[CCWG-ACCT] Staff accountability

[Kieren McCarthy]

> some personnel issues should remain confidential,

I don't understand why people keep putting this strawman out there. No one
is suggesting, or indeed has ever suggested, that personnel issues be
included in a proper accountability mechanism.

> Why would a strengthened ombudsman not be a good fit for this role?

I'll give you three good reasons:

1. The Ombudsman was created in 2004. Despite numerous efforts to make the
role effective, it has never happened. Why keep making the same mistake?

2. The Ombudsman is completely reliant on ICANN corporate. For access to
people and documents, for resources, for salary, for technical support, for
logistical support, for an office, for a room at ICANN meetings, for
everything except his own body. And his role and what he can do is
determined by ICANN's legal department in the rules that they wrote. The
Ombudsman also signs a very strong confidentiality agreement with ICANN
that effectively ties their hands on everything except illegal activity.
See point 1.

3. An Ombudsman is a single person. And one completely reliant on ICANN.
This provides an enormous degree of control by ICANN and very little
freedom for the accountability role the Ombusdsman is supposed to fulfill.
There are numerous people able to testify that ICANN corporate has no
hesitation in applying significant pressure on individuals if they act in a
way that it deemed a potential threat. All of those people are however
under confidentiality agreements with ICANN.


The only way to bring actual accountability to ICANN is to have people that
are not dependent on ICANN and are not muzzled by confidentiality
agreements asking the questions.

And those people are... the 2,000 people that turn up to ICANN meetings.
The community.



Kieren


On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:06 PM, David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:

> Eberhard has a point.
>
> There are legitimate reasons for staff to want to not answer some
> questions - some personnel issues should remain confidential, some security
> issues should have disclosure delayed until the problem has been fixed or
> mitigated, etc.
> The Ombudsman should have access to any internal document, and the
> discretion and training to decide what is reasonable to release. Why would
> a strengthened ombudsman not be a good fit for this role?
>
> Regards
> David
>
> (my first post to CCWG Accountability - hi everybody)
>
> On 16 Jul 2015, at 2:03 pm, Dr Eberhard W Lisse <epilisse at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Cool, another Ombudsman.
>
> el
>
> --
> Sent from Dr Lisse's iPhone 5s
>
>
> On Jul 16, 2015, at 04:05, Phil Corwin <psc at vlaw-dc.com> wrote:
>
> How about an independent inspector general?
>
>
>
> [...]
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