One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff. There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published. This is a culture of impunity. What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report. Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up. Kieren
Hi, The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-) I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community. Regards On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff.
There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/
Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published.
This is a culture of impunity.
What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report.
Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up.
Kieren
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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng <seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng>* The key to understanding is humility - my view !
I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues. There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris. Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there. Thank you, J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com<mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi, The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-) I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community. Regards On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com<mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote: One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff. There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published. This is a culture of impunity. What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report. Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up. Kieren _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng Mobile: +2348035233535 alt email: <http://goog_1872880453> seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng<mailto:seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng> The key to understanding is humility - my view ! _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
All, Read the document we came up with. We do not go into personnel issues. One of the things we in WP3 ask for is a clear description and delineation between what powers are delegated to the staff and which are reserved for the Board. For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures. Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2015, at 6:22 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com<mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote: I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues. There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris. Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there. Thank you, J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com<mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi, The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-) I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community. Regards On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com<mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote: One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff. There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published. This is a culture of impunity. What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report. Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up. Kieren _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng Mobile: +2348035233535 alt email: <http://goog_1872880453> seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng<mailto:seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng> The key to understanding is humility - my view ! _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
"For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures." Jeff, that formulation is necessary but insufficient. There also may be staff powers where the Board has discretionary oversight but fails to exercise it. And for any staff action that is unfair to a stakeholder or group, or that arguably violates the Bylaws, there should be means of redress. There may well be other potential situations, but that's what I come up with at the moment. Best, Philip Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/cell Twitter: @VlawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Neuman Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 7:53 PM To: James M. Bladel Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability All, Read the document we came up with. We do not go into personnel issues. One of the things we in WP3 ask for is a clear description and delineation between what powers are delegated to the staff and which are reserved for the Board. For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures. Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2015, at 6:22 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com<mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote: I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues. There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris. Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there. Thank you, J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com<mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi, The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-) I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community. Regards On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com<mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote: One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff. There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published. This is a culture of impunity. What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report. Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up. Kieren _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng Mobile: +2348035233535 alt email: <http://goog_1872880453> seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng<mailto:seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng> The key to understanding is humility - my view ! _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community ________________________________ No virus found in this message. 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I am interested in the idea of an inquiry or inspectorate function. We have an Auditor-General in NZ who can do these things. Parliamentary scrutiny also works but can sometimes be more politicised / less impartial. Will read the WP3 doc with interest. cheers Jordan On 16 July 2015 at 03:50, Phil Corwin <psc@vlaw-dc.com> wrote:
“For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures.”
Jeff, that formulation is necessary but insufficient. There also may be staff powers where the Board has discretionary oversight but fails to exercise it. And for any staff action that is unfair to a stakeholder or group, or that arguably violates the Bylaws, there should be means of redress.
There may well be other potential situations, but that’s what I come up with at the moment.
Best, Philip
*Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal*
*Virtualaw LLC*
*1155 F Street, NW*
*Suite 1050*
*Washington, DC 20004*
*202-559-8597/Direct*
*202-559-8750/Fax*
*202-255-6172/cell*
*Twitter: @VlawDC*
*"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey*
*From:* accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] *On Behalf Of *Jeff Neuman *Sent:* Wednesday, July 15, 2015 7:53 PM *To:* James M. Bladel *Cc:* Accountability Cross Community *Subject:* Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability
All,
Read the document we came up with. We do not go into personnel issues. One of the things we in WP3 ask for is a clear description and delineation between what powers are delegated to the staff and which are reserved for the Board. For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures.
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 15, 2015, at 6:22 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J.
____________
James Bladel
GoDaddy
On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-)
I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community.
Regards
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy < kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff.
There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/
Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published.
This is a culture of impunity.
What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report.
Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up.
Kieren
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: * *http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> **Mobile: +2348035233535* *alt email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng <seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng>*
The key to understanding is humility - my view !
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------------------------------
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-- Jordan Carter Chief Executive *InternetNZ* 04 495 2118 (office) | +64 21 442 649 (mob) jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter *A better world through a better Internet *
How about an independent inspector general? Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/cell Twitter: @VlawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 10:02 PM To: Phil Corwin Cc: Jeff Neuman; James M. Bladel; Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability I am interested in the idea of an inquiry or inspectorate function. We have an Auditor-General in NZ who can do these things. Parliamentary scrutiny also works but can sometimes be more politicised / less impartial. Will read the WP3 doc with interest. cheers Jordan On 16 July 2015 at 03:50, Phil Corwin <psc@vlaw-dc.com<mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote: “For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures.” Jeff, that formulation is necessary but insufficient. There also may be staff powers where the Board has discretionary oversight but fails to exercise it. And for any staff action that is unfair to a stakeholder or group, or that arguably violates the Bylaws, there should be means of redress. There may well be other potential situations, but that’s what I come up with at the moment. Best, Philip Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/cell Twitter: @VlawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org>] On Behalf Of Jeff Neuman Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 7:53 PM To: James M. Bladel Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability All, Read the document we came up with. We do not go into personnel issues. One of the things we in WP3 ask for is a clear description and delineation between what powers are delegated to the staff and which are reserved for the Board. For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures. Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2015, at 6:22 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com<mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote: I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues. There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris. Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there. Thank you, J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com<mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi, The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-) I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community. Regards On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com<mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote: One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff. There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published. This is a culture of impunity. What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report. Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up. Kieren _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng Mobile: +2348035233535 alt email: <http://goog_1872880453> seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng<mailto:seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng> The key to understanding is humility - my view ! _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community ________________________________ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com> Version: 2015.0.5961 / Virus Database: 4365/10125 - Release Date: 06/29/15 Internal Virus Database is out of date. _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ 04 495 2118 (office) | +64 21 442 649 (mob) jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter A better world through a better Internet ________________________________ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com> Version: 2015.0.5961 / Virus Database: 4365/10125 - Release Date: 06/29/15 Internal Virus Database is out of date.
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 <mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote:
How about an independent inspector general?
[...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
This is a perfectly legitimate and normal Ombudsman role...it would only require a slightly expanded mandate, powers, and resources. in my view, coming from a country with independent Officers of Parliament who perform the roles of Auditor General, information Commissioner, Privacy Commissioner, Elections oversight etc. This would be a normal choice. In our provinces, it is not unusual for the Ombudsman to wear a number of hats, and it seems to work well. ICANN introduces a heavy dose of competition into the mix, but anyone who has done dispute resolution knows that is always present. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone. From: David Cake Sent: Friday, July 17, 2015 1:06 AM To: CCWG Accountability Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability 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<mailto: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<mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote: How about an independent inspector general? [...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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?
[...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare. Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both. Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door. Thank you, J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com<mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote:
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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote: How about an independent inspector general? [...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Well, if it turns out staff has been naughty, the Board should not accept the multilingual salesman's resignation, but fire him, without benefits. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On Jul 17, 2015, at 21:30, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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?
[...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
I'm at a real loss to understand why people are opposed to this idea, especially since I typically agree with both James and David. My best guess is that you see ICANN as more of a corporation, and I see it more as a public interest organization. This approach of external accountability by having informed people ask questions directly on a specific topic to the people that make the decisions is extremely common. In fact it is a bedrock of the democracies that most of us live in. And it has a long history of being effective, particularly where there is no competition (ICANN is a natural monopoly) and when the organization in question has a significant degree of power (ICANN gets to decide and that's that). ICANN is hiring people - and paying them handsomely - to act in the internet community's interests. I can't for the life of me understand why obliging them to answer questions on specific topics that they are paid to carry out in the interests of the internet community is a bad thing. Plus, it happens all the time now. Staff are constantly attending different sessions and answering questions. Its part of the job. The difference is: if ICANN corporate doesn't *want* to tell you something then it doesn't, and no one can make it either. That is the core accountability problem. When we have a situation - as we have with this recent .Africa decision - where both the Board and staff are found to have broken ICANN's bylaws - what next? We simply say "don't do that again"? That approach is why there have been no less than seven formal reviews in the past 10 years. And despite all the processes and mechanisms put in place, there remains a huge problem and gap. There is no actual way to hold the people that make the decisions (the Board) and implement the changes (the staff) accountable for what they do. When everything goes smoothly it's not a problem; when it doesn't, ICANN corporate has learned it can simply brush it under the carpet. But of course every time that happens, there is someone in the community that feels aggrieved. And when that is done again and again, almost reflexively on ICANN's part, it erodes trust. And that is why there is such little trust in ICANN corporate. What am I proposing is a way to end that vicious circle but doing what? Asking a few questions. Kieren On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:30 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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?
