[At-Large] Auerbach: "It is my view that ICANN ought to scrap the ALAC in its entirety"

[Karl Auerbach]

I've kind of refrained from commenting on things whilst the review was going on... (yes, I 
know that what was released was a "draft" of the final report, so further changes are 
possible.)

Anyway...

Joe Baptista wrote:

> Yes - it does.  Is that not what I've been saying for years - the whole
> purpose behind ICANN bureaucracy is to ensure no one has a voice and good
> people are expendable.

One of my all time favorite bits of literature is Chapter 10 of Dicken's 1857 book Little 
Dorrit - 
http://www.cavebear.com/archive/cavebear/containing_the_whole_science_of_government.html

That chapter describes The Circumlocution Office - a body of the government having the job 
of assuring that nothing can be done by any other body, or in Dicken's words (and 
capitalization): "Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was 
beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT."

I leave it is an exercise for the reader to draw comparisons, if any, between ICANN and 
The Circumlocution Office.

Moving on to Evan's comment about direct elections for board seats.

Yes, it may be a romantic notion (and I certainly don't mind being called a romantic), but 
it does not seem to me to be all that far fetched.  Our year 2000 experience was quite 
positive once one removes the negative gloss that has been painted over it by those who 
found the process of debate and elections, and perhaps some of the people elected, to be 
less dignified and more rough-edged than they felt proper for their image of what ICANN 
ought to be.

But let's say that I'm wrong, as I often am, and let's say "let's not do direct 
elections".  That does not rule out a representational system that interposes but one 
layer of indirection between internet users and seats on ICANN's board of directors.  I'd 
be happy with that kind of system as long as that intermediary layer of representatives 
are all seated by the action of internet users and that the choices they may make are not 
excessively constrained.  You can see from this logic why I find the layer upon layer of 
the current ALAC to be an undesirable trait - it puts users too far from the seat of 
authority.

The issue in my mind is the exercise of accountability - how do internet users make sure 
that ICANN serves to promote their interests.  It would be nice if we could somehow brew 
up an ICANN that could be accountable unto itself with only a limited amount of corrective 
external pressure from the community of internet users.

Unfortunately history hasn't given us many examples of such systems.  Instead history is 
filled with good ideas that wobbled and went astray once the original people tired or left.

To my mind some of the best thoughts on the construction of accountable systems came out 
of the 18th century work of people like Voltaire, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Madison, etc. 
They would have understood that ICANN is a political body that can exert authority within 
its realm that is not readily reviewed or constrained by any higher body.  And as such 
ICANN needs structural mechanisms to impede misuse of that authority including mechanisms 
that allow those for whose benefit the body was created to reach out and change that body 
so that it better serves their needs.

That's why I focused on accountability and the power to affect ICANN structurally as the 
key elements of authority that the ALAC ought to have.

(One thing people should note about the report is that it contains a very broad definition 
of who is an internet user.  I consider a broad definition to be a good thing.)

As you can tell, I'm one who believes that structure and procedure is very important, 
indeed that it is usually more important in the long term than choices made on particular 
substantive issues.  In other words I might be said to turn the famous phrase "form 
follows function" upside-down onto its head so that it evolves into "better substantive 
choices tend to flow from better formed institutions."

		--karl--