Bill, I'm surprised by this note. You wrote:
I exchanged a number of messages with Beau, Alan and the NCUC in March- June trying to encourage cooperation on the registrants' rights charter, and I wrote to you saying please get involved and help take a lead if you have issues---no response. And after you flamed us for voting in MC to allow the process to move forward and then other stuff happened around the charter, it became hard to get anyone interested. I don't know all the history, but apparently there are people who would rather hari kari than try to work with you. I don't think that's an indictment of NCUC.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the RAA work seems to have come full circle, and I now find myself asked to co-chair another RAA working group, half of which is supposed to write up the registrants' rights charter, the other half, with Steve Metalitz chair, to talk content and amendments. When asked, I sort of scratched my head, as I thought that was all done and the NCUC/NCSG and its hundreds of international organizations representing la creme du societe civile had stepped up to do it, but apparently they have done absolutely rien de tout, or Jacques du Merde, since I dropped the ball in March -- as Milton, Robin, and, sigh, now you, repeatedly remind the public. If I am wrong about this, please point me to the definitive body of work the steadily swelling, enlightened ranks of Kansalaisjärjestöjen has left in its wake, so it may enlighten me as I go forward to carry the dropped torch. Danny is correct when he points out there is not a single representative of Shoqërisë Civile on either of the current groups, to my knowledge, though there are representatives from the contracted parties. Actually, on the registrants' rights document group there is not a single representative other than me. We are supposed to generate results 30 days after Seoul, so there's lots of work to do. Most of what I am using is based, by the way, on what ALAC did (with Danny's leading contribution) more than two years ago, along with what AUDA (an industry group) did five years ago (http://www.auda.org.au/policies/auda-2004-04/). Perhaps the PhD-exclusive GigaNet think tank (I caught your presentation at the OECD meeting in Seoul a year or so ago, where you and I first met) would like to dispatch a handful of PhDs to give us some recommendations on this important matter of Internet governance? Or the NCUC might be able to contribute one or two lawyers? I am neither. The Internet user community needs your help. You also wrote:
I don't know all the history, but apparently there are people who would rather hari kari than try to work with you [Danny].<
Danny has been bitingly critical of ALAC, and there have been many occasions when I have taken his comments personally and walked away from the keyboard in anger. However, in my three years' experience, he usually refrains from personal attacks, and usually strives to be factually accurate, at least in his ALAC criticisms. He's also a volunteer with a full-time job that's not paid through some sort of professional internet governance concern, which is to say, like most people who use the Internet. This part of your note is alarmingly personal, reminiscent of the tactics of NCUC leadership over the last six months, and I'm disappointed to see it. -----Original Message-----
From: William Drake Sent: Oct 22, 2009 3:58 AM To: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] "placeholder" reps not placeholders?
On Oct 21, 2009, at 8:22 PM, Danny Younger wrote:
Hello Bill,
Hi, thanks for your note. We've never met and or even directly communicated for more than a sentence or two, so I welcome the opportunity to respond to your concerns.
Re: "We think hard wiring will result in fragmentation within self- regarding silos, with people treating the NCSG as a mere shell within which they can pursue their stand alone agendas rather than feeling an incentive to work with the broader civil society community."
There are several of us that regard the NCUC as a stand-alone silo focused solely on the privacy/freedom-of-expression agenda to the exclusion of all other topics.
Yes, I've learned that there are several folks who insist on holding to this view.
We have pointed to the oft-repeated failure of the NCUC to stand up for the registrant interest -- the failure to offer any recommendations whatsoever regarding the RAA amendments, and the failure to even join the working groups convened to deal with the matter.
I exchanged a number of messages with Beau, Alan and the NCUC in March- June trying to encourage cooperation on the registrants' rights charter, and I wrote to you saying please get involved and help take a lead if you have issues---no response. And after you flamed us for voting in MC to allow the process to move forward and then other stuff happened around the charter, it became hard to get anyone interested. I don't know all the history, but apparently there are people who would rather hari kari than try to work with you. I don't think that's an indictment of NCUC.
The NCUC clearly is not prepared to work with the broader civil society community on matters that concern the rest of us.
NCUC is a broad CS community, and it works with other broad CS communities, which is why the Internet Governance Caucus, the OECD CSISAC and others have supported us on the charter etc. And I and others in NCUC have made it clear we'd like to work with ALAC, which is why I'm trying to arrange a meeting. So in a word, bullshit.
I get the impression that you view the non-commercial world as some sort of homogeneous whole where people don't disagree on matters such as privacy -- on this point you are clearly mistaken.
And I get the impression that you don't know the first thing about what I think. I fully understand there are differences of view at every level, including within NCUC.
Many of us view your approach to privacy as a tool that further enables cybercriminality.
What do you know about my approach to privacy? And who are the many, why aren't they shouting at me too?
While your group favors proxy registrations, some of us stand vehemently opposed to the concept... so why should our ability to secure our own representatives necessarily be tied into whether your contingent agrees with our views?
Yes, I'm told NCUC has taken that stand in the past. That doesn't prevent people with other views standing for council seats in a democratic election and trying to persuade people who have different views. And if even if such persuasion fails, that doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't get elected. People are normally able to agree on some things and disagree on others, just as they do now not only in NCUC, but within our council delegation. You seem to think that NCUC's 80 organizational and 89 individual members all think exactly the same on every point and take a Leninist view of all disagreement. Talk about fantasies of homogeneity!
The process that you have proposed is nothing short of a veiled attempt at capture.
The process I propose is democratic elections. You've made it abundantly clear that you don't want to subject yourself to the indignity of having to run and persuade people to support you, and that ICANN is therefore obliged to award you a birthright council seat in perpetuity from which you don't have to cooperate or even speak civilly to anyone else. Happily, the SIC appears to have come around to recognizing that this may not be a good basis upon which to design a structure everyone else has to live with.
Nice to meet you, BTW.
Bill
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