Hi Jean, I recall from Sao Paolo meeting Susan Crawford was chairing a meetings committee. Am not sure where that's at now. http:// www.icann.org/committees/meetings/ On 11-Jul-07, at 8:32 AM, Jean Armour Polly wrote:

You know, one thing that always bothers me about ICANN is that attendees pay nothing to get in. I don't mean people on committees but I mean people just off the street. Anyone can walkin and get the goody bag and get the free party ticket. What are ICANN's costs in giving the meeting-- and how much is covered by sponsorships, such as transportation in the host city, the lavish party given in the middle of the week, coffee breaks, etc. I know some of it is sponsored, maybe even most of it, but what is ICANN's cost? I have heard host cities suggest that ICANN bear more of the burden of putting on one of these meetings, in particular the massive wireless network and connectivity. If ICANN did take more of this on, perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to find a host city. But also, shouldn't attendees pay something? And considering that ICANN still has issues arranging logistics and travel for participants, problems in scheduling meetings, etc-- has one meeting per year been seriously considered instead of three? JP

At 11:17 AM -0700 7/10/07, Bret Fausett recently said:

...

I would like to ensure that every accredited ALS from North America is able to have at least one representative travel to and participate in the next North American ICANN meeting, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles in October-November of this year. Travel dates and locations are on the official ICANN meeting page here:

http://losangeles2007.icann.org/

If we start now, I believe we can accomplish this with a combination of ICANN support and sponsorships/fellowships funded from outside of ICANN.

My estimate on cost is that $2000/per person ought to cover travel and lodging from most places in North America to Los Angeles. Beau, Robert, and Alan are fully funded by virtue of their seats on the ALAC. And I live here in Los Angeles, so I don't need funding!

If you, or someone from your organization, (a) would like to participate in person in the Los Angeles meetings, and (b) your in person participation would be possible only if you received a $2000 stipend to cover travel and lodging, please contact me off list at the email address from which I sent this (bfausett /-*/@/*-/ internet.law.pro), and I will put you on the list for a NARALO sponsorship.

-- Bret Fausett

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Hey Dharma, Whew. My answer to you is so long that it resembles a blog entry rather than just a list email. Hmm...

*Regarding budget. *In a just world funding should go to increase participation to those who wouldn't be able to participate otherwise. I am guessing that is the rationale for why ALSs are funded to participate. I'm not clear what the difference is between the NCUC and the ALAC membership, but I am very clear that there are a number of differences between large funded NGOs and mom and pop volunteer organizations. My own theory is that At-Large is seen within ICANN -- at least at this point in time -- as a kind of charity case. By that I mean that ICANN spends money to create a grassroots community -- or, at least, as close as it can get to one -- in an genuine attempt to "do good", by getting the feel of the public (that is, the portion of the public that cares about its issues). The people who created it probably have had good intentions, but appear to be hunting in the dark for the right way to do things (why would ALAC be subject to a complete review so soon after its very inception?)

We're an experiment, so far as I can tell -- ICANN has correctly determined that the academics and large civil society orgs that make up NCUC aren't really that grassroots, though it's highly likely that At-Large's POV is close to that of NCUC than of any other major constituency. I'm certain that we're a controversial experiment, as there are many vested interests who see ICANN spending its/their money to develop a constituency that, if successful, will aggressively challenge their lobbying. What makes At-Large different from other constituencies is the money. All other constituencies are _expected_ to have vested interests and/or are part of organizations large enough to fund their people. Even in NCUC, its academics and union leaders are on salary; this kind of advocacy and research is part of their job description. Not mine. The theory of At-Large-as-charitable-experiment helps explain the paternalistic attitude of ICANN towards us -- in the decision-making process (advisory only, no votes at the Board or NSO level), in budgeting (ICANN staff offer a fairly thick buffer between the money allocated to at-large and the people spending it), even in organizational issues -- that so often infuriates us. ICANN is watching us, looking to see whether we deserve more control of our finances, votes on the Board, etc. There are some hoping we succeed and others who hope we fail. I am sure there are also those who hope we'll spend so much time on internal squabbling and adminstrivia that we just spin our wheels, meeting regularly and talking a lot, but neglecting the collective voice ICANN has paid to develop. But one thing's for certain, we _are_ under a microscope.

