[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Hello.
>Jeff Mason wrote:
>
>> The comments made by Dr. Tooney concern me, he sounds a bit
>> like a mafiosi
>> less the dentures. It's critical that government refrain
>> from threatening
>> comments.
>
>The comments made by Dr. Twomey concern me as well, but in fact I don't
>think he was threatening anybody, but simply state a belief, which is that
>the most likely event in case of a failure of ICANN is that the whole matter
>will be ruled by an international organization operating under a sort of
>international agreement.
So the only way to argue for ICANN to exist is to threaten that something
worse will happen if it doesn't.
That makes clear that ICANN is illegitimate.
And those who argue that you can't complain about ICANN or you will
only get something worse, show that they have no basis to
have anything to do with the Internet, certainly *not* take
over control of its essential functions.
The Internet was created by a process of trying to figure out
what was needed, and then creating the prototypes that would
help to see test what was needed in the real world. That was
indeed the process my proposal set in motion.
see http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
That was what was needed as a process to determine how to create
an appropriate institutional form based on study and understanding
of what the forms are that have supported the development of
the Internet.
That wasn't done and instead some secret process created the ICANN
form and it has been pushed thru denying and disregarding the
illegal nature of the process that is throwing out all the U.S.
government procedures and laws that say that it is illegal and
illegitimate to give government functions to a private, government
created corporation.
The secret government activity via the Government Advisor Committee
made up of who knows which governments and on what basis, is a
harmful means of having government abuse their obligations to do
only what they are mandated to do.
The problem with ICANN is that private interests are being put
in control of a scientific entity. They are incapable of providing
the needed oversight and support that that scientific entity needs.
The private interests that have come onto the ICANN interim board
have been put there because they have a conflict of interest
with the public purpose and nature of the Internet.
Only a structure that has a means of preventing and fighting
against those who have a conflict of interest gaining power,
is appropriate for the ownership and control of the essential
functions of the Internet.
There is knowledge in the U.S. about how to create such a
structure. This knowledge is what created the institution
that made it possible to give birth to the Internet.
These lessons had to be drawn on instead of creating ICANN.
There is no authority for the U.S. government to give away this
public property. It has the obligation of being responsible
in how these essential functions will be controlled. The U.S.
government has created ICANN to evade that responsibity,
*not* to carry out that responsibility.
It is important that there be the recognition of the responsibility
and the study and examination of how to undertake that responsiblity.
The end of ICANN will be good, *not* something worse.
The Internet and its users, utilizing U.S. government procedures,
(rather than evading them as those supporting ICANN have done)
will be able to figure out what is needed to replace ICANN with.
And they will be able to create it, determine how to legitimately
test it, and refine it, just as was done in creating the Internet.
That is very different from the phony so called "design and test"
cooperative agreement that ICANN has been given with the Dept
of Commerce. That agreement is *not* for any testing, but for
creating what is illegal and figuring out how to evade all
the means within U.S. law to stop such illegitimate activity.
At the hearing in Washington on July 22, one of the Congressmen
said that maybe it was necessary to suspend the authority of
the NTIA considering what they are doing with ICANN.
Also the authority that the Dept of Commerce provided to the
House Commerce Committee for transferring authority from
the NSF to itself was not an authority to transfer authority,
but only to share authority.
The NSF couldn't transfer the authority it had to oversee
and provide what is needed for the ownership and control of
essential functions of the Internet.
The Office of Inspector General of the NSF issued a Report on
Feb. 7, 1997 saying that the U.S. government had a responsibility
to the public based on the great amount of funding and work
that has gone into building the Internet. That the NSF can't
just give away ownership and control of the essential functions
and it can't give away policy making authority. (The OIG NSF
Report is some of the built in checks and balances that
the U.S. government has to prevent it from making the mistake
it has made in creating ICANN. But instead of utilizing
and respecting its own procedures, U.S. govt officials
created an interdepartmental task force to evade these procedures.)
And it couldn't transfer this to the Dept of Commerce, though
it could cooperate with other Departments when appropriate.
But what is happening is *not* appropriate.
And one wonders why Becky Burr didn't testify at the hearing
in Washington, but instead the Dept of Commerce lawyer testified.
And no real answers were given to the serious questions asked
of why the problems happening now weren't anticipated.
Who created the plan for ICANN and why?
>My personal opinion is that this is exactly what is going to happen. There
>is no way you can convince the governments not to step in if the ICANN
>solution will fail. Whether the outcome will be an international body with
>specific intergovernmental status like ITU, FAO, or other UN organizations,
>or a different type of body like ICAO, InMarSat, etc., is open to debate,
>but the direction seems pretty clear to me.
Governments have already stepped in, and are functioning behind
the scenes in an illegal and unconstitutional way that only
allows they to be more irresponsible than ever.
The hidden government created ICANN is the worst possible situation.
And the recognition that it is a faulted and inappropriate model
for the ownership and control of essential Internet functions will
be a victory for the Internet and its users, not a defeat.
And it will be a victory for the recognition that government procedures
are needed to do something worthwhile, and to help to find the problems
that exist so they can be fixed, not multiplied many times over.
Ronda
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