[...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Hi, In this, I think there is a middle way. I think it makes a lot of sense to have staff transparency, save and secure whistle blowing, audits and access to the ombudsman's office for redress of their issues. I think it make sense to make sure that all staff is trained in the ICANN multistakeholder methods. I think it makes sense to work with staff as opposed to treating them like some how other. I think that those of us who work with them should also have a role in their reviews. i think there may also be a role for some sort of questioning as suggested. we have started doing a both of this on GNSO weekends and it is something that could become more regularized and part of senior staff evaluations especially for their bonus determination. But when it comes to managing them, I believe that this still has to be managed though the Board and senior management. Who we should also have a role in reviewing. None of it WS1 requirements, but most definitely open challenges for WS2. avri On 17-Jul-15 22:11, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
I'm at a real loss to understand why people are opposed to this idea, especially since I typically agree with both James and David.
My best guess is that you see ICANN as more of a corporation, and I see it more as a public interest organization.
This approach of external accountability by having informed people ask questions directly on a specific topic to the people that make the decisions is extremely common. In fact it is a bedrock of the democracies that most of us live in.
And it has a long history of being effective, particularly where there is no competition (ICANN is a natural monopoly) and when the organization in question has a significant degree of power (ICANN gets to decide and that's that).
ICANN is hiring people - and paying them handsomely - to act in the internet community's interests. I can't for the life of me understand why obliging them to answer questions on specific topics that they are paid to carry out in the interests of the internet community is a bad thing.
Plus, it happens all the time now. Staff are constantly attending different sessions and answering questions. Its part of the job. The difference is: if ICANN corporate doesn't *want* to tell you something then it doesn't, and no one can make it either. That is the core accountability problem.
When we have a situation - as we have with this recent .Africa decision - where both the Board and staff are found to have broken ICANN's bylaws - what next? We simply say "don't do that again"?
That approach is why there have been no less than seven formal reviews in the past 10 years. And despite all the processes and mechanisms put in place, there remains a huge problem and gap.
There is no actual way to hold the people that make the decisions (the Board) and implement the changes (the staff) accountable for what they do.
When everything goes smoothly it's not a problem; when it doesn't, ICANN corporate has learned it can simply brush it under the carpet. But of course every time that happens, there is someone in the community that feels aggrieved.
And when that is done again and again, almost reflexively on ICANN's part, it erodes trust. And that is why there is such little trust in ICANN corporate. What am I proposing is a way to end that vicious circle but doing what? Asking a few questions.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:30 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com <mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com <mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote:
How about an independent inspector general?
[...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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Hi, I am personally not opposed to asking question but rather opposed to who you are suggesting the questions be directed to. The community's first/only level of formal questioning is/should be within the board; so board members including the CEO can be asked to either provide explanation or ensure compliance/redress of any staff action it should not be the "volunteer" community doing that job. This is usually the practice, even in a member based organisation. I am open to hear example of organisations practicing what you've suggested. Regards Sent from Google nexus 4 kindly excuse brevity and typos. On 17 Jul 2015 9:11 pm, "Kieren McCarthy" <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
I'm at a real loss to understand why people are opposed to this idea, especially since I typically agree with both James and David.
My best guess is that you see ICANN as more of a corporation, and I see it more as a public interest organization.
This approach of external accountability by having informed people ask questions directly on a specific topic to the people that make the decisions is extremely common. In fact it is a bedrock of the democracies that most of us live in.
And it has a long history of being effective, particularly where there is no competition (ICANN is a natural monopoly) and when the organization in question has a significant degree of power (ICANN gets to decide and that's that).
ICANN is hiring people - and paying them handsomely - to act in the internet community's interests. I can't for the life of me understand why obliging them to answer questions on specific topics that they are paid to carry out in the interests of the internet community is a bad thing.
Plus, it happens all the time now. Staff are constantly attending different sessions and answering questions. Its part of the job. The difference is: if ICANN corporate doesn't *want* to tell you something then it doesn't, and no one can make it either. That is the core accountability problem.
When we have a situation - as we have with this recent .Africa decision - where both the Board and staff are found to have broken ICANN's bylaws - what next? We simply say "don't do that again"?
That approach is why there have been no less than seven formal reviews in the past 10 years. And despite all the processes and mechanisms put in place, there remains a huge problem and gap.
There is no actual way to hold the people that make the decisions (the Board) and implement the changes (the staff) accountable for what they do.
When everything goes smoothly it's not a problem; when it doesn't, ICANN corporate has learned it can simply brush it under the carpet. But of course every time that happens, there is someone in the community that feels aggrieved.
And when that is done again and again, almost reflexively on ICANN's part, it erodes trust. And that is why there is such little trust in ICANN corporate. What am I proposing is a way to end that vicious circle but doing what? Asking a few questions.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:30 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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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Thank you James. Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree. Cheers, Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com <mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote:
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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote:
How about an independent inspector general?
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Besides the fact that I think we should hold the CEO responsible, aspects like future career prospects and professional reputation should be considered by individual staff members prior to their actions or inactions el On 2015-07-18 08:41 , Chris Disspain wrote:
Thank you James.
Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com <mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy [...]
So you are also of the belief that ICANN is more a corporation than a public interest organization, Chris? I think this might be where a lot of the disagreements in general over accountability are coming from. For example, ICANN is set up as a member organization but has no members. It is based in California but wishes to be an international organization. I would argue that the very point where ICANN is right now is where it needs to stop being an American corporation and start being an internationall public benefit organization. And that means opening up to real accountability rather than keeping everything in house. Kieren On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:41 PM Chris Disspain <ceo@auda.org.au> wrote:
Thank you James.
Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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?
[...] _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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Kieren, You are pointing here to a fundamental question of the complex and multiple organization's objectives the community is trying to cover. On Jul 18, 2015 4:45 AM, "Kieren McCarthy" <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
So you are also of the belief that ICANN is more a corporation ...
I hope it is an effective organization for the purpose of managing the DNS in a stable, resilient and secure way, which I think is the initial purpose of the stewardship transition than a public interest organization, Chris?
From my perspective the public interest perspective is as valid as the first one, but it is more relevant to the direct public interest functions of policy development and contract compliance, than for the operational functions.
I think this might be where a lot of the disagreements in general over accountability are coming from.
Maybe we need more than one standard of Accountability, depending on the specific function. And I think the specific standard for the assignment of unique resources should be of the public interest type (I.e. pretty high)
For example, ICANN is set up as a member organization but has no members.
It is based in California but wishes to be an international organization.
I would argue that the very point where ICANN is right now is where it
needs to stop being an American corporation and start being an internationall public benefit organization.
While the operational side requires a fast and efficient business environment (like California's) you may want to argue that an international setting may be more convincing to a wider group of stakeholders. But so far it has not been a high priority to any of the active stakeholders. If not even GAC asks for it, it seems to be stuff for WS n+1.
And that means opening up to real accountability rather than keeping everything in house.
The single best Accountability measure I keep hearing from US Congress, is organizational and/or structural separation of the operation al issues from the public interest ones (policy and compliance). And did me the best arms length separation is separate staff and separate budgets. And I agree with James and Chris that a challenge this size represents a horrible managerial challenge for any type of organization. But those challenges never arrive at comfortable peaceful moments anyhow. And maybe the Board should be looking for 2 CEOs with separate objectives as per above, instead of a single and conflicted one. And the Boards role would be to keep those diverging forces aligned. In any case, it is the CCWG itself the one that is tending to expand the scope and the discussion of ICANNs mission, instead if sticking to the narrow technical functions of the CWG...... Have a nice weekend in Paris Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:41 PM Chris Disspain <ceo@auda.org.au> wrote:
Thank you James.
Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The
Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct
supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I
believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>
wrote:
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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Hi, On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 11:43 AM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com
wrote:
I think this might be where a lot of the disagreements in general over accountability are coming from.
For example, ICANN is set up as a member organization but has no members.
Depending on the outcome of CCWG second PC, will ICANN becoming a "form of" member organisation address this part? because that seem to be the current direction of CCWG
It is based in California but wishes to be an international organization.
There are many other organisations that are international as well and they all have a base.
I would argue that the very point where ICANN is right now is where it needs to stop being an American corporation and start being an internationall public benefit organization.
Honestly its interesting to see how ICANN which is basically a record creation/keeping body is desired to be of many forms. Perhaps its good to hear what it need to do to achieve what you suggested above? as i thought the NTIA stewardship transition was a strong of that move (even though its current stewardship has not caused any significant sense of denial of ICANN service to certain part of the world)
And that means opening up to real accountability rather than keeping everything in house.