Reality is, there are more burning problems in the world than IPv6 transition and truth be told there may be better places for that money to go. And yet here we all are, instead of at a food bank or Habitat for Humanity or some other cause. This is where we, for whatever reasons, choose to put in time and effort on issues of freedom of expression, accessibility of technology and similar issues.

There are many examples of great things being achieved with careful use of limited resources. For example, the people who got the laws changed on low power community radio in the states: a typical conference for them would be held in a church - free space, meals provided by donation and volunteers- free food, and many people sleeping in the church or as guests in local volunteers homes - free housing. We have made a dent in policy in a way that is unconventional by conventional political wisdom, but is tried and true practice for grassroots organizers. This may be true in many instances, but I suggest that ICANN's particular kind of grassroots is more expensive because it is ICANN, not the community, that is driving this effort. So far the exansion has all been top-down -- I wouldn't be here if not for Jacob's active outreach efforts, and we (on ICANN's dime) are already planning further outreach activities. Let's face it, ICANN issues don't generate the same passion as environmental or poverty issues, for example. How many orgs would become ALSs if ICANN (and we as ICANN surrogates using its money) didn't do active outreach?

My rationale for taking a poll on the list of who wants to go to LA and who doesn't was for the very purpose of coming up with a hard cost figure for what it would take for us to have a face to face meeting in LA. This hard cost figure is bound to be a fraction of 2000 per person That depends on a number of factors. I've planned conferences before, and continental logistics can be a bugger. Even the sleep-in-Bret's-home scenario suggested for LA would have substantial expense.

They say that time is money, but they are wrong. Well "they" is "me", because I say that.

I don't know about others here, but my time DOES have value. Since I'm not on salary, when I'm doing ICANN work I'm not paying my mortgage or saving for new furniture. I take a measurable financial hit from my work here. And you can assert all day that I'm wrong, but I can prove otherwise. Personally, I feel bad for those who do not adequately value their time.

This is no small task. How many of you would go to a workshop on engineering standards for municipal water systems or public land management? Funny, just last night I attended a advisory council meeting called by the City of Toronto related to the review of part of its Official Plan -- public land management, sustainable environment, paths for bicycle commuters and storm sewage run-off plans, all that stuff. (I'm founder and president of my local ratepayers association.) Even within CLUE, ICANN issues are but a small part of our work. I don't assume that anyone here is single-minded on Internet Governance issues, or even technology issues. As community activists it's likely that many here serve multiple roles.

Most people have /*other things on their minds.* /They don't have time to take up every single conceivable good cause that might be lurking behind a mountain of technobabble bureaucratisms. Exactly. Some people fight for affordable housing, some fight for the right to have .xxx -- what does that have to do with funding in-person meetings?

To my mind, the ICANN policy of not facilitating participation from ALSs in all ICANN meetings that are within that ALSs region is, as my grandmother would say, "penny wise and pound foolish." There is a huge educational opportunity for people to learn about internet governance when 600 people pop into their town who all happen to know more about the internet than god. Careful -- this particular logic works AGAINST needing to bring all the existing ALSs to ICANN meetings just to do recruitment. If all these other resources -- those 600 people -- are already in town on their own dimes, why does ICANN need to pay for a few dozen more?

I suspect there is currently no policy for or against "facilitating participation from ALSs in all ICANN meetings", but there is probably is a policy of not spending money without specific purpose. It's up to us -- as existing stakeholders -- to guide the policy regarding ongoing ALS involvement in ICANN meetings in a way that maximizes participation while keeping costs sane.

ALSs have signed an agreement to get greater participation from the public in the ICANN process. Disinclining ALSs from attending ICANN meetings is cutting them off 1) from their ability to learn what they need to know to do fulfill their mandate, 2) cutting them off from their best opportunity to create timely public events, timely press, and so forth that take advantage of the greater ICANN community being in a given locale and 3) the ability to move things forward that can only be moved forward in person.

