[CCWG-ACCT] Special Community Leaders CAll - 6 October - Shared Materials

Wed Oct 7 17:40:16 UTC 2015

While addressing ICANN's whistle blower policy is important to our work, I thought we had put this issue in Work Stream 2 quite awhile ago.

I would like to know, however, what kind of board oversight there has been of ICANN's whistleblower program to date.

Best,
Robin

On Oct 7, 2015, at 10:32 AM, Avri Doria wrote:

> hi,
> 
> I agree, the whistleblower issue in on the ATRT2 list of recommendations
> and the next step is a outside audit of ICANN processes for this. 
> Followed by remediation as required. From ATRT2 Final Report:
> 
>> 9.5. The Board should arrange an audit to determine the viability of
>> the ICANN
>> Anonymous Hotline as a whistleblowing mechanism and implement any
>> necessary improvements.
> 
> I do not see this as a WS1 requirement in any way.
> 
> avri
> (with atrt hat on.)
> 
> On 07-Oct-15 13:16, James Gannon wrote:
>> I’m sorry but Im going to reiterate, a new whistleblower program is
>> not an NTIA defined criteria, is not a community power and we have
>> enough on our plate for our current discussions. 
>> 
>> Is this a great potential idea for WS2 and the
>> staff/so/ac/accountability piece? For sure and I would think that WP3
>> (I think that’s the staff so/ac/accountability one) would be very open
>> to hearing these ideas. 
>> 
>> But for the moment, before Dublin we have an immense amount of work to
>> do on fundamental issues and conflicts and I don’t think that we can
>> spare time for additional work.
>> 
>> -jg
>> 
>> From: Ron Baione
>> Date: Wednesday 7 October 2015 at 6:03 p.m.
>> To: James Gannon, "kieren at kierenmccarthy.com
>> <mailto:kieren at kierenmccarthy.com>", "nigel at channelisles.net
>> <mailto:nigel at channelisles.net>",
>> "accountability-cross-community at icann.org
>> <mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>"
>> Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Special Community Leaders CAll - 6 October -
>> Shared Materials
>> 
>> Again, That whistleblower process is internal, not external, the
>> company is involved directly in the decision process you described.
>> 
>> And remember, what you described is the Industry standard across high
>> risk companies that are not multistakeholder and with different
>> responsibilities.
>> 
>> Spending time developing my proposed external process is in fact
>> fulfilling a solution to stated US Government NTIA post-transition
>> security mandates as stated by the NTIA's requirments to their
>> accepting the transition. Basically, They want to know if ICANN is
>> going to have the processes in place for this sort of thing, and its
>> usually the first question Congress asks. "What about foreign
>> governments, is the process secure?".
>> 
>> The US Government will never approve the transition without knowing
>> ICANN has every tool necessary to prevent foreign government pressure,
>> and it should be a top issue, with an external whistleblower process
>> officially drafted asap, or at least have the idea proposed in some
>> facet.
>> 
>> Ron
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From: *James Gannon <james at cyberinvasion.net
>> <mailto:james at cyberinvasion.net>>;
>> *To: *Kieren McCarthy <kieren at kierenmccarthy.com
>> <mailto:kieren at kierenmccarthy.com>>; Nigel Roberts
>> <nigel at channelisles.net <mailto:nigel at channelisles.net>>;
>> accountability-cross-community at icann.org
>> <mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
>> <accountability-cross-community at icann.org
>> <mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>>;
>> *Subject: *Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Special Community Leaders CAll - 6 October
>> - Shared Materials
>> *Sent: *Wed, Oct 7, 2015 4:33:04 PM
>> 
>> While I won’t comment on the internal side of things I just want to
>> note that an external compliance/whistleblower/reporting hotline which
>> runs through a questionnaire and then gives the report back to the
>> company is pretty industry standard and considered best practise
>> across high risk industries.
>> 
>> Whats important is what happens once the report is given over to the
>> company.
>> 
>> But given the work that we have ahead of us on fundamental issues I
>> worry that spending cycles on such a small targeted issue might be
>> time better spent on other matters, just my 2c.
>> 
>> -jg
>> 
>> From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org
>> <javascript:return>> on behalf of Kieren McCarthy
>> Date: Wednesday 7 October 2015 at 5:27 p.m.
>> To: Nigel Roberts, "accountability-cross-community at icann.org
