Background:
After nearly three years of U.S. Government involvement,
the governance of the Internet has been transferred to
a new body called ICANN. People involved in the process
know it to be a sham, as the processes used to establish
ICANN have been gamed (see www.iperdome.com for history).
Unfortunately, the processes put in place to regulate the
Internet are even worse. In many ways, they mirror the
processes used in the WTO, the same processes that upset
people to the point of rioting in Seattle.
In fact, many of the complaints about the WTO have been
made about ICANN. Secret decision making and makers, closed
meetings, mandatory dispute processes that supercede national
laws and customs, and results that justify the means.
And when people complained about the lack of due process,
about the secrecy, and about the hidden decision makers,
both ICANN and WTO critics were called arrogant juveniles.
Those involved in these processes *know* that things are
gamed -- but we don't always know how. Now, thanks to some
excellent investigative reporting by Gordon Cook (the Cook
Report), we are getting a pretty good idea of how the
Internet was sold to the highest bidder.
Excerpts from:
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 21:00:10 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Gordon Cook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: January 2000 COOK Report part 2- IBM's ICANN pp. 19 - 40
In a very long article we summarize our knowledge of the ICANN debate. The article uncovers participants and some of the details of the secret meeting of July 30, 1999. This meeting sponsored and brokered by IBM shows that ICANN, far from being a consensus organization, is the creature of IBM's need to control the framework of e-commerce in the 21st century.
At this meeting two IBM Vice Presidents met with NSI's CEO and a Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) Vice President in the presence of senior Internet statesmen Dave Farber, Bob Kahn, Brian Reid and Scott Bradner. ICANN and NSI had spent the previous two months on a collision course over whether NSI would have to capitulate to the demands contained in ICANN's registrar accreditation agreements. These demands threatened the viability of nearly all of NSI's income stream. NSI had both reason and resources to sue ICANN with both sides having clashed acrimoniously in front of Congress less than 10 days before. It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of both ICANN and NSI was at stake.
As everyone knows, the suit did not happen and less than two months later the collision course had become a marriage as NSI signed an agreement accepting ICANN's control and assuring ICANN of the money it needed to survive. It is believed that the July 30 meeting began the events that led to the late September marriage. We note that at the most critical moment in the struggle for control of the DNS system and the future of the Internet the opponents were not ICANN and NSI. It was IBM against NSI with John Patrick VP of IBM's Internet division and Chair of the IBM-MCI led Global Internet Project backed up by Chris Caine, IBM VP of Government Programs and head of IBM's 40 person Washington lobbying office.
IBM's 40 person Washington lobbying office is rumored
to have a budget over $50,000,000 per year! If anyone
wonders what kind of effect soft money is having on our
Republic, they need look no further than here!!!
It certainly looks to us like the crux of what lies behind the "window dressing" is the raw power of IBM. On December 9 we received an email containing the following text:
"Gordon: The July 30 meeting was called by John Patrick, who also ran that meeting. It was attended by John Patrick, Chris Caine, Jim Rutt, Mike Daniels, Brian Reid, Bob Kahn, Dave Farber, Scott Bradner, and an ICANN representative. Cerf was not there. It was held at the Hay-Adams Hotel. My impression of the meeting was that its entire purpose was to bully NSI into signing ICANN's agreement. It was entirely Patrick's meeting. Kahn, Reid, Farber, and Bradner were there as observers. The only negotiations that took place were between John Patrick and Jim Rutt. As far as I can tell the others were invited to this meeting for the same reason that Jimmy Carter is invited to South American elections." [End of 12/9/99 email.]
The July 30, 1999 meeting apparently belonged to the two IBM Vice-Presidents. The pattern is quite familiar to veteran IBM watchers who observe that when IBM doesn't know how to cope, it reverts to its classic pattern of control. Control of the meeting, of NSI, of ICANN, and of the Internet, we would add.
My first professional position was as an engineer for
IBM back in 1982. While few may remember this, IBM was
just ending a very long battle with the U.S. Justice Dept.
over their monopoly grip over the computer industry.
The more things change . . .
But the fallout of IBM's behavior goes well beyond this meeting and stops at the highest levels of the Clinton-Gore administration. The relationships extend back to Al Gore and Mike Nelson who wrote the High Performance Computing legislation that Gore backed in Gore's Senate days. We became an observer of Nelson's moves with regard to IBM and Gore nearly a decade ago and remind readers of the path that Nelson has traveled from the Senate Commerce Committee to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to the FCC and finally to employment by IBM in its governmental relations programs.
Isn't there a law against this sort of thing --
or does that only apply to elected officials?
The relationships are tied to the administration's habit of promoting a public policy that hands off regulator enforcement to industry for its own 'self-regulation' with the threat that if industry doesn't self-regulate, the government will step in and do it for them. Magaziner was a long time proponent of this premise. Beckwith Burr from the consummately political law firm of Wilmer Cutler was espousing it at the Federal Trade Commission in 1995, two years before she was transferred from FTC to OMB and then to NTIA to wrest control of DNS and NSI from the National Science Foundation. It is now very clear that ICANN is not the legacy of Jon Postel. ICANN is the illegitimate off spring of IBM, and the Clinton Gore Administration - with the assistance of the Internet Society (ISOC) and Vint Cerf.
Congress should hold an inquiry into these activities,
and if Senator McCain is serious about ending graft (aka
"soft money"), IBM's lobbying expenditures should be the
first item on the agenda.
The Introduction to this article outlines why we hope that those who have a stake in a free and open internet had better grab the attention of the press and policy makers before an IBM, Clinton - Gore administration created and backed ICANN plants itself too firmly in place.
Pass the word . . .
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The COOK Report on Internet Index to seven years of the COOK Report
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com
(609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) Is ICANN an IBM e-business ?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] See also Lessig's Code: and
Other Laws of Cyberspace http://cookreport.com/lessigbook.shtml
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Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
New Media Relations
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http://www.fenello.com 770-392-9480
"We are creating the most significant new jurisdiction
we've known since the Louisiana purchase, yet we are
building it just outside the constitution's review."
-- Larry Lessig, Harvard Law School, on ICANN