I expect that there would be more accountability improvements by the
implementation of the ccwg outcomes. It does not necessarily mean there hasn't been improvements either....nevertheless i guess i may be taking this too lightly perhaps because i wans't there when it all started and i am grateful for that as its likely to have had implications on how i evaluate issues. Regards
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:41 PM Chris Disspain <ceo@auda.org.au> wrote:
Thank you James.
Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng <seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng>* The key to understanding is humility - my view !
Kieren, No offence, but I don’t think it is appropriate in this process for me to answer questions from journalists. Cheers, Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 20:43 , Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
So you are also of the belief that ICANN is more a corporation than a public interest organization, Chris?
I think this might be where a lot of the disagreements in general over accountability are coming from.
For example, ICANN is set up as a member organization but has no members. It is based in California but wishes to be an international organization.
I would argue that the very point where ICANN is right now is where it needs to stop being an American corporation and start being an internationall public benefit organization.
And that means opening up to real accountability rather than keeping everything in house.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:41 PM Chris Disspain <ceo@auda.org.au <mailto:ceo@auda.org.au>> wrote: Thank you James.
Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com <mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com <mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote:
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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote:
How about an independent inspector general?
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I'm not asking for special treatment, I know it's Board policy not to be accountable to anyone but itself. But I did think it might be a useful discussion. Kieren On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 5:04 AM Chris Disspain <ceo@auda.org.au> wrote:
Kieren,
No offence, but I don’t think it is appropriate in this process for me to answer questions from journalists.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 20:43 , Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
So you are also of the belief that ICANN is more a corporation than a public interest organization, Chris?
I think this might be where a lot of the disagreements in general over accountability are coming from.
For example, ICANN is set up as a member organization but has no members. It is based in California but wishes to be an international organization.
I would argue that the very point where ICANN is right now is where it needs to stop being an American corporation and start being an internationall public benefit organization.
And that means opening up to real accountability rather than keeping everything in house.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:41 PM Chris Disspain <ceo@auda.org.au> wrote:
Thank you James.
Speaking as a real life, actual CEO…I agree.
Cheers,
Chris
On 18 Jul 2015, at 05:30 , James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
The more I consider the idea of holding staff "accountable" to "The Community," the more convinced I am that this would fast become an organizational nightmare.
Non-exec members of staff should be held accountable to their direct supervisor, and the chain of authority up to the CEO. It is not appropriate to insert the Community in that hierarchy, or to haul these folks in front of public inquiry committees. You have mentioned that the community would not make hire/fire decisions, so what is the point of this exercise, except to publicly shame the staff member, sully their professional reputation, and destroy their future career prospects? No sane person would want to work for ICANN if it means subjecting themselves to several thousand self-appointed bosses, who may or may not have any relevant expertise to judge the employee's performance. The near-term outcome would be an exodus of anyone with talent. And recruiting competent new hires would be difficult, expensive, or both.
Executive employees are a different story, but even in their case I believe that community influence should be indirect, such as including a community review as a component of their annual performance review, or notifying the CEO if the exec no longer has the trust and confidence of the community. If the CEO repeatedly fails to act on this, the he or she should be shown the door.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 17, 2015, at 20:39, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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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Hi, On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
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.
True.
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?
Previous failure is not a mistake. I believe we can succeed at doing this. And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of redactions. Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take on CSR seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes because they are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role and I think we can do it.
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.
Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And they often still have strong independence. Some even have power to fix things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that need to be fixed, we should not give up. See response to 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.
Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. Some of us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on ICANN, and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay need to keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people come to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back to a decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a lot worse.
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.
True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the story. They need internal allies. And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who need help.
And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN meetings. The community.
Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. and a CSR officer, and ... That is what this process is all about. avri --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same mistake over and over again. And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job and getting paid. Kieren On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
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.
True.
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?
Previous failure is not a mistake. I believe we can succeed at doing this.
And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of redactions.
Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take on CSR seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes because they are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role and I think we can do it.
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.
Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And they often still have strong independence. Some even have power to fix things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that need to be fixed, we should not give up.
See response to 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.
Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it.
It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. Some of us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on ICANN, and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay need to keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people come to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail.
For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back to a decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a lot worse.
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.
True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the story. They need internal allies. And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who need help.
And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN meetings. The community.
Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff.
And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. and a CSR officer, and ...
That is what this process is all about.
avri
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Hi, And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed. avri On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same mistake over and over again.
And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job and getting paid.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > 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.
True.
> > > 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?
Previous failure is not a mistake. I believe we can succeed at doing this.
And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of redactions.
Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take on CSR seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes because they are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role and I think we can do it.
> > 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.
Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And they often still have strong independence. Some even have power to fix things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that need to be fixed, we should not give up.
See response to 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. >
Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it.
It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. Some of us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on ICANN, and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay need to keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people come to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail.
For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back to a decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a lot worse.
> > 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.
True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the story. They need internal allies. And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who need help.
> And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > meetings. The community.
Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff.
And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. and a CSR officer, and ...
That is what this process is all about.
avri
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I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors. On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same mistake over and over again.
And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job and getting paid.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > 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.
True.
> > > 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?
Previous failure is not a mistake. I believe we can succeed at doing this.
And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of redactions.
Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take on CSR seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes because they are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role and I think we can do it.
> > 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.
Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And they often still have strong independence. Some even have power to fix things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that need to be fixed, we should not give up.
See response to 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. >
Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it.
It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. Some of us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on ICANN, and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay need to keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people come to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail.
For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back to a decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a lot worse.
> > 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.
True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the story. They need internal allies. And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who need help.
> And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > meetings. The community.
Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff.
And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. and a CSR officer, and ...
That is what this process is all about.
avri
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Hi, I do not know about you or others, but i have no particular staff member in mind. Most of the ones I know are mostly pretty great most of the time. If someone made errors in this case, then it provides a good learning opportunity. Though I believe actions and actors are fairly tied together, and actions only improve when actors are better trained and supported and rewarded for the right stuff. avri On 17-Jul-15 22:29, Greg Shatan wrote:
I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> > https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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I do not, at least not in particular. Which is why I think we need to focus on actions, not actors. I agree wholeheartedly that most of the staff I have worked with are great, and hard-working and dedicated to boot. And as you say, if an action was found to be an improper exercise of staff power, it should be seen first as an educational opportunity, not as a punitive opportunity. Focusing on actions also distances this further from "personnel" type cases. On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
I do not know about you or others, but i have no particular staff member in mind. Most of the ones I know are mostly pretty great most of the time. If someone made errors in this case, then it provides a good learning opportunity.
Though I believe actions and actors are fairly tied together, and actions only improve when actors are better trained and supported and rewarded for the right stuff.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:29, Greg Shatan wrote:
I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> >
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Well focusing on actions is fine but it does not remove the fact that improving those actions is the main ingredient to having better actors. The ultimate goals is then to build/develop better actors Regards Sent from Google nexus 4 kindly excuse brevity and typos. On 17 Jul 2015 10:01 pm, "Greg Shatan" <gregshatanipc@gmail.com> wrote:
I do not, at least not in particular. Which is why I think we need to focus on actions, not actors. I agree wholeheartedly that most of the staff I have worked with are great, and hard-working and dedicated to boot. And as you say, if an action was found to be an improper exercise of staff power, it should be seen first as an educational opportunity, not as a punitive opportunity.
Focusing on actions also distances this further from "personnel" type cases.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
I do not know about you or others, but i have no particular staff member in mind. Most of the ones I know are mostly pretty great most of the time. If someone made errors in this case, then it provides a good learning opportunity.
