privileging individual
> independence. Your mileage may vary.****
>
> ** **
>
> Maybe it was time for some in this group to find out that some histories
> are not as one-sided and clear cut as they may seem. Apologies if I bored
> you (Sala, Fahd, Riaz, Chaitanya, especially.)****
>
> ** **
>
> Yours,****
>
> ** **
>
> Alejandro Pisanty****
>
>    ****
>
> ! !! !!! !!!!****
>
> NEW PHONE NUMBER - NUEVO NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO****
>
>  ****
>
> +52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD ****
>
> +525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO ****
>
> SMS +525541444475
>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
> UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
>
> Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
> Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
> http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
> ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . ****
> ------------------------------
>
> *Desde:* governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [
> governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] en nombre de Chaitanya Dhareshwar [
> chaitanyabd at gmail.com]
> *Enviado el:* lunes, 03 de septiembre de 2012 21:19
> *Hasta:* governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Karl Auerbach
> *CC:* Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
> *Asunto:* Re: [governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest****
>
> O_O****
>
>  ****
>
> No more public seats!? Gone the voice of reason is..?****
>
>  ****
>
> There's QUITE some detail in your diary Karl. I understand how this gives
> the public information - but how does this become insurance? Could you
> elaborate please?****
>
>  ****
>
> -C****
>
> On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:**
> **
>
> On 09/03/2012 03:02 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:
>
> >     I am that board member.
> >
> > Karl, which seat number was it that you occupied at the time?****
>
> I don't remember having a number.
>
> I was the first (and only) publicly elected board member for the
> so-called "North American" area.  (I use quote marks because I thought
> it odd that ICANN's "North America" included Greenland but not Mexico.)
>
> There were five of these publicly elected seats, one for each of ICANN's
> geographic regions.  ICANN erased all of these seats so that there would
> never again be a public election.
>
> For the most part I thought that the five publicly elected directors
> were quite good - and in the North American election I felt that every
> candidate, except perhaps one, was extremely well qualified.  Because we
> all had to endure at least some degree of public selection the election
> process brought to the fore people who tended to be more opinionated
> than people who came to their board seats by a "nominating committee"
> process in which the criteria is sometimes that of choosing the least
> objectionable, most mainstream, rather than those who might give
> discomfort or ask too many questions.  There were complaints about the
> election process in that in some areas there was a lot of nationalistic
> and corporate activity; but that is to be expected when there are
> democratic processes - the winner often tends to be he/she who is the
> best organized.  (For online elections in these days of social media the
> value of corporate money and organization does not seem as strong an
> advantage as it is in more political governmental elections; I hope that
> this isn't just a transitory or illusory situation.)
>
> Here in the US there were seven of us running for the seat.  Some you
> may have heard of - such as Larry Lessig.  All were very good and we had
> a very vibrant election process including face-to-face debates (at
> Harvard and Stanford universities and several open online debates.)  My
> campaign platform is still online at:
>
> http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm
>
> Many aspects of that platform remain important, but I'd like to draw
> your attention to one that is close to my heart:
>
> http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm#full-members
>
> I regret one aspect of that platform - I misjudged Louis Touton and did
> not give him the credit he deserved.
>
> I also felt that it was important to give to the public the reasons for
> what I did when I was on the board, so I kept an on-line diary of my
> decisions.  (In order not to step on the toes of others I tried to
> record my points of view and not to reflect too much about what other
> board members were thinking - I figured that that was their obligation
> to perform, or not.)  I received a whole lot of subtle flak from ICANN
> for publishing that diary, although it now seems that what I did back
> then that was found so objectionable has been adopted to a degree in
> ICANN's inclusion of a rationale section in its board meeting minutes.
>
> That diary is still online at:
>
> http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/diary/index.htm
>
> One of the reasons that I maintained that public diary was that I was
> (and am) quite aware of the tremendous risks of personal liability that
> hang over every director of a non-profit corporation.  Some of these
> liabilities seem to be such that they can not be protected against by
> any kind of insurance policy.  So, in addition to it simply being "the
> right thing to do" I created and maintained that diary so that I, should
> the occasion arise, have means to demonstrate that my acts were
> legitimately within the "business judgment rule" that protects corporate
> directors.
>
>         --karl--
>
>
>
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