I've rewritten the Tony Rutkowski story - with corresponding URL's. Here's my draft. Crashing the GAC with Tony Rutkowski (a wonderful story with a happy ending) Freedom fighter and activist lawyer Tony Rutkowski (http://www.chaos.com/rutkowski.html) crashed ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC) (http://www.noie.gov.au/docs/gac1.htm) with Theresa Amato (http://www.lphs.dupage.k12.il.us/auxiliary/foundation/amato.htm) and Cleve Thornton. Amato represents Ralph Nader (http://www.nader.org/) and Thornton represents Tajikistan. Thornton is experienced in passive resistance and ran the ACLU in Alabama during the heydays of the civil rights movement. The three amigos decided they would attend the GAC gathering to demand open meetings - a right guranteed by ICANN Bylaws. So on the morning of Tuesday November 2nd the trio arrived at the appointed hour and were promptly asked to leave by the GAC Secretariat representative. They responded with a polite "no," and insisted they were going to stay and watch. This resulted in a huddled with her boss and GAC chairman Dr. Paul Twomey, Chief Executive Officer of the National Office for the Information Economy in australia (http://www.noie.gov.au/docs/gac2.htm). She returned and again ordered that the legal trio leave. At this time Thornton an imposing southern bell at 6 ft 5 inches and 300 lbs. replied in a polite southern drawl, "young lady, if you want me to leave, you're going to have to pick me up and move me." This resulted in more huddling with chairman Twomey. Meanwhile Amato, doing what lawyers do best - i.e. snoop - went to the tables and found a list of attendees. Several "observers" were listed at the bottom which prompted the group to approached Twomey and ask if they could stay as observers. Twomey countered that they needed the sponsorship of a governmental representative. This prompted Rutkowski and friends to ask Becky Burr (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/) the US government representative to formerly sponsor them as observers. She firmly declined. However, the representative for Ireland (http://www.irlgov.ie/), Aidan Ryan, overhearing their plea offered to make them accredited observers of Ireland. The arrangements were still unacceptable to Twomey who insisted "no can do - you need your own government representative." The appropriateness of this double standard was questioned and ICANN staff present at the meeting were asked to intervene. At this point, Paul Twomey relented and established a new rule for everyone. As long as there was a non-governmental person in the room, it would be an open meeting. As a result, both the ICANN report and subsequent ccTLD dialogue portions of the GAC became open, and a new, more open general rule was established. What was particularly amusing, however, was that a few minutes later, one of the most powerful U.S. Congressmen in Washington, Chris Cannon (Republican, 3rd district of Utah) (http://www.house.gov/cannon/), and his legislative assistant Todd Thorpe, unexpectedly strode into the room and sat down prominently up front. When it came time to leave, the US GAC representative quickly added Cannon and Thorpe as observers. During the open ccTLD session, Twomey in the spirit of openess volunteered to distribute the Internet Rights Coalition (http://www.domain-name.org/) brief to the GAC and allowed a short presentation on the legal issues. -- J. Baptista Planet Communications & Computing Facility Voice/Fax (212) 894-3704 ext. 1033 http://www.pccf.net/