Though I believe actions and actors are fairly tied together, and actions only improve when actors are better trained and supported and rewarded for the right stuff.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:29, Greg Shatan wrote:
I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> >
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How on earth is asking people questions about what they did "punitive"? There is such a strange tendency in this community to think of the worst possible scenario and then take that as a basepoint on which to make decisions. Three scenarios: one in which someone did their job well and properly; one in which they make a mistake; one in which they knowingly did wrong. Let's take the .Africa example: someone redacted information that someone else on staff had assisted the other applicant. Two people worth talking to: the person that took the decision to redact the information; and the person who wrote and/or authorized the letter to the AUC for the other applicant. At the moment, we have little real idea what happened. And I don't think anyone here is naive enough to believe that ICANN will give an honest rundown of what happened either. So, the person that wrote the letter. It's easy to see how they could be reprimanded or even fired. But let's assume that they didn't think the letter was a good idea. Let's assume they actually wrote emails saying they didn't agree with this course of action. But they were then ordered to assist by someone higher up in the chain of command. But because it has come out, they get the blame when in fact they were doing their job well and actually identified the very problem that ICANN was subsequently criticized for. We want this person at ICANN. And this person would actively *want* to talk to people outside the organization, so they can show they are professional, recognized the issue, and followed the appropriate actions. Take the person who redacted the information. Perhaps they did it because they were told to by their boss. Perhaps they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. Perhaps they did it because they were the same person who told the first person that they should write the letter, even after they had expressed their strong reservations. Perhaps they just made a mistake and feel very embarrassed about the whole thing. If this person has not done anything wrong, then they also would want to explain their actions, especially if they felt that having an external party asking them questions meant that they could be more truthful than if another staffer or Board member asked them. Now take the worst case scenarios: the person writing the letter knew they shouldn't have done it, knew they were breaking the bylaws but didn't care because it was easier for them and didn't think they'd ever be found out. Or: the person that redacted the information also knew it was wrong but figured that no one would be able to get the unredacted copy anyway, and the Board wouldn't ask any hard questions, so no one will ever know. All of these scenarios are possible. In the positive scenarios, professionals get to explain their actions. If they did an excellent professional job, they raise their stature in the job and the community. If they made a mistake, they get to say 'I made a mistake', and learn a valuable lesson. In the scenarios where people knowingly did wrong and tried to hide their misdeeds, it would become obvious pretty quickly. This would enable the organization to see what went wrong and so fix processes so it doesn't happen in future. And it would put that person on notice that they can't expect to get away with that sort of behavior. This whole process is what is called "accountability". Without that accountability, a culture can go wrong very quickly. And I would argue that it has and we keep seeing the manifestations of that. By the way, I would like to remind people that I was on staff for three years and still have a number of good friends at ICANN so I am working from real knowledge of ICANN and its internal workings. I was also the staff support on two different accountability reviews - OneWorldTrust and Improving Institutional Confidence. Kieren On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc@gmail.com> wrote:
I do not, at least not in particular. Which is why I think we need to focus on actions, not actors. I agree wholeheartedly that most of the staff I have worked with are great, and hard-working and dedicated to boot. And as you say, if an action was found to be an improper exercise of staff power, it should be seen first as an educational opportunity, not as a punitive opportunity.
Focusing on actions also distances this further from "personnel" type cases.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
I do not know about you or others, but i have no particular staff member in mind. Most of the ones I know are mostly pretty great most of the time. If someone made errors in this case, then it provides a good learning opportunity.
Though I believe actions and actors are fairly tied together, and actions only improve when actors are better trained and supported and rewarded for the right stuff.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:29, Greg Shatan wrote:
I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> >
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Hi, Maybe one of the IRP improvements (and I must confess I have not read about IRP processes in details) could be to ensure that parties affected is carried along during all their hearings so if something is wrongly presented at the end, they should become the whistle blower based on facts. For instance in the case of .Africa the parties concerned should be carried along so they are aware of sections that were determined to be redacted, and if redacted beyond what was agreed they would also know. If the community then see need to weigh in then, that community could send in something similar to below to the board: "Party A indicated that staff B carried of actions123 instead of action456 that was agreed, party A has already followed xyz process and the CEO does not seem to have addressed the issue, can you look into resolving/providing solution " Again I don't think the community should be in the line of interrogating staff for the purpose of making them more accountable. It's the job of the President and the board. Regards Sent from Google nexus 4 kindly excuse brevity and typos. On 17 Jul 2015 11:27 pm, "Kieren McCarthy" <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
How on earth is asking people questions about what they did "punitive"?
There is such a strange tendency in this community to think of the worst possible scenario and then take that as a basepoint on which to make decisions.
Three scenarios: one in which someone did their job well and properly; one in which they make a mistake; one in which they knowingly did wrong.
Let's take the .Africa example: someone redacted information that someone else on staff had assisted the other applicant.
Two people worth talking to: the person that took the decision to redact the information; and the person who wrote and/or authorized the letter to the AUC for the other applicant.
At the moment, we have little real idea what happened. And I don't think anyone here is naive enough to believe that ICANN will give an honest rundown of what happened either.
So, the person that wrote the letter.
It's easy to see how they could be reprimanded or even fired. But let's assume that they didn't think the letter was a good idea. Let's assume they actually wrote emails saying they didn't agree with this course of action. But they were then ordered to assist by someone higher up in the chain of command. But because it has come out, they get the blame when in fact they were doing their job well and actually identified the very problem that ICANN was subsequently criticized for.
We want this person at ICANN. And this person would actively *want* to talk to people outside the organization, so they can show they are professional, recognized the issue, and followed the appropriate actions.
Take the person who redacted the information. Perhaps they did it because they were told to by their boss. Perhaps they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. Perhaps they did it because they were the same person who told the first person that they should write the letter, even after they had expressed their strong reservations. Perhaps they just made a mistake and feel very embarrassed about the whole thing.
If this person has not done anything wrong, then they also would want to explain their actions, especially if they felt that having an external party asking them questions meant that they could be more truthful than if another staffer or Board member asked them.
Now take the worst case scenarios: the person writing the letter knew they shouldn't have done it, knew they were breaking the bylaws but didn't care because it was easier for them and didn't think they'd ever be found out.
Or: the person that redacted the information also knew it was wrong but figured that no one would be able to get the unredacted copy anyway, and the Board wouldn't ask any hard questions, so no one will ever know.
All of these scenarios are possible.
In the positive scenarios, professionals get to explain their actions. If they did an excellent professional job, they raise their stature in the job and the community.
If they made a mistake, they get to say 'I made a mistake', and learn a valuable lesson.
In the scenarios where people knowingly did wrong and tried to hide their misdeeds, it would become obvious pretty quickly. This would enable the organization to see what went wrong and so fix processes so it doesn't happen in future. And it would put that person on notice that they can't expect to get away with that sort of behavior.
This whole process is what is called "accountability".
Without that accountability, a culture can go wrong very quickly. And I would argue that it has and we keep seeing the manifestations of that.
By the way, I would like to remind people that I was on staff for three years and still have a number of good friends at ICANN so I am working from real knowledge of ICANN and its internal workings.
I was also the staff support on two different accountability reviews - OneWorldTrust and Improving Institutional Confidence.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc@gmail.com> wrote:
I do not, at least not in particular. Which is why I think we need to focus on actions, not actors. I agree wholeheartedly that most of the staff I have worked with are great, and hard-working and dedicated to boot. And as you say, if an action was found to be an improper exercise of staff power, it should be seen first as an educational opportunity, not as a punitive opportunity.
Focusing on actions also distances this further from "personnel" type cases.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
I do not know about you or others, but i have no particular staff member in mind. Most of the ones I know are mostly pretty great most of the time. If someone made errors in this case, then it provides a good learning opportunity.
Though I believe actions and actors are fairly tied together, and actions only improve when actors are better trained and supported and rewarded for the right stuff.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:29, Greg Shatan wrote:
I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> >
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Again I don't think the community should be in the line of interrogating staff for the purpose of making them more accountable. It's the job of the President and the board.
And when we see the President and/or Board hold a public meeting in which they ask these questions, or produce a post-mortem report, or provide the relevant materials, or in fact produce anything other than long tracts of carefully vetted "whereas" legalese, then you might have a point. But it hasn't happened yet. And it's been 17 years now... Kieren On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
Maybe one of the IRP improvements (and I must confess I have not read about IRP processes in details) could be to ensure that parties affected is carried along during all their hearings so if something is wrongly presented at the end, they should become the whistle blower based on facts.
For instance in the case of .Africa the parties concerned should be carried along so they are aware of sections that were determined to be redacted, and if redacted beyond what was agreed they would also know.
If the community then see need to weigh in then, that community could send in something similar to below to the board:
"Party A indicated that staff B carried of actions123 instead of action456 that was agreed, party A has already followed xyz process and the CEO does not seem to have addressed the issue, can you look into resolving/providing solution "
Again I don't think the community should be in the line of interrogating staff for the purpose of making them more accountable. It's the job of the President and the board.
Regards Sent from Google nexus 4 kindly excuse brevity and typos. On 17 Jul 2015 11:27 pm, "Kieren McCarthy" <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
How on earth is asking people questions about what they did "punitive"?
There is such a strange tendency in this community to think of the worst possible scenario and then take that as a basepoint on which to make decisions.
Three scenarios: one in which someone did their job well and properly; one in which they make a mistake; one in which they knowingly did wrong.
