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

[Evan Leibovitch]

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> 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.
My main objection to direct elections is that it misrepresents the 
public interest through over-representation by "squeaky wheels", both 
candidates and voters, who exploit the general-public's boredom and lack 
of comprehension in ICANN functions almost as much as the vested 
interests do.

I -- and many other people who I believe to be useful, active 
participants in today's At-Large -- are only here because we were 
actively recruited by ICANN. Once upon a time there were excellent 
outreach programs -- the "on the edges" resources I believe Karl spoke 
of -- that sought points of view outside of the usual circle of 
self-selected activitists and ISOC chapters. They looked for a diverse 
range of people who did not have ICANN policy as a primary focus, yet 
still understood what it means to the well-being of Internet users. This 
seems especially of value outside North America and Europe and native 
English speakers -- ICANN does have a global mandate, yet it's nowhere 
near that. Even now At-Large has nobody involved from Russia; does that 
mean that Russians aren't interested in ICANN issues?

People like me are not fulltime ICANN policy wonks, and we could never 
afford to participate if not for the money ICANN spends on At-Large. In 
aggregate the ALS policy has partially worked, though it has certainly 
not realized its potential. It has done a far better job -- so far as I 
can see -- in energizing the otherwise-disinterested corners of the 
end-user community in a manner that direct elections did not -- and IMO 
cannot -- do.

>  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.
Rough edges I can deal with, that is not my objection to direct 
election. Indeed, sometimes I wish the edges were rougher. In its zeal 
to be polite and diplomatic, sometimes ALAC stifles itself better than 
ICANN staff ever could. Of course, some cultures in the world don't work 
well with hard confrontation -- and while I can accept that fact, I also 
have the realization that ICANN's vested interests will never be 
constrained by being asked politely to do the right thing. I'm not sure 
how to deal with this but I'm not sure that a pure abandonment of ALAC's 
vision is the answer.

Maybe even more than Karl, I would argue that the presence of the 
(opaque, unaccountable, unrecallable) NomComm in the selection of ALAC 
members is a virus designed to keep At-Large civil and tame -- to 
maintain the "company union" mentality of which you spoke. The 
continuing role of the NomCom in ALAC is a subtle but real reminder that 
ICANN  does not sufficiently trust At-Large to pick all of its own 
leaders -- no wonder its policy advice carries so little weight. The 
NomComm -- with its representation from ICANN's vested-interest 
constituencies -- is trusted by ICANN to assert the public interest as 
well as At-Large itself. Imagine my amazement at Westlake's proposal to 
expand ALAC purely through more NomComm seats...

> 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.

Well, I can't speak for other RALOs, but the North American one agreed 
from the outset that individual users must not be penalized for wanting 
to participate without an ALS to channel through. So people may choose 
at least one less level removed. It is notable that the current ALAC 
representative to the Board is a member of NARALO but not through an ALS.

I can defend the presence of the RALO level at least to the extent that 
the policy development process is so unwieldy, that breaking At-Large up 
into regions at least allows more personal involvement. This is 
especially true when English isn't the main local language.

Having said that, my agreement with your desire to keep layers as few as 
possible has been the prime motivation behind my (seemingly solitary) 
campaign against ALAC's forming an Executive Committee.

> 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.

"Accountable unto itself" seems the very definition of the NomComm and 
look what it has given us: a Board that lets the staff run the show and 
an ALAC with neither the stamina nor respect to fulfil its mandate. 
Given the pretence that its members are already placed by the NomComm to 
serve the "public interest", the Board can easily marginalize the 
"advice" of its own at-large community as being redundant.

How is this "nice"?

- Evan


PS: I want to make clear that my problem with the NomComm participation 
in ALAC does not extend to my opinion of all the individuals actually 
placed that way. Some, including the NomComm appointee from my own 
region, have clearly distinguished themselves. However, I would still 
prefer that these same individuals would have attained their position 
through an accountable, recallable, transparent process rather than the 
one we got.