ICANN has invested heavily in electronic meeting techniques -- Wikis. CMSs, CRMs, mailing lists, conference calls. In-person meetings are only ONE -- and by far the most expensive -- form of group communications. The trade show industry is in steep decline because of the Internet, and home offices are on the rise. Many communications tasks simply don't REQUIRE face-to-face meetings as much as they used to. The number of things that can "only be moved forward in person" is not really that high -- IMO in-person meetings are most useful at the end of a process that has had plenty of preparation using other methods. Face-to-face meetings are just one part of an overall communications strategy -- while their need should not be under-emphasized, we do no service to anyone by over-emphasizing it either. We don't want to disenfranchise people who, because of their own time or other constraints, can't make in-person meetings. Even if ICANN pays travel, there are still many who can't attend in-person meetings. (Wasn't there one existing ALS that needed more than one year's notice to attend?) We need to accommodate all forms of communications, and never totally be dependent on a single mode. Take a look. We've held productive meetings and held well-run votes online. Right now the issue of Spanish language inclusion is open for debate, and most certainly does not need an in-person meeting to resolve. Don't underestimate how much can be done virtually. In any case, if a group's overall communications are dysfunctional, in-person meetings won't solve the problem -- they may even exacerbate the problems, as witnessed by the confrontation between Jaqueline and Robert and ALAC (which could never have happened, in quite that way, by email or on a wiki). Sometime there's value in being judged purely on the quality of one's words, regardless of who says them or how they're said -- and email is a _better_ place for such dispassion. I've been involved with many groups that meet in person less than once a year, and we still manage to get things done. It all depends on how things are handled. If the RALO expands as much as we'd like it will simply be impractical to bring them all together more than once a year. Of course it helps to know what the budget is, and the lack of transparency in that regard is mind-boggling. One of the things I'm hoping to do with the Summit idea is to develop a template and schedule for ongoing Summits, both global and regional -- assuming the first one is a success :-). There needs to be defined purpose when justifying the expense of bringing ALSs together -- arguing for agenda-light in-person meetings for their own sake will simply entrench ICANN's paternalism and feed the arguments of those who say At-Large -- in concept -- is a waste of money.

However, even if ICANN doesn't see the value of picking up the tab on a cheap date, I see a bigger common interest among the NA RALO folks. Our common thread is that we are all interested in more communication for more people AND we all believe that the structure of a communication platform affects what is conveyed. (Is that bland and generic to cover all 16 of our interests?) In addition, we are working under similar constraints and similar opportunities in terms of broader policy and economics. (US and Canadian telecomm policy, BB policy, etc.) One other issue regarding the establishment of trust within ICANN is staying focused on ICANN issues. While At-Large is vital in bringing the points of view of a diverse range of communities to ICANN, it does not exist to further debate those other agendas. It is a reasonable assumption that the various ALSs had their own primary focii before becoming ALSs (in CLUE's case, open source advocacy) and it is not ICANN's task to support or fund development of policies or initiatives not directly related to Internet namespace and IP numbers. It's reasonable that we ought to give ICANN what it wants from us -- credible, sound and timely input on its own core issues -- before we assume the justification to broaden our mandate unilaterally.

We built trust when we met face to face. Long before we met face to face I had an idea from the mailing list of who had good ideas and who was just getting in the way. There are some that didn't make it to San Juan, and I can still determine trust levels in them based on what they say.

Face to face meetings build on that trust by humanizing the people behind the email addresses, but don't discount the value of conference calls and other forms of communication which also allow people demonstrate personality and character.

But we only began to pose the questions of what we might do together. The whole process is a beginning, of building trust and credibility both amongst ourselves, and within ICANN. I am dismayed that the trivial obsessions of ALAC are serving the interests of those who want At-Large to be seen but not heard. It is up to us (and like-minded folks within At-Large -- NARALO does not have a monopoly on people with the larger vision) to make it happen, even if that means supporting efforts to disintegrate ALAC and build it up again from scratch.

(Or maybe... consider an At-Large without an ALAC at all!) Still, we already started to come up with some answers. The LA recruitment meeting and the Summit were two excellent and concrete projects to come out of our discussions. With the help of Danny, John, Jean and others who were not even in San Juan, we have a historical perspective on ICANN actions, and the ability to make real contributions on policy such as WHOIS anonymity. The onus is on us to turn their legitimate cynicism into concrete policy and constructive action.

To my mind the next step down that road is to do that work of translating what the value is- and where the value is- in people getting involved in internet governance. I would just interject to remind that ICANN's mandate is just a small corner of the whole realm of Internet governance. It's impractical -- and likely self-defeating -- to expect ICANN to do things it was not designed to do, such as govern content or impose IP regulations beyond conventional law. In fact, one of my personal goals here is to help prevent the IP lobby from turning ICANN into an ad-hoc trademark treaty organization. The Summit, outreach and other internal activities are tactics but the end goal is making a smarter, focused and more-accountable ICANN. Outreach meetings and the summit etc are the means, not the end.