Let's take the .Africa example: someone redacted information that someone else on staff had assisted the other applicant.
Two people worth talking to: the person that took the decision to redact the information; and the person who wrote and/or authorized the letter to the AUC for the other applicant.
At the moment, we have little real idea what happened. And I don't think anyone here is naive enough to believe that ICANN will give an honest rundown of what happened either.
So, the person that wrote the letter.
It's easy to see how they could be reprimanded or even fired. But let's assume that they didn't think the letter was a good idea. Let's assume they actually wrote emails saying they didn't agree with this course of action. But they were then ordered to assist by someone higher up in the chain of command. But because it has come out, they get the blame when in fact they were doing their job well and actually identified the very problem that ICANN was subsequently criticized for.
We want this person at ICANN. And this person would actively *want* to talk to people outside the organization, so they can show they are professional, recognized the issue, and followed the appropriate actions.
Take the person who redacted the information. Perhaps they did it because they were told to by their boss. Perhaps they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. Perhaps they did it because they were the same person who told the first person that they should write the letter, even after they had expressed their strong reservations. Perhaps they just made a mistake and feel very embarrassed about the whole thing.
If this person has not done anything wrong, then they also would want to explain their actions, especially if they felt that having an external party asking them questions meant that they could be more truthful than if another staffer or Board member asked them.
Now take the worst case scenarios: the person writing the letter knew they shouldn't have done it, knew they were breaking the bylaws but didn't care because it was easier for them and didn't think they'd ever be found out.
Or: the person that redacted the information also knew it was wrong but figured that no one would be able to get the unredacted copy anyway, and the Board wouldn't ask any hard questions, so no one will ever know.
All of these scenarios are possible.
In the positive scenarios, professionals get to explain their actions. If they did an excellent professional job, they raise their stature in the job and the community.
If they made a mistake, they get to say 'I made a mistake', and learn a valuable lesson.
In the scenarios where people knowingly did wrong and tried to hide their misdeeds, it would become obvious pretty quickly. This would enable the organization to see what went wrong and so fix processes so it doesn't happen in future. And it would put that person on notice that they can't expect to get away with that sort of behavior.
This whole process is what is called "accountability".
Without that accountability, a culture can go wrong very quickly. And I would argue that it has and we keep seeing the manifestations of that.
By the way, I would like to remind people that I was on staff for three years and still have a number of good friends at ICANN so I am working from real knowledge of ICANN and its internal workings.
I was also the staff support on two different accountability reviews - OneWorldTrust and Improving Institutional Confidence.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc@gmail.com> wrote:
I do not, at least not in particular. Which is why I think we need to focus on actions, not actors. I agree wholeheartedly that most of the staff I have worked with are great, and hard-working and dedicated to boot. And as you say, if an action was found to be an improper exercise of staff power, it should be seen first as an educational opportunity, not as a punitive opportunity.
Focusing on actions also distances this further from "personnel" type cases.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
I do not know about you or others, but i have no particular staff member in mind. Most of the ones I know are mostly pretty great most of the time. If someone made errors in this case, then it provides a good learning opportunity.
Though I believe actions and actors are fairly tied together, and actions only improve when actors are better trained and supported and rewarded for the right stuff.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:29, Greg Shatan wrote:
I think we are fixated too much in this discussion on going after a particular staff member. The focus should be on "staff actions," as a class of actions, not on "actions of staff members," as a class of actors.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> >
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My thought on that statement is best summed up by this graphic... :) On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:22 PM Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same mistake over and over again.
And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job and getting paid.
Kieren
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > 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.
True.
> > > 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?
Previous failure is not a mistake. I believe we can succeed at doing this.
And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of redactions.
Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take on CSR seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes because they are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role and I think we can do it.
> > 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.
Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And they often still have strong independence. Some even have power to fix things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that need to be fixed, we should not give up.
See response to 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. >
Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it.
It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. Some of us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on ICANN, and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay need to keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people come to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail.
For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back to a decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a lot worse.
> > 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.
True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the story. They need internal allies. And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who need help.
> And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > meetings. The community.
Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff.
And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. and a CSR officer, and ...
That is what this process is all about.
avri
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Hi, In the cartoon, you are The Coyote and ICANN is the roadrunner? cheers, avri On 18-Jul-15 14:09, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
My thought on that statement is best summed up by this graphic... :)
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:22 PM Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> > https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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No, ICANN accountability is the roadrunner and the coyote is the CWG-ACCT / ATRT / IIC / OneWorldTrust / internet community. Kieren On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 5:20 AM Avri Doria <avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
In the cartoon, you are The Coyote and ICANN is the roadrunner?
cheers, avri
On 18-Jul-15 14:09, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
My thought on that statement is best summed up by this graphic... :)
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:22 PM Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
And what I am saying is that it isn't a mistake, just a job not yet completed.
avri
On 17-Jul-15 22:15, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > What I am saying Avri is that we should not keep making the same > mistake over and over again. > > And one of those mistakes is to continue to believe that a single > person can bring a decent level of accountability to ICANN. They > cannot. Especially when they are reliant on ICANN for doing their job > and getting paid. > > > > Kieren > > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org> > <mailto:avri@acm.org <mailto:avri@acm.org>>> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 17-Jul-15 20:38, Kieren McCarthy wrote: > > > 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. > > True. > > > > > > 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? > > Previous failure is not a mistake. > I believe we can succeed at doing this. > > And the Ombudsman can get access to any information. It is uncertain > how much he can do with it at this point, but at least someone who is > trusted can look and can give testimony about the validity of > redactions. > > Sure I would like to see ICANN live of to ATRT obligations, take > on CSR > seriously, have reasonable RR and stronger independent reviews and > audits &c., but we should not give up the partial successes > because they > are not right yet. WS2 will focus on strengthening the ombudsman role > and I think we can do it. > > > > > 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. > > Ombudsman in general are paid for by the company they work for. And > they often still have strong independence. Some even have power > to fix > things. We should fix the aspects of the ombudsman support that > need to > be fixed, we should not give up. > > See response to 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. > > > > Actually we have an Ombudsman's office with 2 people in it. > > It either needs to be fixed or we need to walk away from ICANN. > Some of > us have done so and are probably making a good living picking on > ICANN, > and some of us are thinking of walking away just to make a living > (volunteering is a difficult vocation). But those who do stay > need to > keep trying to fix it for as long as they do stay. And new people > come > to the effort all the time, determined to succeed where we fail. > > For anyone who says ICANN never improves, I ask them to think back > to a > decade ago and compare. Problems there still are, but it is nowhere > near as bad as it once was. Could be a lot better, but also could be a > lot worse. > > > > > 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. > > True they are necessary. But they are only one part of the > story. They > need internal allies. > And it is my impression that though not as effective as he could have > been due to conditions you describe, the ombudsman has helped in many > cases. And does as much as possible to support the people who > need help. > > > And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN > > meetings. The community. > > Actually aren't most of them there to wheel and deal? > Only hundreds go to meetings dedicated to doing the policy stuff. > > And they need the support of a strong ombudsman office. > and a CSR officer, and ... > > That is what this process is all about. > > avri > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> > <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org>> >
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> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list > Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> >
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On 18 Jul 2015, at 2:38 am, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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?
Frankly, the same could be said of most ICANN accountability measures. It is the hope of this entire CCWG process that with sufficient leverage, we have a historic opportunity to make some of them far more effective than they were in the past.
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.
