Re: [alac] Discussions on the current model

[Izumi AIZU <aizu@xxxxxxx>]

Roberto and all,

Thank you for bringing the focus to this direction, and what Roberto
expressed below is fairly close to what I have in mind, more vaguely perhaps.

Before making my own comment to the specific points you made, I like
to just bring one additional "external" element into the context.

I just heard, with little surprise, that there has been some proposals
to reinforce GAC position within ICANN, including strong permanent
secretariat, and possible voting seats at the Board.

I went inside the GAC room during their coffee break a few minutes
ago, and chatted with two members there. They said that some members
mentioned about the voting power, but denied that any such possibility
be discussed further.

I think it is time for ALAC to seriously consider the "next model" including
the continuation of existing ALS/RALO/ALAC model, but not limited to
that, to ensure how best to bring the users voices to ICANN process
in the post-WSIS situation where at least come governments want
to have larger share of the pie for "pubilc policy" areas.

More later,

izumi

At 14:02 05/11/30 +0000, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> Wendy, and all,
> [I included Chris in copy, as he might not read the ALAC list, but 
> has raised to me similar questions]
>
> I think that there is little question about the fact that there is, 
> so to speak, room for improvement.
> However, I think that different ALAC members are approaching the 
> issue with different strategies, probably because of different 
> approaches to life (what the German philosophers call "Weltanschauung").
> Let me explain what my vision is, and why I have this approach.
>
> I do believe that there is an urgent and important need for user 
> participation, to make the voice and the problems of the people who 
> do not have either a commercial or technological interest or 
> function heard by the Board and influential in ICANN's decisions. 
> However, as Steff used to say, there's a difference between "voice" 
> and "vote". And, may I add, the latter without the former is IMHO 
> not useful to make things progress, while we can live with having 
> the former without the latter for a while, building the conditions 
> to have eventually both.
> This is how historically all successful movements have built their 
> way into systems from which they were excluded.
> The direct election of Board members by individual users that had 
> no influence in the process in between elections is, IMHO, a 
> mediatic success, but a failure from the participation point of 
> view. This is why I do believe that the NA region takes the wrong 
> approach in refusing trying the present model. I would argue that if 
> instead of 22 certified ALSes we had now 222, we would be half way 
> to the solution. Once RALOs established, each region could organize 
> itself in a way to have direct individual user participation (this 
> is the model that we are currently discussing in Europe), but since 
> our target is participation by the thousands, I do believe that a 
> two level model would scale better. In other words, a representative 
> democracy model rather than a direct democracy model.
> In this view, I would strongly recommend EFF, ACM, CDT, and what 
> else, to join and start working from the inside to improve the mechanism.
>
> Now a word on the "why".
> This is my third attempt to build user participation, and I am not 
> sure I will have the energy and enthusiasm to attempt a fourth one.
> The first attempt was the individual users constituency of the 
> DNSO. A great idea, I thought, lots of people supporting it. 
> However, as I confessed to a friend upon my retirement from the 
> ICANN world after the Berlin meeting, I succeded in having my 
> employer (ETSI) qualifying to join the PSO, but I failed in having 
> the individual users constituency accepted in the DNSO. And I 
> consider the failure having been more significant the success.
> The second attempt was the GA-DNSO. When I accepted the 
> Chairmanship, my dream was to build a voice for everybody in a 
> context in which civil discourse would be the interiorized rule 
> (meaning that people would have behaved that way without need for 
> enforcement), the noise/signal ratio very low, the voting process 
> such as to be able to present community-consensus proposals to the 
> attention of the decision makers. We all know how it ended.
> This is the third one. The point is that I would like to see some 
> results, not to leave the task to my childrens. To abandon the 
> attempt without having exploited its potential would, IMHO, bring us 
> back to square one. And the clock is ticking.
>
> My recommendation would be, therefore, to strongly advise the Board 
> to conduct a review of the ALAC that must include an evaluation of 
> the mechanism as soon as possible, ideally in 2006, while 
> concentrating in Vancouver on what we can do with the present 
> structure for making the users' voice heard.
> This will mean to go ahead building the RALOs in the regions where 
> feasible (at least AP and EU, possibly LAC and AF), a strong "last 
> call for boarding" to potential ALSes, the commitment for the 
> newborn RALOs to identify working mechanisms for individual (meaning 
> non-ALS) participation, revitalization of public lists and public 
> comment areas, and other items we might be able to identify in the next days.
> I have already started in the Board, and in particular with Vint, 
> to introduce the concept that RALOs might have a representation 
> mechanism that would allow inclusion of individuals not related to 
> organizations, as a short term change, and the need for a voting 
> representation in the Board, as a medium term change. But I am 
> strongly convinced that the order should not be reversed.
>
> Best regards,
> Roberto GAETANO
> ALAC
> ICANN BoD Liaison
>
>
>
>
>
> > From: Wendy Seltzer <wendy@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Sebas Ricciardi" <sricciardi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > CC: "'ALAC - interim'" <alac@xxxxxxxxx>, <alice@xxxxxxx>, 
> > <shahshah@xxxxxxxx>,        <jacqueline.morris@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: Re: [alac] Discussions on the current model
> > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 20:31:22 -0500
> >
> > Thanks Sebastian,
> >
> > I recognize the hard work that committee members have done to 
> > recruit the ALS applicants we've had, I just don't see enough 
> > results for the At-Large user-base to keep it up without a major 
> > rethinking of how ALAC can have impact within ICANN.
> >
> > At 09:27 PM 11/29/2005 -0300, Sebas Ricciardi wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > > I think it will be constructive, since you've raised this issue, if you
> > > could provide us some practical examples of the difficulties you're
> > > experiencing. Besides Danny Younger, Richard Henderson and Karl Auerbach,
> > > how many organizations have turned you down? Why?
> >
> > None of EFF, EPIC, ACLU, CDT, or ACM (Electronic Frontier 
> > Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, American Civil 
> > Lerties Union, Center for Democracy and Technology, Association for 
> > Computing Machinery), all organizations that deal with Internet 
> > users in areas ICANN's mission touches, have shown any interest in 
> > being involved with ALSs.  In large part, the ALS-RALO-Advisory 
> > Committee path sounds too remote.
> >
> > Further, it does bother me that of the few who have expressed 
> > interest in the U.S. , the current structure doesn't even accommodate them all.
> >
> > Thanks, I'll look forward to joining the group in Vancouver for 
> > further discussions.
> > --Wendy
> >
> > --
> > Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@xxxxxxxxxxx
> > Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
> > Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
> > http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html
> > Chilling Effects: http://www.chillingeffects.org
>
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