NCSG Responses to Accountability & Transparency Review Team Questions

[Rafik Dammak]

Hi Avri,

I thought that we can make it through google doc form (the form is even
ready) but it won't possible for NCSG members to see the others
contributions

Rafik
2010/6/14 Avri Doria <avri at ltu.se>

> hi,
>
> i thought of that.
>
> but as i had said previously when Bill asked , not everyone has access to
> the wiki. and i do not plan to give everyone access to this particular wiki
> as it is meant to be an informational wiki for use by the various committees
> etc.  plus adding everyone to it would be a lot of work and people already
> have access to the ning.
>
> that is why i suggested that if you wanted everyone to comment on line you
> use  ning where everyone does have access.  and then i heard that you had
> some better solution in mind so i got out of the way.
>
> once i notice you put it on the wiki i said very few had access to, i
> figured you had decided on a different approach.
>
> a.
>
>
> On 14 Jun 2010, at 08:38, Rafik Dammak wrote:
>
> > Thanks Avri, but the idea was that people comment each question in the
> wiki and then making it easy for tacking responses and reading other
> contributions. I thought that you wanted to encourage people to use wiki (:
> >
> > so every NCSG member who want to answer the question can login to the
> link sent by Bill, he/she will find the 11 questions which redirect to
> specific page. then he/she can comment there and see other answers.
> >
> >
> > Rafik
> >
> > 2010/6/14 Avri Doria <avri at ltu.se>
> > hi,
> >
> > As promised during the Open policy review phone call.  My initial answers
> to the questions.
> >
> > On 12 Jun 2010, at 05:10, William Drake wrote:
> >
> > > Hello again,
> > >
> > > After playing with different options, Rafik and I decided to put the
> ATRT questions on the Social Text site.  He's posted them at
> https://st.icann.org/ncsg-ec/index.cgi?atrt_questionaire.   Any and all
> member responses to whichever questions you feel like addressing would be
> very helpful.
> > >
> >
> > 1.  The ICANN Policy 'Support' Staff has operated in a very non
> accountable way in all of its dealing with the Board on "behalf' of the rest
> of the volunteer community.  Instead of serving as a reliable broker, it has
> a well established practice of send secret reports to the Board on policy
> and on SO and AC affairs.  On a few occasions when those reports have become
> known, they proved to contain falsehoods.  It is impossible to know whether
> the falsehoods are due to errors or strategy, but they were nevertheless
> false.  And whether the false statements were accidental or intentional, the
> community never has a chance to review what is written or to respond.
> >
> > The community has frequently asked for these secret reports to made
> public - especially those that pertain to the activities and decision making
> of the SOs and ACs, with the understanding that there are occasionally
> issues that need to be private, but the Policy 'Support' Staff has mostly
> not responded to the requests let alone opened itself up to scrutiny and
> accountability.  It is impossible to know how many board decisions were
> based on faulty information and all private memos from the last year's must
> to be made public and open to public scrutiny if ICANN is ever to be
> considered an accountable and transparent institution.
> >
> > 2.  The Ombudsman is not a viable option.  Perhaps in theory it is, but
> an Ombudsman is supposed to be someone who is outside the organization and
> who is guaranteed neutral.  We have an Ombudsman who has been involved in
> the organization longer than many of the volunteers and is an integral part
> of the staff and pals around with them and the Board.  This is not, in any
> way, a viable accountability mechanism.  In order to become a viable
> accountability mechanism, it would be necessary to replace an Ombudsman
> every 2 or 3 years, and would be necessary for the person picked to remain
> separate from the Staff and the volunteers.
> >
> > 3. For the most part, the decision making that goes on in the SOs seems
> transparent - certainly more so than most other organizations.  However, due
> to the black hole that exits between SO recommendations, secret staff
> reports and recommendations, and secret Board deliberations, most of the
> transparency is lost.  Staff reports should be publicly vetted and Board
> deliberations should be audiocast and recorded - in the same way laudable
> way that the A&T RT is doing.
> >
> > 4.  ICANN's primary focus is still primarily focused on supporting those
> who can make money on GTLDs and on assuaging the anger of a few governments
> and not on the global Public Interest.    For example, there is still a
> great imbalance 3:1 in the GNSO between those who represent business and
