So it may be a US-UK disconnect but when I hear "personnel issues" I hear things like: sexual harassment or bullying or internal argument or benefits.
I wouldn't advocate for the community reviewing any of those topics, nor do I think would anyone else. And I certainly wouldn't see a community-led process deciding it would review them either.
If by "personnel issues" you mean holding staff to account for the jobs that they get paid they to do on behalf of the community, then we do not agree. I think they absolutely should be held to account and be required when the community feels it necessary to answer questions about how they carried their job out.
To extend my Congressional analogy, recent hearing/inquiries that stick in my mind include:
* The oversight hearing on the OPM data breach
* The hearings on the secret service actions on the White House intruder
These sorts of things.
I can see for example it being very useful for ICANN staff to be quizzed publicly by the community on what happened with the recent security breaches.
That strikes me as a much better system that the internet community relying on whatever ICANN staff decides to tell us through an announcement on a website.
There are of course also Senate Investigations - in fact I think ICANN's top PR man used to be on a staffer on Senate inquiries - although I would imagine this kind of thing would be rare in the ICANN world.
But this to me represents accountability: people being held accountable. Being required to answer questions on particular topics.
Perhaps a better question would be to ask: why should the community *not* have the ability to hold people accountable for the actions taken in their name?
Kieren