>> <javascript:return>"
>> Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Special Community Leaders CAll - 6 October -
>> Shared Materials
>> 
>> The current whistleblower process is far worse than that. For one, the
>> entire process is a hotline to a company that reports directly back to
>> ICANN. That company receives a complaint and then takes it straight to
>> ICANN and asks ICANN for what to do next. This is not hearsay, it is
>> what happened to one person that actually used the process (and it
>> wasn't me). The company's first question was to ask what their name
>> was. They asked that I'd they gave it, would it be given to ICANN. The
>> answer was yes. The individual heard nothing about their complaint for
>> a while. Then the company got back: ICANN had decided not to progress
>> with it, so it was considered closed. In other words, the
>> whistleblower program is a complete fraud completely determined and
>> run by ICANN's legal team. ICANN refuses to provides any details of
>> this program (and no wonder) and that even extends to basic stats. The
>> only other person that I know used the program was fired shortly
>> afterwards. I understand they gave their name to the company believing
>> it would be confidential. When ICANN was quizzed on the program, it
>> had the audacity to argue that the low level of use of the
>> whistleblower program showed that there weren't any concerns
>> internally. It's doesn't take a genius to realize that keeping your
>> mouth shut is preferable to being fired and having the issue you were
>> complaining about brushed under the carpet. Kieren
>> 
>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 7:21 AM Nigel Roberts <nigel at channelisles.net
>> <javascript:return>> wrote:
>> 
>>    What's the point of a whistleblowing process if there's no one with a
>>    big stick to listen to the whistle?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    On 07/10/15 15:01, Ron Baione wrote:
>>> An idea I had was to include in the process some sort of
>>    mandatory monthly collaboration with a secure external
>>    whistleblower process.  It is perceived that ICANN members would
>>    be somewhat more suceptible to unlawful pressure by governments or
>>    inter-governmental entities post-transition.
>>> 
>>> Having an external process might help gain public and U.S.
>>    government trust in the transition and accountability process. 
>>    Whistle-blower websites and reporters exist around the globe, and
>>    have been the subject of much controversy, but in a
>>    multistakeholder controlled external whistleblower process, you
>>    could have:
>>> 
>>> 1)  A monthly process where a conjunction of 60 legit and
>>    diverse privacy groups are placed in a pool of availability
>>> 
>>> 2) 5 privacy organizations would then be chosen at random each
>>    month, by algorithm or out of a hat to act as possible external
>>    whistleblowers for the ICANN community
>>> 
>>> 3) Each of the 60 privacy groups must sign a non-disclosure
>>    contract with ICANN regarding the provision of their services at
>>    any given time
>>> 
>>> 4) The names of the 60 privacy groups would be publicly known,
>>    published on January 1st each year,
>>> 
>>> 5) It would not be lawful for those groups to reveal if they are
>>    that monthly representative, or risk losing their incentive to
>>    participate in the process, an jncentive which would be non-monetary.
>>> 
>>> 6) The incentive would be, i suppose, the credibility gained for
>>    their organization by being considered worthy of external
>>    whistleblower stewardship
>>> 
>>> 7) An ICANN led review process of which privacy groups are
>>    chosen and retained year over year would be conducted by the CCWG.
>>> 
>>> 8) Since the model is for the creation of a a random selection
>>    process, groups could theoretically serve 12 times a year,
>>    therefore a limit on number of months a single organization could
>>    serve a whistleblower function would be capped at 8 months of service.
>>> 
>>> 9) There would be a code-of-conduct signed by each organization
>>    allowing for automatic vote by CCWG on removal from the pool of
>>    organizations of an organization or retinment, for example, if an
>>    organization for failed to renew or delayed its renewal of its
>>    local registration or enacted or amended their bylaws, failed to
>>    submit requested information in a timely fashion, or acted in a
>>    way that was contrary to supporting a free and open internet.
>>> 
>>> Ron
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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