I believe that the people who are currently involved in NA RALO are as good a cross section as we're likely to get involved in internet governance issues in North America at this stage. Well, for better or worse this *is* what we have at this stage. :-)

What I had in mind was that we would all “work our way” to the next ICANN meeting by all taking on a public outreach role. No, not "all".

There are enough resources within our group that not everyone needs to be focused on outreach. There are simply too many other things to do related to education (of the people already here!) and policy. I will personally not be very involved in outreach beyond my own local constituencies in the short term. My own interests are in making the Summit work, and I simply don't have enough cycles to do justice to that massive task as well as other initiatives. I trust and support the people working on strategic outreach and hope they support those who work on the summit, but there are enough issues -- and enough people -- to go round that everyone doesn't have to work on everything at the same time. If my Summit work justifies my expenses covered to go to LA, then so be it -- if not, that's OK too. Likewise, the people directly involved in presenting at the outreach meeting need to go but others don't -- UNLESS there's a specific agenda that requires in-person action, related to policy or projects. And that agenda simply does not exist yet. Going purely for the social element -- and to attend the ICANN workshops -- is nice, but doesn't in itself justify our attendance at two ICANN meetings in a row.

Paraphrasing Pascal: I would have made this letter shorter, but I didn’t have the time.

My recollection of the quote was from Mark Twain: "if I had more time I would have written less". - Evan

Hello Vittorio,

Just a technical note - all ICANN structures are subject to review every three years (for example, the GNSO was reviewed last year, and this year, in parallel to the ALAC review, the Nomcom is being reviewed, and the Board will be up for review soon). This was foreseen in the Bylaws as a way to facilitate continue evolution of the structures, and prevent ossification. Yes, but ALAC has only been in full operation (ie, all RALOs operating and sending elected representatives) for two weeks. This is not a three-year review, this is a six-month review at best.

Having said that, I am not altogether upset with the timing given what I have seen with the current operation of ALAC ;-).

I'm quite sure that we wouldn't even have got the significant increase in funding, attention and importance that we've had in the last two or three years, if the hard work and credibility of the people in the ALAC hadn't been complemented by a some external factors, and particularly by the attempted "competition" by the ITU and by other United Nations processes that challenged the role of ICANN, forcing ICANN to increase its commitment to the public interest and to broader accountability, to rank better on the international scene.

There are people on this list (you know who you are) who have experienced ICANN at its opaque worst, who believe that the whole ALAC process is a publicity stunt to appease the pressures you mention above. I certainly realize, as I mentioned before, many parts of ICANN wish that At-Large is "seen but not heard". That is, in their perfect world they benefit from the appearance of a public process without actually needing to listen to it. While I have often taken issue with the cynicism and defeatism in the way such issues have expressed on this list, the core of their argument has not been lost by us newcomers. (I certainly hope that was the impression Wendy took away from San Juan). Our challenge is to exploit the external pressures and whatever good intentions actually exist, so that ICANN cannot just throw money at us but otherwise ignore what we have to say. The first step, of course, is having something of value to say. ALAC's obsessing over issues such as "how to appoint the chair" or how much to restrict ALS requirements are impediments and distractions from the most important work. Even our own debates on "enfranchising the individual participant" have taken on this characteristic, even though most people here are sympathetic. My greatest fear is that ALAC will get too comfortable with its existing level of influence obsessing with internal matters but producing little of its real mandate. Doing so will render it to no more than an agent of those who want to keep us silent. Busy and well funded, to be sure, but silent nonetheless. Somehow I am quite confident that we will not allow that silence to happen. :-) - Evan

Dharma Dailey wrote:

Yes maybe we can add value to ICANN's policy development process, but will putting time-energy into that yield more than putting energy into other areas? Think .us, for example.

