[lac-discuss-en] Interview with ICANN President and CEO Paul Twomey in San Francisco Chronicle newspaper

[Carlton Samuels]

So Paul Twomey believes that for some years ICANN was seen as a proxy for US
foreign policy in some parts of the world.  What if I tell you I will give
you even odds he excluded the European part of the world from this
assessment?

According to him, the views regarding a G12 for ICANN oversight as expressed
by Madame Reding was "personal'.   The feedback from the Brussels meeting
took a similar explanatory line; purely one view "for discussion" and
entirely "personal".  I hope Dr. Twomey's objective was to remain "on
message". Because if he genuinely believes this, I have a bridge to sell
him.  Barely used, been in the family for at least a century and going for a
knock-down price!

Call me a skeptic. For one, this is not the way it works in any serious
organization with foreign policy remit and with an official at that level.
Yes, the most simple explanation - an over zealous officer who misspoke - is
indeed attractive if you don't want to think.  But what we have here on
display is called "plausible deniability" in statecraft.  Madame was not off
on a frolic of her own but was fronting a position that was deliberately
floated into the public domain, more than likely with the tacit approval of
the Commission and the EU.

What was said defines the tension of the "other side" regarding the post-JPA
future.  Allow me to position the view conservative of the existing order.

There are Americans who genuinely believe that the Internet is an American
thing, property of the United States of America. Some are politicians with
influence. And no, they are not the ones you usually associate with this
subject like the congressman from Massachussetts, Edward Markey.  These
others come from places that most of you have never heard of, places where
there are more cattle than people as constituents. But they have real power
to place anything in DC on "hold".

As an old Washington DC hand, I can tell you that almost every government
bureacrat fear being called to Capitol Hill to be grilled by some
congressman willing to beat you up to show his constituents that he stands
for the American people and the conservation of American property.  Worse
yet, you'd hate to be the recepient of his attention when you're going to be
accused as being in favour of giving American property away to "furriners".
That is one way.

By far the easiest thing to do is to declare any change a threat to the
national security interests of the United States of America.  Which,
incidently, has already been floated in the policy development circles in
the U.S. If that takes root, you can kiss an "independent" ICANN goodbye.

When you pull these strands together, it will lead you to where I am:  the
At-Large constituency in ICANN will have more influence on ICANN's future
that they would care to admit. For now.  Because we give ICANN - the
organisation - cover from both extremes.

Carlton Samuels

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Dev Anand Teelucksingh
<admin at ttcsweb.org>wrote:

> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BU0117E65J.DTL
>
>
> DevT
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> lac-discuss-en mailing list
> lac-discuss-en at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>
> http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/lac-discuss-en_atlarge-lists.icann.org
>