--- Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 12:17:41 -0800 From: Barbara Simons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: a USACM letter on ICANN Hi, Declan. We have just sent a letter to ICANN in which we call for ICANN to scale down its mission and to focus on its core technical mission. I've included a press release in Word and plain text. Regards, Barbara The First Society for Computing Contact: Jeff Grove 202-659-9711 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ACM PUBLIC POLICY EXPERTS EXPRESS CONCERN OVER THE FUTURE OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE AND POLICY-MAKING Joins Other Internet Groups in Calling for ICANN to Return to Core Tasks New York, April 2, 2002 ? USACM, the U.S. Public Policy Committee of Association for Computing Machinery, called on the organization responsible for managing the Internet address system to scale down its operations and to focus on its core technical mission. In a letter to Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and other Board members, USACM urged ICANN to curtail on-going policy development efforts and to work more closely with the technical community in performing the technical functions of its limited mission. "We agree with ICANN President M. Stuart Lynn that the Internet needs effective global coordination in some areas, and that reform is necessary," said Barbara Simons, Ph.D., co-chair of USACM. "But ICANN must scale down its size and scope of operations to focus on its core function of coordinating Internet resources on a technical level." The letter to ICANN's leadership, also signed by USACM co-chair Eugene Spafford, Ph.D., warned that if ICANN insists on continuing on its current course of making policy as well as technical decisions, "there is greater need than ever for at least half of the board members to be elected representatives of the public." Recently, ICANN voted to change its governing structure to eliminate the at-large representative who represents the public interest. A copy of the recent USACM letter to ICANN may be found at: http://www.acm.org/usacm/IG/ICANN_Letter.htm ABOUT USACM ACM is a leading society of computer professionals in education, industry, and government. The USACM facilitates communication between computer professionals and policy-makers on issues of concern to the computing community. For more information, visit the USACM web site at http://www.acm.org/usacm. # # # ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Politech dinner in SF on 4/16: http://www.politechbot.com/events/cfp2002/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
