[bc-gnso] Bifurcation of BC Discussions are Contrary to Our Past Vote

[George Kirikos]

Hi folks,

Before I comment on the charter, I'd like to know why it was posted on
an "internal" mailing list. This is contrary to our past vote.

"The BC Officers have agreed it is time for the current membership to
vote to EITHER continue this service OR move to an open un-moderated
list with archiving. "

(the words "EITHER" and "OR" were in bold text in the original .doc
file sent on March 23, 2009)

Thus, the majority of the BC members explicitly voted to DISCONTINUE
the private list --- it was a clear mandate. The BC membership
rejected the option of the continuation of any moderated and private
list, as per the words we voted upon. The draft charter should have
been posted to the public list, as no other list is legitimate.

I find many of the new terms of the draft charter to be contrary to
the goals of transparency and accountability. They tend towards
explicit censorship and/or self-censorship. They discourage debate on
important ICANN and BC topics. They continue to be anti-democratic and
unaccountable as to how BC fees and expenditures are set, with no
elected Secretary and no elected Treasurer. Members would not be able
to see the general ledger of the constituency's spending, as is
possible elsewhere (and indeed ICANN's budget process is public). A
false sense of "civility" is chosen over "truth." However, I shall
comment further in a future post, once it's clear that it's fine to
post on the public mailing list, instead of some hidden "internal"
list.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
416-588-0269
http://www.leap.com/