[CCWG-ACCT] Voting weights in community mechanism

Thu Jul 30 06:22:54 UTC 2015

This is really quite a baffling last-second attempt to throw together a
bunch of half-truths and outright misstatements, casting unwarranted
aspersions on the careful work that this group with an objective that is
entirely unclear.  Any examination of these statements causes them to fall
like a house of cards.

It was pretty obvious once you examined the proposal as is the political
> reality that giving any voting power to the United States military, through
> it's 3/12 member representation at RSSAC, is going to cause problems.

The membership of RSSAC is public knowledge and has been for the duration
of this CCWG.  A voting role for the RSSAC has been a possibility for
months, and no one raised this "issue."  I'm always skeptical when somebody
says something is "obvious" -- it usually means it's BS.  This attempt to
trump up problems is so slapdash that the (readily available) facts aren't
even accurate.  There are 3 root servers under the US government, but only
two are associated with the US military -- the third is controlled by NASA,
a civilian agency.  These have been around pretty much since the dawn of
Internet time, so claiming this is suddenly a problem is really quite
absurd. Are there any issues from the history of ICANN that can be cited as
arising from the control of these root servers, or the membership of their
(civilian) administrators in RSSAC.  This just seems like FUD.  Calling it
a "mistake" doesn't make it one.

As far as "illusion" busting, whether one participant decides to oppose for
a series of manufactured reasons that don't hold water does not "bust"
consensus.  Going back to those reasons, for a little "myth-busting":

1) inclusion of the U.S. military as a voting member through RSSAC,

Answered above

2) an unwarranted change of the power balance and functions of the
> respective SOAC's when compared to current voting arrangements, which
> violates the CCWG policy published in the legal scoping document of 19
> March 2015 , a consensus policy whose reversal has not been discussed or
> approved by the group,

There are no "current voting arrangements,"  unless one is referring to the
ICANN Board, which is quite a different thing than this community
mechanism; it's completely unclear and unexplained what "CCWG policy" is
being "violated" -- misusing the term "consensus policy" to give this
unsupported claim a sense of gravitas is really quite amusing...

  3) the lack of safeguard against capture through coordinated manipulation
> taking advantage of the possibility of parties to simultaneously belong to
> multiple SO's and AC's,

This is another summary "issue" that's never been raised before and
magically appears now without any explanation or clarification.  What
possibility is being referred to?  There has been some discussion of the
possibility of parties being members of different constituencies or SGs in
the GNSO, but that's been dealt with already (such parties can only vote in
one such organization) and is clearly not what's being referred to here.
There's a lot of scary, FUD-y words being thrown around but absolutely no
substance -- no explanation, no detail, no credibility.  The fact that a
root server operator may also be a registry operator (among hundreds of
registry operator), or that a GAC member may also be a ccNSO operator
(among a couple hundred ccNSO registry operators) does not somehow become a
concern due to vague imprecations in a rushed email, which won't even be
defended by its author.

 4) problems of double dipping per number 3 which violate the principle of
> one person / one party one vote which is customary international law and
> required by ICANN through it's Bylaws commitment to adhere to international
> law

This is just a restatement of number 3, and fails along with it
.  Trying to inflate some unstated minor occurrence (which I assume to be
the overlaps stated above) into some self-styled "double dipping" problem
just doesn't hold water. Being a member of two different bodies or
committees does not violate "one party/one vote" and claiming this somehow
be a violation of international law is just hysterical (in both senses of
the word).

...plus likely a number of other problems that neither of us have thought
> of given the rushed nature of things.

This basically translates as "I can't think of any problems, but there must
be some."  That is hardly the kind of objection that even merits a response.

Finally, I disagree with the characterization of the 5/2 proposal, and
think that the suggested statement would be neither truthful nor
transparent -- rather, it would by false and hyperbolic.

I must give my esteemed colleague points for inventiveness, but none for
substance.  This is the virtual equivalent of throwing a stink-bomb into
the middle of a meeting and then running away.  Thankfully, we don't need
to clear the room to get rid of the odor.

If this an attempt to buy more time for some colleagues who are still
working on minority statements, I can also give points for loyalty.  But
the schedule for publication of this document has been well-known for
weeks.  It's unfortunate that some could not plan ahead to meet that
timeframe.  I hardly think it's prejudicial if these are published or
notified to the public comment page a couple of days after the Report --
appropriate notice can be made that minority reports are expected. Using a
loaded term like "separate but equal" (harkening back to the dark days of
racial segregation in the US) to describe this strays into demagoguery.
Claiming "we all know" things is no more convincing than saying something
is "obvious"  -- everyone's entitled to their opinion, but not to claim
that it is "known" by anyone other than themselves.  We should not let the
perfect be the enemy of the good, in this instance or in the instance of
our proposal in general.

It would be helpful if there were some indication of the real goal and
concern behind this, rather than a bunch of baseless accusations.  As it
is, I remain baffled at what is hoped to be accomplished other than an
attempt at delay.