I said ‘strengthened’. I would assume both of these issues can be significantly mitigated by changes to the role - particularly, rewriting of the agreement with the ombudsman if it weakens the office, and some process for increasing resources of the office when/if required. But the extent to which such changes might be effective can be discussed in the WS2 work on the ombudsmans role. I do think that there are issues where there is a need for someone who has the authority to see documents that may have legitimate grounds to be considered confidential (personnel records, security issues, etc) and make judgements as to what information should be released, and that person needs to be very familiar with ICANN in order to perform the role effectively. There absolutely are some legitimate reasons for information to remain confidential, and I think an external enquiry model is likely to make that problem worse (in the sense of leading to escalating legal obstruction from ICANN legal to every request) not better. An ongoing Independent Inspector General role or similar would seem to be an interesting alternative - but my original point was that such a role would have large overlap with the Ombudsmans existing role, and it might be far more practical to fix an existing role rather than add a new one. David
David Perhaps I might offer a perspective. First of all, I am not personally arguing for either solution, only to remark that a solution is gravely needed. However, for those arguing against an independent inspector general, perhaps you might consider the differences in the role (and thus the advantage of independence) as follows :- 1. The Ombudsman, strengthened or otherwise is not truly independent. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A truly independent review should be funded otherwise than directly by ICANN. This aspect has immense implication for organisational fairness and effectiveness in carrying out the role. Furthermore ICANN can (and HAS) changed its bylaws to avoid scrutiny and review (see the changes directly made as a result of the decision in .XXX to make the IRP 'deferential'.) Despite the fact the current Ombudsman is of the highest calibre in his field, he is paid by ICANN. See Scotland's 'temporary sheriffs' case (Starrs -v- Ruxton) http://bit.ly/1Kfq4xx and the Guernsey's Bailiff -v- UK (McGonnell v- United Kingdom) http://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2011/09/22/mcgonnell-the-bailiffs-of-jersey-a... The latter case DID in fact trigger a consitutional earthquake in London. [See important PS at the end] Now, I explicitly do not suggest the current office holder is subject to 'actual bias' but on the important fundamental rights priniciple of 'apparent bias', so long as ICANN pays his 'gig fee' the office cannot be considered independent. 2, The Ombudsman's role is that of mediator -------------------------------------------------------------- And the current office holder is very good at that. In otherwords, an Ombudsman acts upon a complaint from an individual (or possibly a group) that ICANN or a part of it has done something it shouldn't. He then tries to bring the parties together. But that is a completely different approach to a truly independent inspector, funded otherwise than by ICANN who has powers to inquire into every aspect of ICANN's operations and behaviour, ESPECIALLY those that are regarded as confidential (for every local government body that is up to no good, marks the 'hairy' documents as confidential. An independent inspector could, and indeed should, act on his or her own motion. And should have the benefit of an overarching Charter to aid their work, similar to the Canadian Charter, or the principles of the US Constitution, to which ICANN should be held. An independent inspector should also be financially self-sufficient so as not to worry, even unconsciously, about upsetting senior staff in the pursuit of the truth. This could be done via ICANN donating capital money to an 'Accountability Trust' who, independent of ICANN, employ the independent inspector, and would have restraints (both explicit, and through the independent indnature of the trustees appointed) on how they can exercise control on the office-holder. Having now written the above, I have convinced myself we need such an office. Nigel PS: Just to avoid an further cross-cultural misunderstandings, due to ambiguous terms-of-art used in the two cases I link to, above. 1. (Mostly for US readers) a 'sheriff' is a member of Scotland's judiciary (i.e. a lower tier, or County Court judge): NOT a law-enforcement officer. 2 (Most for readers in Great Britain), the 'Bailiff' referred to is NOT a debt-collector legally allowed to seize goods: he is a member of both the Island's judiciary (its highest judge) and its legislature (he is Speaker of the House) On 20/07/15 06:02, David Cake wrote:
On 18 Jul 2015, at 2:38 am, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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? Frankly, the same could be said of most ICANN accountability measures. It is the hope of this entire CCWG process that with sufficient leverage, we have a historic opportunity to make some of them far more effective than they were in the past. 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. I said ‘strengthened’. I would assume both of these issues can be significantly mitigated by changes to the role - particularly, rewriting of the agreement with the ombudsman if it weakens the office, and some process for increasing resources of the office when/if required. But the extent to which such changes might be effective can be discussed in the WS2 work on the ombudsmans role.
I do think that there are issues where there is a need for someone who has the authority to see documents that may have legitimate grounds to be considered confidential (personnel records, security issues, etc) and make judgements as to what information should be released, and that person needs to be very familiar with ICANN in order to perform the role effectively. There absolutely are some legitimate reasons for information to remain confidential, and I think an external enquiry model is likely to make that problem worse (in the sense of leading to escalating legal obstruction from ICANN legal to every request) not better.
An ongoing Independent Inspector General role or similar would seem to be an interesting alternative - but my original point was that such a role would have large overlap with the Ombudsmans existing role, and it might be far more practical to fix an existing role rather than add a new one.
David
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Yes, I have added in that principle in the WP3 document as well. Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2015, at 9:50 PM, Phil Corwin <psc@vlaw-dc.com<mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com>> wrote: “For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures.” Jeff, that formulation is necessary but insufficient. There also may be staff powers where the Board has discretionary oversight but fails to exercise it. And for any staff action that is unfair to a stakeholder or group, or that arguably violates the Bylaws, there should be means of redress. There may well be other potential situations, but that’s what I come up with at the moment. Best, Philip Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/cell Twitter: @VlawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Neuman Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 7:53 PM To: James M. Bladel Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability All, Read the document we came up with. We do not go into personnel issues. One of the things we in WP3 ask for is a clear description and delineation between what powers are delegated to the staff and which are reserved for the Board. For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures. Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2015, at 6:22 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com<mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote: I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues. There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris. Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there. Thank you, J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com<mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi, The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-) I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community. Regards On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com<mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote: One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff. There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published. This is a culture of impunity. What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report. Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up. Kieren _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng Mobile: +2348035233535 alt email: <http://goog_1872880453> seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng<mailto:seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng> The key to understanding is humility - my view ! _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community ________________________________ No virus found in this message. 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In the TMCH+50 issue, a big part (larger than the original decision, really) was staff obstruction about who made the decision, under what circumstances etc. This made it fairly clear that the DIDP was inadequate when staff wanted to conceal information. I’ve said for a while that ICANNs biggest problem with transparency isn’t transparency, its accountability - the biggest problem with the DIDP and other transparency measures is that the can unaccountably fail when they are most needed. I don’t know that it would be a good idea to provide mechanisms for the community to micro-manage issues related to specific personnel - accountability for board and CEO should, in theory, mean that the CEO (or board, or delegated senior staff) can report to the community on management of issues with actions of senior staff (or not senior staff, for that matter). But it is far too easy for ICANN to conceal information about what actually happened, and so stymie any real accountability. I’m not sure about the mechanism Kieren suggests here. But he is absolutely right that ICANN needs better mechanisms to determine what actually happened with a problematic decision. As Jeff says, whether that is a power delegated to the staff or reserved for the board might change how the issue is dealt with - but we can’t even know that until we know what happened in some cases. David
On 16 Jul 2015, at 7:53 am, Jeff Neuman <jeff.neuman@valideus.com> wrote:
All,
Read the document we came up with. We do not go into personnel issues. One of the things we in WP3 ask for is a clear description and delineation between what powers are delegated to the staff and which are reserved for the Board. For those powers delegated to the staff without board oversight, we do think there should be accountability measures.
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 15, 2015, at 6:22 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com <mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> wrote:
I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com <mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi,
The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-)
I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community.
Regards
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com <mailto:kieren@kierenmccarthy.com>> wrote: One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff.
There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/ <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/>
Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published.
This is a culture of impunity.
What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report.
Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up.
Kieren
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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng/> Mobile: +2348035233535 <> alt email: <http://goog_1872880453/>seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng <mailto:seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng>
The key to understanding is humility - my view !
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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 On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 3:21 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
On Jul 15, 2015, at 17:05, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
The big question for me is "to what extent can/should the community keep ICANN staff directly accountable". If the board cannot keep the CEO accountable and the CEO in turn cannot keep his/her staff accountable, then i think it is the board that the community should use all its fire-power against while i expect board to perform its "konfu" on the CEO as well. ;-)
I am not sure taking ICANN staff directly down the legal/IRP path as suggested will be an healthy thing to do. I think proper means of channelling grievances between a/some community member and staff needs to happen through the appropriate organisational hierarchy and the leadership of the organisation should ensure justice is done...i don't think such process should be lead by the community.
Regards
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Kieren McCarthy < kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
One of the key things that Strickling mentioned in his accountability blog post was that this group needed to devise accountability mechanisms for ICANN's staff.
There is a great example this week of how the staff currently lives outside any form of effective accountability in the unredacted version of the .Africa IRP decision.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/icann_dot_africa_review/
Not only did ICANN staff - its head of operations, no less - intervene in favor of one applicant over another, but when that fact was repeatedly referenced in what is supposed to be an independent review report, the staff decided they would remove that information before the report was published.
This is a culture of impunity.
What I would like to see introduced to ICANN is the ability to call for hearings/inquiries into issues. Similar to how Congress can hold inquiries into something, compel witnesses to appear, compel the release of information, fact-find and produce a report.
Having read all the various legal advice provided by the independent legal experts, it strikes me that the ability for the community to establish such an inquiry and then compel witnesses and evidence to appear is not difficult to set up.
Kieren
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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535 **alt email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng <seun.ojedeji@fuoye.edu.ng>*
The key to understanding is humility - my view !
