I appreciate the thoughtful comment.
Even supposing that the initial list was biased at the certain point in time
(which I disagree, but is not the point under discussion), it seems to me
that if a Government cares there's nothing that prevents it to change the
contact person.
Unfortunately it's not that simple.
Countries and their governments are a composite of many
different ministries/agencies and individuals. All of
them have overlapping responsibilities in the Internet
law and policy subject area. Quite frequently, these
entities have very different perspectives - often by
design. By virtue of the GAC selecting only one kind
of entity in each country, it significantly predetermines
the resulting perspective.
For examle, one of the regulatory strategies originally
employed in allowing the Internet to emerge internationally,
was to effectively build a second international regulatory
regime using the GATT organization to pull together all
the more liberal finance and trade ministries, and effectively
bypass the restrictive ITU and its PTT ministries.
Just consider the US. There are several different agencies
that have a constant tension with eachother. The FCC
is an independent Congressional agency that typically
represents the private-sector and market solutions, whereas
the Dept of Commerce is an Executive Branch agency that
represents the interests of the White House and other
government agencies. Who gets to represent the US in
the GAC? Who gets to state what the US policy is and to
enter into GAC agreements? There is yet a third branch
of government in the US - the Judicial Branch - plus
multiple specialized agencies for consumer interests,
trade, etc. You will recall that in the DNS proceeding,
the FTC staff actually separately filed extensive comments
dealing the DNS non-profit issues. How do they get to
participate in the GAC?
Whether by naivete or design, the GAC's construction
is fundamentally broken for this reason in addition to
the many others.
I confess I don't understand the first part of your comment.
As for the second part, you seem to assume that the USG is either against
the GAC, or has changed its mind about the White Paper.
Let me explain. The basics are straightforward. The Internet
in large measure occurred the FCC around 1980 crafted a
fundamental regulatory doctrine - that computer networks and
services were not the proper province of regulation or even
regulatory policy involvement. It even went to far as to forbid
individual States in the US from being involved. The policy
was also evangelised internationally and it produced many
changes in policy around the world. (That policy in substantial
measure was due to 1970s DARPA head and "Internet godfather"
Steve Lukasik coming to the FCC as Chief Scientist in 1979.)
That policy wasn't always popular, by the way. Even in the US,
other government agencies like the Dept of Commerce strongly
resisted - moving forward, for example, with attempting to
de jure make OSI networking specifications and administrative
arrangements the law of the land.
The White Paper states that governments should not be kept
out of NewCo as users.
...the U.S. continues to believe, as do most
commenters, that neither national governments
acting as sovereigns nor intergovernmental
organizations acting as representatives of
governments should participate in management
of Internet names and addresses.
The GAC as it has emerged is exactly the opposite of this
White Paper specification.
Last comment, I see that you like the expression "meeting in secret", which,
to my limited knowledge of the English language, is a different thing than
"meeting behind closed doors". Whereas the first is more colorful and
evocates sects and illegal activities, the second one is more appropriate
for the case under discussion.
It's not only the meetings. There are no minutes other than
"Executive Minutes." The lists, all communication and ongoing
work are all in secret. The interactions with ICANN are in
secret. GAC requires participants to maintain secrecy. The
word secret activity (which does not impute any legality, only
degree of conduct) seems clearly appropriate here.
I understand your position, against any type of intergovernmental and/or
standardization body - I guess it is inconsciously connected with the metric
system having been chosen instead of the foot-and-inch ;>).
I don't oppose government involvement in all Internet
related activities. There are many kinds of Internet
conduct that clearly invoke involvement. What I utterly
fail to see is a need for a permanent intergovernmental
body associated with the coordination of names and numbers
that promulgates related global policy and law.
The GAC has recently promulgated an intergovernmental agreement
declaring that all "the Internet naming and addressing system
is a public resource," and on that basis decreed that all
ccTLD registrars henceforth have no property rights of any kind.
I don't know about you, but my DNS servers and zone files are
my own private property, not a public resource.
It just happens that Governments (on the average) have a different approach,
and until you cannot find a way to ignore the Governments will, we have to
live with that.
We certainly agree on this point. I'm also not suggesting that they
should be ignored. However, providing them with their own intergovernmental
organization to meet in secret, adopt their own procedures, and promulgate
Internet law and policy on whatever they choose - now that's quite a
different matter.
best regards,
--tony
