>From: Brett Glass <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt To > Register >Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [everybody on the planet... snipped] >In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >At 09:51 PM 7/30/2000, Curtis E. Sahakian wrote: > >>The remaining seats should be split among corporations and other >>political entities. > >This is a terrible idea. The Internet should belong to the people, >not to corporations. Corporations, especially in the US, are >rapidly amassing incredible power over citizens' daily lives >in what appears to be a replay of the "Gilded Age." In effect, >they are becoming de facto, unelected governments whose power >exceeds that of elected governments. (In fact, in many cases, >they control the workings of legitimate government via lobbying >and political contributions.) If we wish to have limited >government (a basic principle of the US Constitution and a >good idea simply from a common sense perspective), it is >unwise to give these unaccountable, unelected entities still >more power. There should be NO corporate seats on the board >of ICANN. > >>Everyone believes that your board is the stooge of corporate >>interests. They will not think they are losing anything if you >>put the seats up for auction in order to support what will be >>the largest democratic organization in the world. They already >>believe the seats are bought and paid for. They will view it as >>no great loss. > >Excuse me, Sir, but in what recreational substance(s) are you >indulging? To put ICANN solidly under the control of corporate >interests merely because people think that this is already is the >case is merely to make a bad situation worse. The correct solution >is, of course, to fix the administration of ICANN, making it fully >accountable to the people. In my opinion, all directors of ICANN >should serve at large and be directly elected. Furthermore, the >notion of closing off at-large memberships in ICANN after a given >date is ludicrous, to say the least. Latecomers to the 'Net should >be no less respected than those who have been there for decades. > >--Brett Glass > > > -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ph-1.613.473.1719 "The truth is always hard. The only truly punishable offense in Washington is to tell the truth. You will get along in Washington better by lying one way or the other. If you tell the truth you are unlikely to be forgiven." - Prof. Angelo Codevilla, The Washington Weekly, July 17 2000
