Litigation Loooms in .xxx case; FOIA documents released

[Milton Mueller]

INTERNET GOVERNANCE PROJECT:
FOIA DOCUMENTS ON .XXX CASE RELEASED
================================

Today ICM Registry announced that it would file a reconsideration
request with ICANN and a judicial appeal to challenge redactions and
omissions from the internal US government documents released to it under
a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

In connection with its judicial appeal, ICM Registry released 88 pages
of internal US Commerce Deparment documents obtained under the FOIA
showing how the U.S. handled its application. A summary and review of
the documents is available on the IGP website here:
http://www.internetgovernance.org/pdf/xxx-foia.pdf

Even with the major redactions, the documents show how US supervision
of ICANN was influenced by domestic political pressure. They leave no
room for doubt that the US altered its policy toward ICANN in response
to this pressure, and that it actively worked in tandem with ICANN to
conceal the nature and significance of US governmental oversight of
ICANN from the public and the media.

The documents themselves can be reviewed on the IGP web site at this
link:
http://www.internetgovernance.org/pdf/xxx-foiapage.pdf