Thoughts about Internet Freedom

[Dan Krimm]

At 10:10 AM -0500 3/6/11, Avri Doria wrote:
>On 6 Mar 2011, at 01:17, Marc Perkel wrote:
>
>>
>> This is what I see as the stakes in the balance of power between freedom
>>and oppression and freedom must win. The way I see it governments
>>shouldn't even be at the table let alone in control.
>
>
>While as a utopian normative statement, i might want to agree, the point
>is they are in control of our lives and bringing them to the table is a
>step in the right direction.
>


This is a fine pragmatic sentiment, and generally I can agree with the
overall intent here.  However the details make a difference (or in cliche
terms, the devil is in the details): *how* one brings them to the table
makes a difference.

In particular, you want to make sure they don't abjectly take over the
table as a precondition for coming to it.

How do you tame a tiger, when the tiger is ultimately in control in the
larger global context?  This is a delicate balancing act, and those who are
wary of it have every right to be.  Structural issues of governance
protocol are paramount, and deserve to be examined with a fine-toothed comb.

Think about general principles such as separation and balance of powers,
which are what makes real democracies actually work, to the extent that
they do work and aren't entirely captured by plutocracy "under the hood."
These separations are absolutely critical, and cannot be allowed to present
a "rhetorical front" without teeth or meaning in practice, which is worse
than not having the separation at all, because it presents the *illusion*
of separation that undermines action to make the separation real ("nothing
to see hear, let's move along, now...").

Dan

PS:  I just want to say how much I'm enjoying Milton and Bill's exchange.
Many insights that I would not have much access to otherwise.  The
combination of long experience and direct observation is something that is
less common among those of us with less experience and history with ICANN,
and the more this can be disseminated among the rest of us, the better
(given that most of us are engaging this pro bono, which limits our
capacity to absorb details and evaluate them in a broad context).


--
Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and do
not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer.