please send comments on this draft RE: Transparency

[Mary Wong]

Great effort, thanks Robin & Avri, and it's an excellent idea to have this as a joint statement with ALAC. Just a few specific comments for now:
 
- I'm not sure the first sentence is the best lead-in to the substance of the comment. For instance, I'm not sure what "on the table" for "many meetings" mean. May I suggest changing it to something along the lines of having serious and longstanding concerns over the inaccuracies contained in staff reports/comments to the Board that are not shared with the relevant groups and overall ICANN community?
 
- when talking about the second type of briefing, instead of saying "constitutes gaming", can we say "can constitute gaming"? Also, I understand why we are including a reference to "paid staff" but I wonder if the point can be better made in another way (can't think how at the moment, unfortunately - maybe change it to a reference about equal access to the Board between paid staff and volunteer, unpaid community members when it comes to information critical to the Board's decisions and that directly concerns those members?)
 
Hope that helps. I'm happy to help clean up and edit the final statement too, if you like.
 
Cheers
Mary 
 
Mary W S Wong
Professor of Law & Chair, Graduate IP Programs
Franklin Pierce Law Center
Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
USA
Email: mwong at piercelaw.edu
Phone: 1-603-513-5143
Webpage: http://www.piercelaw.edu/marywong/index.php
Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584


>>> 


From: Robin Gross <robin at IPJUSTICE.ORG>
To:<NCUC-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu>
Date: 3/11/2010 3:36 AM
Subject: please send comments on this draft RE: Transparency
Below is first draft joint NCSG-ALAC statement on the need for transparency of the Secret Board Briefings.

The stmt isn't something that we would release or publish this week.  However, Avri and I may meet with  ALAC this afternoon to discuss this draft.  So please send any comments on this draft so we can bring those into this mtg today in a few hours.  We will have a revised draft after the mtg.  Thank you.

Robin

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For many meetings now,  the topic of Staff Briefing to the Board and Transparency has been on the table.

While understanding that there indeed some briefings that should remain confidential between the Board and the Staff especially those within its fiduciary capacities and those encumbered by personal privacy consideration, there are also many issues that require transparency.

Within the categories that require transparency there are two separate types of issue.

The first type are briefings that concern an Advisory Committee or a Supporting Organization.  In the case of this type of briefing, it is not appropriate for the Staff to be making unverified claims about and AC or SO without the knowledge of that AC and SO.  Without AC or SO verification of the contents of a briefing, the Board is left making its evaluation based on rumor and may make decisions based on erroneous information.

The second type of briefing are those that concern the policy work for which the SOs are responsible and on which the ACs must advise.  For the Board to be making policy decision based on information that has not been reviewed by the community constitutes gaming of the bottom up policy process and gives one member of the community, the paid staff and undue advantage over the other participants in the community.

We request that the Board change its policy so that the briefing of the types discussed above be made available to the correct audience; the first type being made available to the SO or AC in question and the second type be made available to the community.

After the policy has been received we request that recent briefings that have contributed to various decisions also be released.





IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org



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