Greg

On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 9:04 PM, Edward Morris <egmorris1 at toast.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for responding to our concerns about the ability of Board
> appointees to block the communities ability to remove Board members. It was
> pretty obvious once you examined the proposal as is the political reality
> that giving any voting power to the United States military, through it's
> 3/12 member representation at RSSAC, is going to cause problems. You guys
> are under such time pressure mistakes are going to happen and the
> consequences of actions may not always be readily apparent. I don't blame
> you: there is no Dummies guide to restructuring a major international
> corporation in 7 months or less. Writing such a book just might be a wise
> career choice once you wrap up this project.
>
> I hope you in good faith are not going to try to claim that there is
> consensus for the 5 X2 model. Just so that illusion is busted I oppose that
> model for the 1) inclusion of the U.S. military as a voting member through
> RSSAC, 2) an unwarranted change of the power balance and functions of the
> respective SOAC's when compared to current voting arrangements, which
> violates the CCWG policy published in the legal scoping document of 19
> March 2015 , a consensus policy whose reversal has not been discussed or
> approved by the group,  3) the lack of safeguard against capture through
> coordinated manipulation taking advantage of the possibility of parties to
> simultaneously belong to multiple SO's and AC's, 4) problems of
> double dipping per number 3 which violate the principle of one person / one
> party one vote which is customary international law and required by ICANN
> through it's Bylaws commitment to adhere to international law...plus likely
> a number of other problems that neither of us have thought of given the
> rushed nature of things.
>
> I sadly will not be on the calls later today due to pre-existing work
> commitments and the last minute scheduling of the calls.
>
> I would respectfully request that if you are going to go ahead with
> putting the 5 X 2 proposal in the public comment materials you truthfully
> and transparency note that this proposal was a last minute substitute for a
> proposal that was deemed inadequate. I understand that this was our
> previous proposal but we don't know what the response would have been had
> we not ditched it. I agree with Keith that we will need to discuss all of
> this again once the public comments are received.
>
> With regards to the minority reports I appreciate the situation you are
> in. I do not, however, accept the explanation offered by Thomas that
> minority reports will be accepted later but just won't make the
> publication. I'm not a big fan of separate but equal. Minority views not in
> the initial published report  are at a distinct disadvantage  in terms of
> public receipt and review. We all know this. Let's stop pretending. You are
> good guys but you're starting to act like those we want to hold
> accountable. I know you really don't want to set the precedent of shorting
> minority rights. Thomas, as our GNSO representative I am informing you that
> there are at least two groups of GNSO members who are preparing minority
> reports but do not believe they can get it done by noon tomorrow. If you
> can't do anything, fine, but be please be prepared to explain it to them at
> the next Council meeting. I've tried but they are not accepting my
> explanations and, frankly, I don't blame them.
>
> Thanks for considering, thanks for your hard work and good luck on the
> calls later today.
>
> Best,
>
> Edward Morris
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From*: "Drazek, Keith" <kdrazek at verisign.com>
> *Sent*: Thursday, July 30, 2015 12:11 AM
> *To*: "Mathieu.Weill at afnic.fr" <Mathieu.Weill at afnic.fr>, "
> accountability-cross-community at icann.org" <
> accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
> *Subject*: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Voting weights in community mechanism
>
> Thanks to the Co-Chairs for this message.
>
> I agree that the best approach at this time is to revert to the 5x5 and
> 2X2 reference model included in our first proposal. It received support and
> we obviously don't have consensus on a replacement model. We'll continue to
> discuss and debate the issue of vote distribution, but I suggest we'd be
> better off doing so AFTER we receive community feedback from the upcoming
> public comment period.
>
> Regards,
> Keith
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org [mailto:
> accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Mathieu
> Weill
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 9:37 PM
> To: accountability-cross-community at icann.org
> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Voting weights in community mechanism
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> You will remember that our Initial Report Reference Model on voting
> weights was 5 votes for ccNSO, gNSO, ASO, ALAC and GAC, 2 for SSAC and
> RSSAC. During the public comment period, we have received some comments
> (largely debated since on the list) with regards to the respective number
> of votes of gNSO and ALAC, and these are well noted.
>
> During our call on Tuesday we discussed the voting weight section of the
> community mechanism proposal and asked for WP1 to refine its proposal
> accordingly. The topic was then discussed again during the WP1 call that
> followed a few hours later. WP1 agreed to submit to our group a proposal
> with 5 votes for each SO or AC, pending intentions from GAC, SSAC and RSSAC
> to joint the mechanism as voting members. (see latest doc here :
>
> https://community.icann.org/download/attachments/52888421/5A2-Community-Mechanism-Voting-PenultimateDraft.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1438079125000&api=v2
> )
>
> A concern has come to our attention with this latest, new, proposal. If
> SSAC and RSSAC have 10 votes out of 35, they could jointly block a Board
> recall (75% votes required, 27 votes). Since they are both composed of
> individuals appointed by the Board, some may question their independence in
> case such a power is triggered. This could raise concerns of conflicts of
> interest.
>
> We discussed this between co-chairs and with Jordan as WP1 rapporteurs,
> and as a consequence would like to suggest we go back to the initial
> Reference model (5x5 and 2x2 votes) as a basis for our public comment
> document.
>
> This proposal will be on our agenda for Thursday's calls but we wanted to
> provide this heads-up in advance in order to facilitate an informed
> discussion.
>
> Best regards,
> Thomas, Leon & Mathieu
> Co-chairs
>
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