Yes, let's think .us. As it turns out, we have someone in our midst (Danny) who is very familiar with the issue and has alerted us on the danger of what's happening -- for which I am thankful. (Why didn't ICANN staff alert us of this issue?) So... what do we do with this information? Obviously there was little we can do in advance of the US government RFP, and little we can do nowto change its wording. HOWEVER, there is an opportunity here for us to voice our opposition to the anti-Internet-consumer components of the RFP, and to explain how this RFP goes against existing ICANN policy and against the delicate balance between privacy and accountability that we must all deal with. Doing SOMETHING -- even a brief-but-direct open letter to CCNSO endorsed by NARALO and (hopefully, but not required) the ALAC -- would at least indicate that we have something of value to say about the issue. It will at least let others in the community know that we are prepared to expose efforts within the TLD community aimed to repress rights or freedoms of Internet consumers in favour of other constituencies. The efforts we have suggested so far -- LA-meeting outreach, the Summit -- are important to the long-term growth and vitality of the At-Large constituency, but they're still mere tactics to increase our breadth and diversity. The primary purpose for our existence here is to assert the presence of the At-Large community while keeping that community informed of what's going on. And that includes the sounding of alarm bells when necessary.

Even in terms of what's useful to do within ICANN, it seems that there is very little consensus. I humbly disagree. We came away from San Juan with an explicit vision and priorities list. What wasn't yet settled was "who does what", but the spreadsheet Darlene created on the second-last day was explicit and most certainly the result of consensus. We even had a set of next steps developed.

The reason everyone is sweating the small stuff, in my opinion, is because ICANN is not clear what our purpose is and neither are we. One side or the other has to square that up. Hmm. Maybe we could create a document that outlines explicitly, for ICANN and the ALSs, what role they are expected to play and what each sides' responsibilities are. Maybe, after thrashing out the details amongst ourselves and with ICANN legal, we could all get together and, along with Vint, sign this document at an ICANN meeting.

Oh, wait a minute.... As far as I can tell we are fairly clear on purpose -- we exist to advocate the interests and values of the Internet-using public within ICANN, and to educate the public in ICANN activities and their effect on open and useful use of the Internet. Everything we do -- outreach, summits, position papers, advocacy -- is a tactic borne from this purpose. If there is something incorrect with the above statement, please say so. Maybe others would state it differently, but I'm not aware that there's any real divergence from the above sentiment amongst anyone I've spoken or written to. Now... at what point do we stop talking about doing things, and actually start to do them?

From what I can see, we defined two explicit projects that need working groups: Outreach and Summit. I've already indicated to Darlene -- who's been collecting this information -- about my interest to start work on the Summit ASAP. We didn't speak before of a policy WG, but the .us issue offers us an opportunity to start contributing early on in our growth, because we are blessed with having people in our group who have experience and awareness of issues that other RALOs may lack. This would indicate creation of a third WG on Policy.

I sit here waiting to find out who else is interested in working on the Summit so we can start the long slog ahead. There is a lot of work to do, and less time between now and the LA meeting than you may think.

I prefer to consider what we want to accomplish, *then* what we need to make it happen, rather than the other way around. I would prefer to see NA RALO say to ICANN, "This is what we are going to do, this is what we want to do it," And I would prefer for NARALO to just shut up and just do it.

I've been involved in enough groups in which communications for its own sake is a primary goal -- everyone talks but nothing gets done -- and I've tired of them. If this is going to be a group like that, let me know now so I can spend my time elsewhere actually doing something. I thought we got a lot accomplished in San Juan ... do we act on it, or continue to let the repressive elements of ICANN walk all over the Internet-using public while we thrash around in endless re-debates of first principles? - Evan PS: In order to take my own advice and not encourage more talk for the sake of talk, I will do my best to limit my ongoing NA-discuss participation to policy and project matters. No promises, though ;-) PPS: I couldn't care less how ALAC picks its chair. If it had a proper secretariat and membership that was aware of who they served, who the chair is would be far less relevant than it is now.

However, Some of us do have interest in the .US ccTLD - being an American constituency. If Canadian ALSs would like to have some input, I wouldn't mind. However, some of us do have some concern in this area. While it doesn't need to be an official NARALO position, some ALSs may be interested. Some of our Canadian friends may also be concerned about 'spillover effects' which would be entirely reasonable since we have seen the extent to which the DOC has effect over ICANN. Randy Glass A@L On 7/17/07, John L <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

...

As far as I can tell we are fairly clear on purpose -- we exist to advocate the interests and values of the Internet-using public within ICANN, and to educate the public in ICANN activities and their effect on open and useful use of the Internet. Everything we do -- outreach, summits, position papers, advocacy -- is a tactic borne from this purpose.

Right. ICANN manages gTLDs. It does not manage ccTLDs such as .CA and .US. The management of .US is, frankly, none of the ALAC's or NARALO's business.

