Subject: IFWP Consensus: Disband ICANN

From: Bob Allisat <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 07:49:55 -0500

Mike Roberts says:
> .... The bottom line for the Initial Board is that the USG has
> asked that it take up these responsibilities in fulfillment of
> the White Paper.  That is a sufficient authority for us to
> proceed.

Gordon Cook replies:
+ Mike you still didn't answer a perfectly simple question that
+ I asked you a day ago and that is to cite your source....namely
+ who in the US government requested this, what their language was,
+ and where their request was made public.
+
+ Fact of the matter is you don't answer because you can't.  more
+ over the constitution of the original board was also a sham.  I am
+ sure you thought that Ira and becky would give you their blessing
+ and that the US government would early in october ask you to
+ consitute your board.  Didn't happen.  So you went ahead and did
+ it anyway...on your own authority.
+
+ what i remembered just know was what one of the mighty five told
+ me in a phone call circa october 26th.
+
+ 'we went ahead and made our own decision to constitute the board
+ and choose Dyuson as chair and Roberts as president because that
+ was the only way that we could make any forward progress.'
+
+ so ICANN gives itself authority and acts as a law unto itself??
+
+ Is that the answer mike?

 The answer is obvious: ICANN is not only a law unto itself, in
 addition... ICANN is moving at a breakneck speed and minus any
 substantive consultative processes (or even a membership!) to
 introduce policies, regulatory structures, funding sources and
 other controls above and beyond the those Cook outlines. All in
 contravention to the Spirit and the letter of the US White Paper.
 All without a shred of real International authority, all flagrantly
 violating processes and principles centuries old.

As Bill Lovell says:
= IT TAKES INTERNATIONAL TREATIES TO DO THIS THINGS! Agreements
= that set up this body or that as facilitators of various
= administrative functions, e.g., WIPO, DO NOT impart such
= authority.

 On a further note and evidencing the headlong, willy nilly rush
 into procedure ICANN is engaging in are the following comments
 regarding ICANN's proposed process for creating New Top Level
 Domains:

Ivan Pope writes:
+
+ I presume that most of you will have read the accreditation
+ guidelines by now. I wondered if there were any comments or
+ analysis. I just got round to sitting down with it and am amazed
+ by what I find. I will do an analysis at the weekend, but my
+ initial thoughts are:
+
+ 1. It is possible that the introduction of this will end some of
+ our businesses outright
+ 2. We will be asked to entangle ourselves deep in legal
+ contractual relationships that up to now have not existed - for
+ the same result
+ 3. NSI will continue to control absolutely the .com/.org/.net
+ registry to up to and including the interface to the registry and
+ the legal terms on which we will be able to use it
+ 4. ICANN will control the ability of all of us to do business.
+ They will have a right to end our Accreditation at any time
+ 5. ICANN will insist on the submission of 'business plans' before
+ we are even allowed to register names.
+ 6. We will have to pay ICANN for every name as well as the
+ Registry
+ 7. We will have to submit information to everyone involved about
+ our clients. This includes NSI and ICANN.
+ 8. Our clients will have to submit to binding arbitration for
+ every name dispute
+
+ There's a lot more. My view is that we are about to entangle deep
+ deep into a nightmare bureaucracy that has no reason to exist.
+ ICANN is setting about regulating the relationships between the
+ 'Registrars' (that is, our existing and happily running businesses)
+ and their clients. What ICANN should be doing in my view is
+ regulating the relationship between the Registry and the Registrars.
+ I have tens of thousands of happy clients. I deal with all the
+ Registriesin the world. I actually deal with NSI very happily. I
+ don't think we need a huge new layer of bureaucracy - we need
+ an open and regulated relationship between the Registry and the
+ Registrars. That's it.

 This entire ICANN business is rapidly spinning out of
 all control and semblance of order into a full fledged
 grab by the small number of people behind this organization
 to become some sort of supra-national government, utilizing
 the communications medium of the Internet to control the
 fates of millions of citizens, to determine our personal
 and financial futures by edict. I have repeatedly called
 for citizens of good will to *finally* turn upon this
 uncontrollable entity and for us to stop the rapid decay.

 There are numerous methods to accomplish this task the
 first being simply to withdraw all support and interest
 in ICANN. The second is to advocate forcefully the withdrawal
 of all other, more official and rather clueless support
 Government and other insititutions have offered this mal-
 formed creature. Simultaneously we should be building our
 own uncompromised version of governance as the light and
 decentralized instrument we have all envisioned it to be,
 rekindling the IFWP and redrafting the White Paper to more
 enlightened dimensions. Thereafter we should move equally
 swiftly to place a legitimate authority in it's stead, one
 backed by popular representation and created not by endless
 resistance to valid dissent but by general, enduring consensus.

 Towards this end we must press our efforts.

 Bob Allisat

 Free Community Network _ [email-masked]
 http://fcn.net _ http://fcn.net/allisat
 http://robin.fcn.net

 Bob Allisat

 Free Community Network _ [email-masked]
 http://fcn.net _ http://fcn.net/allisat
 http://fcn.net/robin