[ncdnhc-discuss] Notes from June 25

[Alexander Svensson]

At 25.06.2002 19:44, James Love wrote:
>The at large organizing meeting was small and even I
>was surprised at how weak the support is here for
>elections of any kind.  

Actually, I believe this misportrays the meeting (and I 
was there, too). There were few if any people who thought 
that calling for elections now seems like a /realistic/
approach. ["not in the play" -- ICANN (Bucharest) Blog]

>Esther Dyson and Denise Michel
>gave long presentations on how the board would not
>tolerate anything that involved the general public
>electing board members, and they described the new
>official ICANN "reform" version of the at large, which
>is a highly structured consultation system, that ICANN
>controls from the top, and which is not capable of
>holding votes from individuals.  

Actually, since the Blueprint does hardly mention the
At Large, we were not discussing the official ICANN
"reform" version of the at large. We were discussing
how At Large can *become* a part of ICANN.

>Esther went on about
>how unpopular elections and were in Asia and parts of
>Latin America, and how little support there was for
>elections among the non US members of the ICANN board.

Actually, if I remember correctly, she was not talking
about the non US members of the ICANN Board and she
was talking about undemocratic, manipulated elections.

>At one point I said "look, in the White Paper,
>individuals were going to have 8 of 19 board seats.  In
>Cairo this was reduced to 5 elected members.  Then
>there was talk after Accra of having an at large as a
>supporting organization, with 3 board members.   Now in
>the blueprint document, they will have 1 of 19 members
>of a nominating committee.  Can you tell me how that 1
>member will be chosen?"  At this point, Dyson told me I
>should stop criticizing people,

Actually, she and several others said that you should stop
criticizing those people who haven't written the proposals
you are criticizing. 

> and be constructive.
>[...]
>I got into a debate with Denise about the value of
>pushing for a harder line on a role for the public in
>ICANN, mentioning the possibility that the US government
>could protect the rights of individuals in the ICANN
>process.  Densie told us that she had 20 years of
>policy experience, and she knew exactly what was going
>to happen.  She said:
>The US Senate would do nothing.  The US
>House of Representatives would do nothing.  The DoC
>would accept a slightly modified MoU in the
>fall, and the ICANN board would adopt the
>blueprint, without elections, in Shanghai.

Actually, that's what she said would happen if all you
did was complain. (I know that's not all you do -- you
really seem to believe that the US Government will
intervene to help you, and e.g. I disagree.) The comments 
with respect to Denise Michel's experience with policy-making 
came in response to your statement that maybe we all 
(present at the meeting) didn't have /your/ policy 
experience.

Last posting on this, promised.
Best regards,
/// Alexander