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Kieren, I call and have called this a need for structural reform. Which does not mean we have to go into individual cases (constructive dismissals) but need to make sure this does not happen. With regards to the security breaches, I did invite ICANN staff to present, from a purely technical perspective, about the incident before the previous Singapore meeting, in front of a very friendly audience at TechDay and they just declined, without giving any reasons. I really would like to read the unredacted version myself, bu the way. Not necessarily getting an electronic copy, but that would be best. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s
On Jul 16, 2015, at 03:45, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 3:21 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote: I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy [...]
So, follow my logic here: * Who is ICANN corporate ultimately accountable to (according to everyone)? The ICANN/internet community * What is the main stated goal of this accountability working group? To empower the community to increase the accountability around ICANN and its actions * What is the big sticking point on most issues? The creation of a new group or a structural change. Let's take the recent .Africa IRP as a good example of accountability. Because it is. Here's what happened - simple facts: * The ICANN Board did not do its job sufficiently well. It did not ask the GAC for an actual rationale. And DCA went through all ICANN's accountability mechanisms - twice with subsets of the Board failing to act "neutrally or fairly" - and was rejected each time, until there was an independent group that looked at the issue. The Board failed. * The staff failed. Not accounting for the fact that it repeatedly argued that the IRP did not have the right to do what it did, the staff did not act neutrally and fairly. By their own admission, they intervened in favor of one party. And then they redacted that information from the final report, not even telling the Board that they had done so. The staff failed. Now, who exactly are these two groups now accountable to? Who is able to get to the bottom of this, find out what went wrong and make sure lessons are learned? The answer, of course, is no one. Themselves. And from the responses that both staff and Board have come out with today, they both clearly feel that they have done no wrong either. There is not even the suggestion that they hold a post-mortem or similar review. We are not going to see the details of what happened. And it is in the clear interests of the two groups who were found lacking in fairness not to disclose that information (the staff has already demonstrated its willingness to delete information it doesn't want people to see). And so we have the final accountability process deciding unanimously on something and nothing will change as a result of it. Why? Because there is no mechanism right now for the community to do what it is supposed to do and hold the ICANN Board and staff accountable. What's the solution? I would argue it is the ability for the existing community to hold hearings in which they are able to compel information and witness testimony. This requires no new structures - the groups and people already exist. It is built around empowering the community. It does not give the community any new powers beyond which ICANN already claims to offer (openness, transparency). And it provides for real accountability: asking questions and getting answers. It also costs far, far less. I would also argue that a community group, rather than a new individual, such as an inspector general, is the right way forward. If you create another new role with one individual in, you basically recreate the ombudsman role all over again. It adds costs. It means one individual is forced into an impossible position (because, let's be honest, we're not talking about an inspector general *with staff*). And it opens the door to the exact same issues that have introduced fundamental flaws to all the other accountability mechanisms: ICANN's lawyers write the rules (and change them when they don't like them), the person is reliant on ICANN money; ICANN's staff will overload the individual with process and confidentiality claims. But if you take the community - the people that follow this stuff every day - and you empower them to ask questions and compel the provision of information and witnesses. Well, then you have real accountability. And accountability that makes ICANN itself stronger. And before people slip into the habit of imagining the worst possible assumption and using that strawman to knock down the idea: * Such a community panel would not have the right to fire people (why would it?). But it could certainly do things like say "we would encourage you to consider your position" if it found someone particularly inept * Such a community panel would not involve itself in internal things like bullying or harassment or benefit. Again, why would it? * Such a community panel would simply reflect systems of accountability that exist all over the world when you are talking about a public good. It is a select committee (UK) or a Congressional hearing (US). It is the ability to provide review where it is needed; accountability in a way that actually provides accountability, as opposed to the current approach of long processes, huge bills and ignored outcomes. Put another way: why doesn't the community already have such a review power? I would argue strongly that this approach would be easy to introduce - a few bylaws at most - be easy to argue in favor of, would fulfill the NTIA's suggestions to a tee, make sense to the wider world, strengthen ICANN overall, and come with very few downsides. I hope you will seriously consider this approach at your meetings in Paris over the next few days. Kieren On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 11:00 PM, Dr Eberhard W Lisse <epilisse@gmail.com> wrote:
Kieren,
I call and have called this a need for structural reform. Which does not mean we have to go into individual cases (constructive dismissals) but need to make sure this does not happen.
With regards to the security breaches, I did invite ICANN staff to present, from a purely technical perspective, about the incident before the previous Singapore meeting, in front of a very friendly audience at TechDay and they just declined, without giving any reasons.
I really would like to read the unredacted version myself, bu the way. Not necessarily getting an electronic copy, but that would be best.
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s
On Jul 16, 2015, at 03:45, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 3:21 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
[...]
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Hi, I don't think getting a set of people from the community involved would ultimately mean transparency in practice. I think reviewing the IRP processes in a manner that ensures it's activities are publicly logged(to the extent that they are legitimate) and available for follow-up by any member of the community may help. Each SO/AC could then decide to constitute their own committees that will follow such subject matter. Like within ALAC we currently have the iana-issue WG that's follows the IANA transition activities. Unfortunately, up until now .Africa issues (all the delays) was not seen as a global interest. The community orientations may also need to change if we really like to see transparency in action. Regards Sent from Google nexus 4 kindly excuse brevity and typos. On 16 Jul 2015 11:41 pm, "Kieren McCarthy" <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
So, follow my logic here:
* Who is ICANN corporate ultimately accountable to (according to everyone)? The ICANN/internet community
* What is the main stated goal of this accountability working group? To empower the community to increase the accountability around ICANN and its actions
* What is the big sticking point on most issues? The creation of a new group or a structural change.
Let's take the recent .Africa IRP as a good example of accountability. Because it is.
Here's what happened - simple facts:
* The ICANN Board did not do its job sufficiently well. It did not ask the GAC for an actual rationale. And DCA went through all ICANN's accountability mechanisms - twice with subsets of the Board failing to act "neutrally or fairly" - and was rejected each time, until there was an independent group that looked at the issue. The Board failed.
* The staff failed. Not accounting for the fact that it repeatedly argued that the IRP did not have the right to do what it did, the staff did not act neutrally and fairly. By their own admission, they intervened in favor of one party. And then they redacted that information from the final report, not even telling the Board that they had done so. The staff failed.
Now, who exactly are these two groups now accountable to? Who is able to get to the bottom of this, find out what went wrong and make sure lessons are learned?
The answer, of course, is no one. Themselves. And from the responses that both staff and Board have come out with today, they both clearly feel that they have done no wrong either. There is not even the suggestion that they hold a post-mortem or similar review.
We are not going to see the details of what happened. And it is in the clear interests of the two groups who were found lacking in fairness not to disclose that information (the staff has already demonstrated its willingness to delete information it doesn't want people to see).
And so we have the final accountability process deciding unanimously on something and nothing will change as a result of it.
Why? Because there is no mechanism right now for the community to do what it is supposed to do and hold the ICANN Board and staff accountable.
What's the solution?
I would argue it is the ability for the existing community to hold hearings in which they are able to compel information and witness testimony.
This requires no new structures - the groups and people already exist. It is built around empowering the community. It does not give the community any new powers beyond which ICANN already claims to offer (openness, transparency). And it provides for real accountability: asking questions and getting answers. It also costs far, far less.
I would also argue that a community group, rather than a new individual, such as an inspector general, is the right way forward.
If you create another new role with one individual in, you basically recreate the ombudsman role all over again. It adds costs. It means one individual is forced into an impossible position (because, let's be honest, we're not talking about an inspector general *with staff*).
And it opens the door to the exact same issues that have introduced fundamental flaws to all the other accountability mechanisms: ICANN's lawyers write the rules (and change them when they don't like them), the person is reliant on ICANN money; ICANN's staff will overload the individual with process and confidentiality claims.
But if you take the community - the people that follow this stuff every day - and you empower them to ask questions and compel the provision of information and witnesses. Well, then you have real accountability. And accountability that makes ICANN itself stronger.
And before people slip into the habit of imagining the worst possible assumption and using that strawman to knock down the idea:
* Such a community panel would not have the right to fire people (why would it?). But it could certainly do things like say "we would encourage you to consider your position" if it found someone particularly inept
* Such a community panel would not involve itself in internal things like bullying or harassment or benefit. Again, why would it?
* Such a community panel would simply reflect systems of accountability that exist all over the world when you are talking about a public good. It is a select committee (UK) or a Congressional hearing (US). It is the ability to provide review where it is needed; accountability in a way that actually provides accountability, as opposed to the current approach of long processes, huge bills and ignored outcomes.
Put another way: why doesn't the community already have such a review power?
I would argue strongly that this approach would be easy to introduce - a few bylaws at most - be easy to argue in favor of, would fulfill the NTIA's suggestions to a tee, make sense to the wider world, strengthen ICANN overall, and come with very few downsides.
I hope you will seriously consider this approach at your meetings in Paris over the next few days.
Kieren
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 11:00 PM, Dr Eberhard W Lisse <epilisse@gmail.com> wrote:
Kieren,
I call and have called this a need for structural reform. Which does not mean we have to go into individual cases (constructive dismissals) but need to make sure this does not happen.
With regards to the security breaches, I did invite ICANN staff to present, from a purely technical perspective, about the incident before the previous Singapore meeting, in front of a very friendly audience at TechDay and they just declined, without giving any reasons.
I really would like to read the unredacted version myself, bu the way. Not necessarily getting an electronic copy, but that would be best.
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s
On Jul 16, 2015, at 03:45, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 3:21 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote:
I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy
[...]
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
.Africa is not the issue. How Staff and the Board (and the GAC) behave(d) is the issue. And to make sure it doesn't happen again. Not so much what to do after it happens again. But any review mechanism, committee or otherwise needs muscle, ie directly enforced powers. Waffling in yet another Wg will not do anything other than generating a few plane tickets, hotel bills and per diems. el On 2015-07-17 06:17 , Seun Ojedeji wrote:
Hi,
I don't think getting a set of people from the community involved would ultimately mean transparency in practice.
I think reviewing the IRP processes in a manner that ensures it's activities are publicly logged(to the extent that they are legitimate) and available for follow-up by any member of the community may help.
Each SO/AC could then decide to constitute their own committees that will follow such subject matter. Like within ALAC we currently have the iana-issue WG that's follows the IANA transition activities.
Unfortunately, up until now .Africa issues (all the delays) was not seen as a global interest. The community orientations may also need to change if we really like to see transparency in action.
Regards [...]
Kieren, I have mo strong preference to the method I am only interested in the outcome. And while I most certainly would enjoy asking the questions how do we change ICANN so that they behave themselves instead of rocking up in front of a hearing? But in my profession we have what is called the Medical Council. Being hauled in front of them strikes the fear of god into any medical practitioner, whether eventually acquitted, suspended or struck off. If such a hearing panel had such muscle maybe staff would figure it into their future decision making, you are right in this. But, WTF, we already have the Board, which has these powers. And if they stopped hiring CEOs for their looks and sales skills but rather put someone in who can reign in the well paid staff much less of this would be required. But, the way this goes our Co-Chairs show no interest in anything but ramming something through to make the deadline, no matter how bad. I am quite sure that the chartering organizations will not all support the CCWG proposal, whatever it will be, eventually, with consensus, however. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s
On Jul 17, 2015, at 00:40, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
So, follow my logic here:
* Who is ICANN corporate ultimately accountable to (according to everyone)? The ICANN/internet community
* What is the main stated goal of this accountability working group? To empower the community to increase the accountability around ICANN and its actions
* What is the big sticking point on most issues? The creation of a new group or a structural change.
Let's take the recent .Africa IRP as a good example of accountability. Because it is.
Here's what happened - simple facts:
* The ICANN Board did not do its job sufficiently well. It did not ask the GAC for an actual rationale. And DCA went through all ICANN's accountability mechanisms - twice with subsets of the Board failing to act "neutrally or fairly" - and was rejected each time, until there was an independent group that looked at the issue. The Board failed.
* The staff failed. Not accounting for the fact that it repeatedly argued that the IRP did not have the right to do what it did, the staff did not act neutrally and fairly. By their own admission, they intervened in favor of one party. And then they redacted that information from the final report, not even telling the Board that they had done so. The staff failed.
Now, who exactly are these two groups now accountable to? Who is able to get to the bottom of this, find out what went wrong and make sure lessons are learned?
The answer, of course, is no one. Themselves. And from the responses that both staff and Board have come out with today, they both clearly feel that they have done no wrong either. There is not even the suggestion that they hold a post-mortem or similar review.
We are not going to see the details of what happened. And it is in the clear interests of the two groups who were found lacking in fairness not to disclose that information (the staff has already demonstrated its willingness to delete information it doesn't want people to see).
And so we have the final accountability process deciding unanimously on something and nothing will change as a result of it.
Why? Because there is no mechanism right now for the community to do what it is supposed to do and hold the ICANN Board and staff accountable.
What's the solution?
I would argue it is the ability for the existing community to hold hearings in which they are able to compel information and witness testimony.
This requires no new structures - the groups and people already exist. It is built around empowering the community. It does not give the community any new powers beyond which ICANN already claims to offer (openness, transparency). And it provides for real accountability: asking questions and getting answers. It also costs far, far less.
I would also argue that a community group, rather than a new individual, such as an inspector general, is the right way forward.
If you create another new role with one individual in, you basically recreate the ombudsman role all over again. It adds costs. It means one individual is forced into an impossible position (because, let's be honest, we're not talking about an inspector general *with staff*).
And it opens the door to the exact same issues that have introduced fundamental flaws to all the other accountability mechanisms: ICANN's lawyers write the rules (and change them when they don't like them), the person is reliant on ICANN money; ICANN's staff will overload the individual with process and confidentiality claims.
But if you take the community - the people that follow this stuff every day - and you empower them to ask questions and compel the provision of information and witnesses. Well, then you have real accountability. And accountability that makes ICANN itself stronger.
And before people slip into the habit of imagining the worst possible assumption and using that strawman to knock down the idea:
* Such a community panel would not have the right to fire people (why would it?). But it could certainly do things like say "we would encourage you to consider your position" if it found someone particularly inept
* Such a community panel would not involve itself in internal things like bullying or harassment or benefit. Again, why would it?
* Such a community panel would simply reflect systems of accountability that exist all over the world when you are talking about a public good. It is a select committee (UK) or a Congressional hearing (US). It is the ability to provide review where it is needed; accountability in a way that actually provides accountability, as opposed to the current approach of long processes, huge bills and ignored outcomes.
Put another way: why doesn't the community already have such a review power?
I would argue strongly that this approach would be easy to introduce - a few bylaws at most - be easy to argue in favor of, would fulfill the NTIA's suggestions to a tee, make sense to the wider world, strengthen ICANN overall, and come with very few downsides.
I hope you will seriously consider this approach at your meetings in Paris over the next few days.
Kieren
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 11:00 PM, Dr Eberhard W Lisse <epilisse@gmail.com> wrote: Kieren,
I call and have called this a need for structural reform. Which does not mean we have to go into individual cases (constructive dismissals) but need to make sure this does not happen.
With regards to the security breaches, I did invite ICANN staff to present, from a purely technical perspective, about the incident before the previous Singapore meeting, in front of a very friendly audience at TechDay and they just declined, without giving any reasons.
I really would like to read the unredacted version myself, bu the way. Not necessarily getting an electronic copy, but that would be best.
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s
On Jul 16, 2015, at 03:45, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
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
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 3:21 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com> wrote: I am also reviewing the unredacted report, and share the concerns of many expressed here. That said, I also do not want to go down a path where the Community inserts itself in to the Staff chain of authority, or starts to micro-manage personnel issues.
There are other ways to implement Staff Accountability, and I hope we can have a comprehensive discussion of these in Paris.
Safe travels to all who are en route. See you there.
Thank you,
J. ____________ James Bladel GoDaddy [...]
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Dear Chairs,
On 17 Jul 2015, at 00:40, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com> wrote:
I would argue it is the ability for the existing community to hold hearings in which they are able to compel information and witness testimony.
Will this idea be considered, or is it deemed too late? When would be an appropriate moment on the agenda to raise it for consideration? If we are still open to considering emerging issues, I would also ask that we add Larry Strickling's suggestion that we add text to the Bylaws saying that the only role of the Board in approving a decision is to certify that a community consensus has been reached. (I'm not clear whether Mr Strickling was referring only to the development of gTLD policy or decisions more broadly, but that can be examined if the suggestion is considered). Malcolm
participants (16)
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Avri Doria -
Carlos Raul Gutierrez -
Chris Disspain -
David Cake -
Dr Eberhard W Lisse -
Dr Eberhard W Lisse -
Greg Shatan -
James M. Bladel -
Jeff Neuman -
Jordan Carter -
Kieren McCarthy -
Malcolm Hutty -
Nigel Roberts -
Phil Corwin -
Seun Ojedeji -
Stephanie Perrin