I suspect that the Canadian ALS would not appreciate us southern devils telling CIRA how to run the .CA domain. Yet here are a bunch of Canadian ALS purporting to advise the US Department of Commerce on managing the .US domain.

Personally, I happen to think that since the vast majority of .US domains are clearly registered for commercial purposes, there is an obvious pro-consumer benefit to registrant transparency, but if I want to lobby the US DOC, I will do so as a US citizen, not as part of an irrelevant advisory committee to an irrelevant organization. Were I to want to lobby CIRA about their anti-consumer data hiding for commercial .CA domains, I would talk to Canadian CIRA members I know to see if I could persuade them to make that argument.

So can we stop now?

R's, John

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I agree Randy Glass A@L On 7/16/07, Dharma Dailey <dharma@ethoswireless.com> wrote:

Thanks for you thoughtful responses. The big question for me is not what can we do with ALAC or ICANN but how can we get more communication for more people. We haven't got our ducks in a row. Until we determine what is useful to do energy will fritter away and nothing much will happen.

I've got one foot in the door of ICANN and the other out. I'm waiting to see what value there is in participating in this arena. Yes maybe we can add value to ICANN's policy development process, but will putting time-energy into that yield more than putting energy into other areas? Think .us, for example.

Even in terms of what's useful to do within ICANN, it seems that there is very little consensus. It would be good to get on the same page. It doesn't mean we all have to act in lock step, but wouldn't it be nice to at least understand where others are coming from, what they see as the priorities, and what they are willing to work on?

The only item of consensus I see is that there seems to be universal distaste for the current structure. The reason everyone is sweating the small stuff, in my opinion, is because ICANN is not clear what our purpose is and neither are we. One side or the other has to square that up.

. I prefer to consider what we want to accomplish, *then* what we need to make it happen, rather than the other way around. I would prefer to see NA RALO say to ICANN, "This is what we are going to do, this is what we want to do it," than be in the position of having ICANN set the parameters for us of what we are able to do. Especially since those parameters seem so fluid. What Vittorio says regarding ICANN responding to the pressure of outside actors is a lesson for us here. If you want to influence ICANN policy, a voting seat on the board may not be as effective as outside action.

-Dharma

On Jul 14, 2007, at 7:33 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

...

Hello Vittorio,

...

Just a technical note - all ICANN structures are subject to review every three years (for example, the GNSO was reviewed last year, and this year, in parallel to the ALAC review, the Nomcom is being reviewed, and the Board will be up for review soon). This was foreseen in the Bylaws as a way to facilitate continue evolution of the structures, and prevent ossification. Yes, but ALAC has only been in full operation (ie, all RALOs operating and sending elected representatives) for two weeks. This is not a three-year review, this is a six-month review at best.

Having said that, I am not altogether upset with the timing given what I have seen with the current operation of ALAC ;-).

...

I'm quite sure that we wouldn't even have got the significant increase in funding, attention and importance that we've had in the last two or three years, if the hard work and credibility of the people in the ALAC hadn't been complemented by a some external factors, and particularly by the attempted "competition" by the ITU and by other United Nations processes that challenged the role of ICANN, forcing ICANN to increase its commitment to the public interest and to broader accountability, to rank better on the international scene.

There are people on this list (you know who you are) who have experienced ICANN at its opaque worst, who believe that the whole ALAC process is a publicity stunt to appease the pressures you mention above. I certainly realize, as I mentioned before, many parts of ICANN wish that At-Large is "seen but not heard". That is, in their perfect world they benefit from the appearance of a public process without actually needing to listen to it.

While I have often taken issue with the cynicism and defeatism in the way such issues have expressed on this list, the core of their argument has not been lost by us newcomers. (I certainly hope that was the impression Wendy took away from San Juan). Our challenge is to exploit the external pressures and whatever good intentions actually exist, so that ICANN cannot just throw money at us but otherwise ignore what we have to say.

The first step, of course, is having something of value to say. ALAC's obsessing over issues such as "how to appoint the chair" or how much to restrict ALS requirements are impediments and distractions from the most important work. Even our own debates on "enfranchising the individual participant" have taken on this characteristic, even though most people here are sympathetic. My greatest fear is that ALAC will get too comfortable with its existing level of influence obsessing with internal matters but producing little of its real mandate. Doing so will render it to no more than an agent of those who want to keep us silent. Busy and well funded, to be sure, but silent nonetheless.

Somehow I am quite confident that we will not allow that silence to happen. :-)

- Evan

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