[NCUC-DISCUSS] Pilot Program

[Barbara Mittleman]

Dear all,
 as a new member to the group I offer a caveat that I may not be fully
informed here.  That said, here are some thoughts.

If ICANN is the administrative home or host to the NCUC, getting some
organizational or infrastructure support from ICANN should not necessarily
compromise the NCUC's independence in policy or decision-making, and need
not be the on ramp to a slippery slope.

Having ICANN contract for research on behalf of the NCUC, however, is a
different matter.  This should be undertaken, if at all, with great
caution.  Anyone who does research knows that what one chooses to look at,
what one includes in the analysis, and what weight is given to each
contributing datum or information is all critical to fashioning an
integrated view.  A contract organization doing research on behalf of the
NCUC but with oversight by others exposes the NCUC to receiving
intentionally or accidentally skewed and prejudiced material.  Likewise
having outside facilitators /integrators of discussions presents a similar
risk.

So, I would not support agreeing to such 'help'.

AS for supporting the policy development work done by ICANN volunteer
members, this is a serious issue worthy of discussion.  There is a
self-selection of those doing the work from the subset of stakeholders who
have the time, bandwidth and economic security to devote time to ICANN and
the NCUC's efforts.  As such, the active volunteers may represent a subset
of the community and some may be systematically excluded from participation
because they don't have protected time for these activities. Paying
contractors may well exacerbate the skewing and may further exclude
important points of view.

Barbara

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 10:13 PM, Edward Morris <egmorris1 at toast.net> wrote:

>
> Hello everybody,
>
> The NCUC EC will be discussing today whether to participate in an ICANN
> pilot program designed to offer assistance with policy research and
> document drafting to selected constituencies and stakeholder groups. I echo
> the views expressed by Milton on the NCUC EC mailing list when he writes "I
> want to express my strongest opposition to this entire program".
>
> It is tempting. We are launching three major pdp's, some of us are
> dramatically overworked, we sure need help. But not from ICANN, not in this
> way, not now.
>
> If ICANN wants to support the NCUC in policy development (of course, the
> NCUC traditionally does not do policy to any great extent, a mistake in my
> view)  there are ways to assist us with resources. The key is control of
> these resources. This program IMHO does not empower the NCUC;  if
> successful it could make us somewhat dependent upon ICANN for assistance
> with *policy*. Friends, if we can't research and draft and create policy
> positions ourselves then we don't deserve to exist.
>
> Three years ago I was opposed to accepting ICANN's offer of administrative
> help. It was not that I thought hiring someone (who turned out to be
> MaryAm) to assist with the tasks volunteers like Robin were then
> spending  far too much time doing would doom us to "company union" status.
> My opposition was based upon the fear that once we went down this slippery
> slope there was no turning back. My fear is being realised with this
> program.
>
> In our proposed response we seem to be asking ICANN for some of this type
> of support:
>
> - assistance with front end issue research
> - research on the background of the specific issue being addressed
> - join community calls/chats where "position setting" is focus
>
> This program is bering developed by an ICANN contractor WBC Global. Dan
> O'Neill is the Principal of the firm and is the one working on this program
> with ICANN. Dan's biography states:
>
>
> As the principal of the firm, he offers public policy, political and
> strategic business advice to Fortune 500 and other companies, with a focus
> on international trade, market access and intellectual property rights.  He
> represent companies before Congress, the White House and federal agencies
> on a diverse set of public policy matters including investment,
> international trade disputes, international tax, custom issues as well as
> economic sanctions issues.
>
> Recent activities on behalf of clients include: advising on the
> Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement on negotiations impacting
> intellectual property rights, investment and market access; lobby in
> support of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) for Russia; strategizing
> and lobbying for companies having market access and IPR issues in China;
> advising on WTO negotiations on expansion of the Information Technology
> Agreement and renewed effort to secure an agreement on Services; and
> provide advice on the use of US trade preference programs for investment
> issues in developing countries.
>
> He also plays a leading role in business community activity with UN
> Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
>
>
>
> This is not someone I want anywhere near our Constituency. Mr. O'Neill
> spends his professional life advocating for positions and organisations
> that are traditionally opposed to that which the NCUC supports. He's not
> somebody with our interests at heart.
>
> If ICANN wants to support the NCUC in this area I have no problem with the
> NCUC accepting ICANN's financial support: provided we have complete
> independence in selecting the hire and defining the job. There are many in
> the nonprofit sector, many public interest organizations, we could contract
> with for policy help if we had the resources and freedom to do so. We can
> do better than joining a "pilot program" being organised by someone who has
> a "leading role in business community activity" within the IGF. In fact,
> instead of joining this program we should be questioning why WBC was hired.
>
> One other problem: If ICANN is going to pay people to do some of our
> policy work then why should anyone do other parts of our policy work for
> free? When I run political campaigns I keep paid canvassers completely
> separate from volunteer canvassers. I've found you lose the volunteers if
> you don't. Same thing here. If you look at the details of the proposal
> there is even a chance the help provided may be an active member of another
> part of the ICANN community. Amazing.
>
> I join Milton in hoping the EC rejects this. We do need help in this area
> but not under these terms. Our independence is very much at stake. Please,
> EC, keep ICANN and WBC Global away from direct involvement in  the
> noncommercial policy develkopmnent process. Do not go further down this
> slope leading to dependence upon ICANN for all that we do.
>
> Best,
>
> Ed
>
>
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>
>
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