John: One of the technical measures used in the the region to implement censorship of websites - is via blocking and/or poisoning the DNS. Thus, the discussion is - i believe - is inside ICANN's scope. Furthermore, I have also called for outreach efforts that can be planned well ahead of the fall meeting to inform internet users about ICANN, and see they can participate in our discussions. That too, i believe is well inside ALAC's scope and mission regards Robert On 25-May-08, at 4:22 PM, John Levine wrote:
4a. The role of the At-Large Advisory Committee ("ALAC") shall be to consider and provide advice on the activities of ICANN, insofar as they relate to the interests of individual Internet users.
- Individual internet users in Egypt are active online (see refs below).
Individual Internet users do all sorts of stuff. By this logic, we should be lobbying in favor of clean drinking water and sanitary sewers, too. There are all sorts of things that are virtuous and important, but outside ICANN's scope.
ICANN's remit is really quite narrow: DNS, IP allocation, and minor IANA registry management. It makes sense to do what we can to encourage and enable individuals from north Africa and west Asia to participate at the meeting, but beyond that, we're off in the weeds.
R's, John