I don't think David is speaking of educating the mass of the general public on the details.  As Evan notes, that's not necessary, even if it were feasible. 

But what is both possible and necessary is to educate those writing the law.  At a high level, the members of the legislature.  In detail, the members of their staffs who do the research and drafting that go in to the bill.  And advise their various members who were not involved in the drafting process on whether to support it. 

Granted, some few of them may already be aware (for good or ill).  But most of them probably are not. The latter are the ones we can, and should, be reaching out to as advocates for users of the Internet. 

Bill Jouris 

Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer

On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 9:42 AM, Evan Leibovitch via NA-Discuss
<na-discuss@icann.org> wrote:
On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 10:18 AM David Mackey via NA-Discuss <na-discuss@icann.org> wrote:
 
When I walk down the street of my hometown in Stratford, the people I pass have no clue of the importance of the DNS system and policy.

Sure, but you could say the same thing about any significant public infrastructure.
Replace "the DNS" with "sewage", "electrical grid", "produce supply chain", "postal mail", "housing swans during the winter", "flood management", etc in the above sentence and it still holds true.
Such underlying systems are generally ignored by the public until something goes catastrophically wrong, which is why "US air traffic control" wouldn't apply in this context anymore.

Ivory tower conversations held in rarified air are meaningless to them without being educated. 

I challenge the assertion that most people *need* to be educated in the DNS, anymore than they need to be educated on how water comes to their home -- clean and in sufficient pressure to come out the tap. Generally speaking, the public just trusts that enough expertise exists in these fields to keep all this infrastructure working well enough that it *doesn't* need to be thought about. And if such expertise occasionally takes the form of "ivory tower conversations held in rarified air", the public generally doesn't care so long as the result works well enough to remain invisible.

- Evan

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