> some personnel issues should remain confidential, 

I don't understand why people keep putting this strawman out there. No one is suggesting, or indeed has ever suggested, that personnel issues be included in a proper accountability mechanism. 

> Why would a strengthened ombudsman not be a good fit for this role?

I'll give you three good reasons:

1. The Ombudsman was created in 2004. Despite numerous efforts to make the role effective, it has never happened. Why keep making the same mistake?

2. The Ombudsman is completely reliant on ICANN corporate. For access to people and documents, for resources, for salary, for technical support, for logistical support, for an office, for a room at ICANN meetings, for everything except his own body. And his role and what he can do is determined by ICANN's legal department in the rules that they wrote. The Ombudsman also signs a very strong confidentiality agreement with ICANN that effectively ties their hands on everything except illegal activity. See point 1.

3. An Ombudsman is a single person. And one completely reliant on ICANN. This provides an enormous degree of control by ICANN and very little freedom for the accountability role the Ombusdsman is supposed to fulfill. There are numerous people able to testify that ICANN corporate has no hesitation in applying significant pressure on individuals if they act in a way that it deemed a potential threat. All of those people are however under confidentiality agreements with ICANN.


The only way to bring actual accountability to ICANN is to have people that are not dependent on ICANN and are not muzzled by confidentiality agreements asking the questions. 

And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN meetings. The community. 
 


Kieren


On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:06 PM, David Cake <dave@difference.com.au> wrote:
Eberhard has a point. 

There are legitimate reasons for staff to want to not answer some questions - some personnel issues should remain confidential, some security issues should have disclosure delayed until the problem has been fixed or mitigated, etc. 
The Ombudsman should have access to any internal document, and the discretion and training to decide what is reasonable to release. Why would a strengthened ombudsman not be a good fit for this role?

Regards 
David

(my first post to CCWG Accountability - hi everybody)

On 16 Jul 2015, at 2:03 pm, Dr Eberhard W Lisse <epilisse@gmail.com> wrote:

Cool, another Ombudsman.

el

-- 
Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s


On Jul 16, 2015, at 04:05, Phil Corwin <psc@vlaw-dc.com> wrote:

How about an independent inspector general?

 

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