In this letter, I find myself unable to decode the meaning of this passage, and am asking Heather and/or other GAC members to clarify: "Your proposal that governments should also contribute as appropriate at the operational community working level is helpful and has been conveyed to the GAC. At this stage it would appear that the GAC and individual governments and inter-governmental organisations can best contribute at this level through the community process for domain name issues." In this statement, does "this level" mean the ICG level? Or does the statement that "governments and inter-governmental organisations can best contribute at this level through the community process for domain name issues" mean that GAC is agreeing with our suggestion that they contribute to the the operational community working level? I can't tell for sure from this statement, but I fear it is the former. If so, are GAC members are telling us that they are unable or unwilling to participate in the actual proposal development process in the operational communities? If so, do they fully understand that the substantive proposals will actually come from that lower level, not from the ICG, and that neither GACs nor governments as actors will be able to second-guess, veto or otherwise modify or intervene substantively in the incoming proposals from the ICG? Milton L Mueller Laura J and L. Douglas Meredith Professor Syracuse University School of Information Studies http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/ From: internal-cg-bounces@icann.org [mailto:internal-cg-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Patrik Fältström Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2014 4:41 AM To: Alissa Cooper Cc: ICG Subject: Re: [Internal-cg] FW: GAC Participation in ICG FWIW, I created a folder in Dropbox named "communication" where I saved this letter. Patrik On 19 aug 2014, at 05:18, Alissa Cooper <alissa@cooperw.in<mailto:alissa@cooperw.in>> wrote: On 8/18/14, 7:33 PM, "Tom Dale" <tom@acig.com.au<mailto:tom@acig.com.au>> wrote: Dear Alissa On behalf of the GAC Chair, please find attached a reply to the ICG's correspondence of 18 July 2014. Regards Tom Dale ACIG GAC Secretariat ACIG - Australian Continuous Improvement Group evaluate :: improve :: innovate Cell: + 61 418 207 376 tom@acig.com.au<mailto:michelle@acig.com.au> www.acig.com.au<http://www.acig.com.au/> ACIG is an independent consulting firm engaged to provide secretariat support to ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee. <GAC ICG ReplyFINAL.docx>_______________________________________________ Internal-cg mailing list Internal-cg@icann.org<mailto:Internal-cg@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-cg