> those who represent the Non commercial interests.
> >
> > In terms of an event, I believe that the preference that the ICANN staff
> clearly gave to getting out IDN ccTLDs over IDN gTLDs, including reports
> (again always difficult to report without revealing sources from with the
> ICANN blanket of secrecy) that there was a guarantee that the IDN ccTLDs
> would be in the root 6 months before any new gTLD were allowed in the root.
>  The clear way in which the staff hustled to overcome the IDN ccTLD issue
> while languishing through the creation of the so-called Overriding Issues to
> slow down the new gTLD process was a way to meet international pressure from
> governments at the cost of competition and freedom in the creation of IDN
> gTLD by the same populations who are not receiving the IDN ccTLDs.
> >
> > I hope that the Review Team has the ability to dig into any and all email
> archives and to question staff members (past and present) under guarantees
> of personnel immunity on events that occurred over the past years in
> managing to push the fasttrack , which started long after the new gTLD
> policy, at least 6 months ahead of new gTLDs
> >
> > Because they are allowed to act secretly in these as well as other
> respects, it is impossible to know exactly what they are doing.  In addition
> to eliminating the ability of the Staff to work in secret, there should be
> whistle blower programs and protections to encourage those staff members who
> see problems to report them publicly without fear or retribution.
> >
> > 5.  I believe it is really remiss that the Board is responsible for
> evaluating its own performance as opposed to having a committee that
> includes members of the SO and ACs do the evaluation.
> >
> > An appeals mechanism is most definitely necessary, and various
> recommendations for such an appeals mechanisms were made the during the
> review before the MOU was replaced by the AOC.  While the AOC Review
> mechanisms are a start they are not sufficient.
> >
> > 6. The GAC is only one of two ACs in a position to review the performance
> of the public interest.  The ALAC should have equal consideration in that
> effort.   I believe the by-laws requirement that the GAC give non-binding
> advice and that there be a policy for responding and deliberating that
> advice is a good rule that should be extended to the ALAC.  I also believe
> that this needs to be done in an open and transparent way.  I believe that
> some of the tendency these day to regard GAC principles as addenda to the
> by-laws is misplaced and a serious error.  The role of the GAC and ALAC is
> not oversight, but advice of the full scope of ICANN issues.
> >
> > 7.  The reviews of GAC and ALAC issues need to be deliberate and
> specific, with the discussions open to the community and the results clearly
> and adequately published for reference.  The most important improvement that
> need to be made is to give ALAC the same non binding consideration that the
> GAC has in terms of advice that is listened to, understood, deliberated, and
> responded to.
> >
> > 8.  While comment response is improving, it is not good enough yet.  All
> comments should be reviewed and responded to in writing.  Not all comments
> require or merit a change in the process, policy or document under review,
> but all need to be reviewed and understood with the responses clearly
> documented.  In some cases this has started happening and that is good.  In
> other cases this has not happened either because the staff was said to not
> have the resources or because the volunteers did not feel the comments
> merited a response.  This is an area where further improvement is required.
> >
> > 9. The current rush to create a central a DNS Cert authority with
> invitation only meetings and staff declarations that this is an operational
>  issue and not a policy issue is the latest event of that nature.   By and
> large most ICANN 'operational' decisions are never fully explained and never
> opened to review and response by the ICANN volunteer community unless the
> community raises a fuss.  This is an area where great improvement is
> required.
> >
> > 10. I believe the recent ICANN staff decision to reserve Geographical
> names in way contrary to the policy recommendation of the GNSO that had been
> approved by the Board is one such instance where the decision was neither
> embraced, supported or accepted.
> >
> > 11. I think the policy development process is improving in this regard
> with more diverse working groups and earlier discussion of issues.  The
> secrecy at the top, however, where the policy recommendations can be
> obviated though various means (including secret misinformation) remains a
> serious problem, and a way in which the improvements can be negated.
> >
>
>
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