[ncdnhc-discuss] Board retreats and fully transparent process for ICANN

[James Love]

Dave,

Some of us remember civics lessons.  Rules about what can be open and what
can be closed are part of the basic stuff of a governance organization, and
also about the openness of records, the recording of meetings, and other
things.  As you were told, and I'm sure you know, there are general rules
and there are exceptions.   In best practices, the exceptions are narrow.
In worst practices, the exceptions are broad.  Lots of UN bodies have
general rules that governing bodies meetings are open, and recorded.  Some
have closed meetings, I'm thinking for example of the IMF or World Bank (
I'm guessing here).   Governments, at least in the US, often have open
records laws.  The UK is trying to enact an open records law.  These apply
to government organizations, for good reasons.  Governments can limit
liberty, require payment of taxes, and other measures of coercion.   ICANN
is setting itself up to be a government, for some unbounded set of Internet
activities (whatever 2/3 of the board wants to do), using its control over
the DNS as its source of power.  It should follow best practices for
openness, not the worst practices, if it wants to build trust.  But then,
what is the evidence that it wants to build trust?

No one would object if the ICANN board decided to hold a closed session to
discuss matters that need to be confidential, such as a personnel matter, a
trade secret, or some other appropriate things.  But the ICANN board is
using these retreats to refashion ICANN on basic issues, including for
example, how the board is elected.

  Jamie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Crocker" <dhc2 at dcrocker.net>
To: "Jonathan Weinberg" <weinberg at mail.msen.com>
Cc: <KathrynKL at aol.com>; <james.love at cptech.org>; <discuss at icann-ncc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:17 AM
Subject: Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] Board retreats and fully transparent process
for ICANN


: At 11:13 PM 5/27/2002 -0400, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:
: >On Mon, 27 May 2002, Dave Crocker wrote:
: > > >  City halls, Shareholder meetings, the Federal Communications
: > Commission,
: > >
: > > and they are permitted closed meetings.
: >
: >         Like other U.S. federal multimember agencies, the U.S. Federal
: >Communications Commission is forbidden closed meetings except in very
: >limited circumstances
:
: Isn't it nice the way constaintly shooting a shotgun will eventually hit
: something, no matter how bad one's aim?
:
: And isn't nice how useful it is to carefully constrain an analysis, so
that
: it abstracts out essential points?
:
: ICANN is a subject to a combination of constraints.  When you folks start
: producing examples that are subject to the same PATTERN of constraints,
: there will be something to discuss.
:
: Until then, this exercise is mostly a pretty feeble debating game by folks
: more interested in winning points than in pursuing a productive
: consideration of ICANN behavior.
:
: d/
:
: ----------
: Dave Crocker <mailto:dave at tribalwise.com>
: TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
: tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850
:
: