FYI ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Stephen Deerhake @ ASNIC <sdeerhake@nic.as> Date: Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 09:07 Subject: My post to the Council list regarding the Board's continued inaction with regards to their obligations under Annex B, Sections 15(a) and 15(b) To: Alejandra Reynoso Barral <alejandra.reynoso@gmail.com> 20.12.2024 Greetings Alejandra, I have no illusion that you are likely extremely upset with my last post to the Council list regarding the continued fiddling about on the part of the Board’s Bylaws mandated action (either vote “Yes” or “No”) with respect to the Review Mechanism. I wrote that primarily to Becky Burr, whom I’ve known for 20 years or so, and who has always been a champion of the ccTLD Community and whom I have always have had the utmost respect for, and secondarily to Jordan Carter, who was more heavily involved in the Transition CCWG efforts than I was, although as I pointed out in my correspondence, I was there for those seminal negotiations in Santa Monica back in the day. On a lesser level, I also wrote that as an educational effort for our Council’s NomCom members, who have zero institutional knowledge and are really, at the end of the day, completely clueless. As upset as you may be, I stand by what I wrote. It’s not, in my view, within the Bylaws for the Board to continue to sit on its ass. Annex B Sections 15(a) and(b) are to me pretty clear. What the Board’s continued inaction to me also exposes a more sinister issue: The corruption (for lack of a better word) between ICANN and Jones, Day as their external counsel. Do you know who ICANN’s first hire was? It was Louis Touton. Employee #1. Where did he come from? Jones, Day. And ICANN and Jones Day have been in bed together ever since. Twenty five years on, this is not heathy to say the least. My understanding from my reliable sources is that at least one of the Board candidates who are running within the gNSO sphere to replace Becky are running (as part of their over-all platform) for the termination of Jones, Day as ICANN’s external legal counsel, as well as the termination of John Jeffery as ICANN’s internal legal counsel. Personally, if I had a vote in that SO Community, I’d be voting for one of these candidates advocating a shake up in the legal personnel representing ICANN, both externally and internally. I do not think that at this point they are serving the ICANN Community appropriately, instead building walls between the Multi-stakeholder community, which is the bedrock of ICANN, and ICANN Org., to protect the latter from the wishes of the former. To date, I have been managing to restrain some of the more upset members of the PDP-3 WG from breaking from the Council’s agreed to negotiation process with the ICANN Board. I can no longer restrain them. ICANN will likely be seeing an IRP request over the Board’s continued inaction. Additionally, it is not out of the realm of possibility that ICANN will find itself in Federal Court in Los Angeles over this issue. These WG members are both really upset with the Board’s continued inaction, and possess deep pockets to execute their frustration within the US Judicial process. Best Regards, //Stephen